Texas Platters

Tyrone Vaughan

Tyrone Vaughan's jeans, torn and frayed at the hem, yet pressed into a clean crease for the sharp-dressed man on the cover of his debut CD, Downtime, are designer. The blue color stands for youthful years woodshedding in Breedlove with Dan Dyer, but the attitude is pure Vaughan: handsome, charismatic, and as classically stylish as the red Fender he sports. And if it's blues expected from the son of Jimmie Vaughan and nephew of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Downtime picks up fiddle and steel and two-steps that Strat to the dance floor. Vaughan plays country-boy everyman in bemoaning the loss of his gal and satellite dish ("The House Feels So Empty"), then switches to sly and twangy ("Bubba Dan") or Kevin Fowler-style whimsy ("Buzz Kill") with such ease it's not hard to imagine Doug Sahm wanting to sit in. Downtime isn't the slick, polished package it could have been, and more's the better. When he croons "Love is my business" in 1970s soul style with country fiddle overlaid on "L-O-V-E," Tyrone Vaughan throws down his individual brand on a family name that deserves a younger generation "to stand up tall when the Lone Star flag is raised."