Ruben V was a musician in a Judas Priest-wannabe band when the music of blues artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan spoke to him. “In Texas during the 80s, it was all about metal,” he told me recently at Doctor Rockit’s Blues Bar in Corpus Christi. “But when I heard artists like Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan, I knew that was what I wanted to play. I wanted to bend a string like that.”
And learn to bend a string he did. I can attest to that fact because I paid a $7 cover change to hear him two other band members play a few sets in front of a small crowd in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he went after Thanksgiving to “wear off some turkey.”
And he was amazing. It takes guts to cover people like Santana and Hendrix, but Ruben pulled it off with aplomb and got the crowd dancing with his original music, which also grooves.
Check out some of his music here.
We bought a CD and asked Ruben to sign it so he came over and talked to us for a while, in the same way that he stopped and talked to most of the people in the small crowd at Doctor Rockits.
He told us that Stevie Ray used to play at the same place “and there would be less than 100, maybe 50 people in here.” But after Vaughan died, his popularity sky-rocketed. “I was working in a record store at the time,” Ruben said, “and we had maybe 20 Stevie Ray Vaughan disks but there was such a demand, that people were lined up out the door.”
Suddenly, the injustice of it all inflamed him.
“I jumped up on the counter and started yelling at people, ‘You know what, people, you all suck! When Stevie was alive, you didn’t support him, but now that he’s dead, here you are’.”
Needless to say, the record store fired him, but he landed on his feet. He now opens for acts like Robert Cray, playing Latin-influenced music and Texas-style blues, and he’s well known in his hometown of San Antonio, where the city awarded the title of “Best Guitar Player,” as well as “Best Songwriter” and “Best Blues Band” – but he’s still working hard to make a name for himself nationally, and at 44, he’s not exactly a young turk.
Nevertheless, he’s an immensely talented working musician who seems to have his head on straight, playing music that he loves. And I love that he had the guts to vent his passion, even though he now sees things a little differently. “People get upset when I say this, but one good thing that came out of Stevie Ray’s death is that, now, people know who he is. Everybody knows Stevie Ray Vaughan.”
I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I think that I know what he means.
I hope that Ruben lives a long and happy life, but if his popularity soars after he dies, I’ll be the first one jumping up on the record store counter, or whatever counter exists, yelling passionately that, “You know what, people, you all suck!”
Me, surrounded by three cool men: brother-in-law Richard, Ruben V and my hubby, Vince.
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