B-side "Rude Mood" Length 3:41 | Format 7-inch 45 rpm record | |
Released June 13, 1983 (1983-06-13) (album) Recorded Down Town Studio, Los Angeles November 24, 1982 Genre Electric blues, blues rock | ||
"Pride and Joy" is a song by Texas singer/guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and his backup band Double Trouble. It is an original composition by Vaughan and appeared on his 1983 Epic Records debut album Texas Flood. "Pride and Joy" was also released as Vaughan's first single and has become one of his best-known songs.
Contents
Lyrics
"Pride and Joy" was a feature of Vaughan live repertoire before he recorded it. According to Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton, Vaughan wrote it for a new girlfriend at the time (a later fight with her inspired his "I'm Cryin'").
Composition
Called "a classic Texas shuffle", it has a twelve-bar blues arrangement, notated in the key of E (although with Vaughan's guitar tuned one-half step lower, resulting in the pitch of E♭) in 4
4 time with a moderately fast tempo. The main guitar figure features a bassline along with muted chord chops to produce a percussive-like effect. Vaughan also "extracts extra sound from the guitar by choosing finger shapes that allow the maximum number of strings to ring at a time (often the top E-string [E♭])".
Charts and influence
Vaughan's song was released as a single and reached number 20 in Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock chart. Bonnie Raitt and the Charlie Daniels Band have recorded renditions of the song. The music video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock includes a cover version. Vaughan album Texas Flood was also a best seller and helped renew interest in blues music.