Four-time Grammy Award-winning Austin, Texas-born guitar player and songwriter Gary Clark Jr. took the stage at the annual CMT Music Awards and channeled Stevie Ray Vaughan in a tribute to the legendary Texas six-string player.
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During the fan-vote awards ceremony on Sunday (April 2), Clark Jr. showcased how intricate and catchy Vaughan’s music is. Performing from Austin’s Moody Center during the broadcast, which aired on CBS and Paramount+, Clark Jr., who was a recent addition to the show, played the SRV song, “The House Is Rockin.”
Clark Jr., looking cool as ever in a brown wool knit cap and dark sunglasses, took a mean, rumbling solo midway through the song, extending it out in typical Vaughan form. The blues song is part rock, part rockabilly, reminiscent of an early champion of the genre, Chuck Berry, too.
The blues song could have gone on for hours as Clark Jr. and crew traded solos, giving the track supreme energy. It was classic and revolutionary all at once, befitting of the progressive awards show.
The studio version of “The House Is Rockin'” is the first track on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s LP, In Step, the guitar player’s fourth and final studio album with his legendary band, Double Trouble.
Vaughan, an iconic electric guitar player born on October 3, 1954, in Dallas, Texas, died in a plane crash on August 27, 1990. He was just 35 years old.
The CMT Music Awards partnered with sandyhookpromise.org on gun control efforts this year. Co-host Kelsea Ballerini opened the show with an impassioned speech about the recent school shooting in Nashville.
The awards featured a star-studded lineup this year, which included hosting from Kane Brown and Ballerini, and performances by The Black Crowes, Darius Rucker, Alanis Morissette and more.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for CMT
