"Pride and Joy" is a song by American singer, guitarist and songwriter Stevie Ray Vaughan and his backing band Double Trouble, released in late 1983 by Epic Records.The song was released on Stevie's debut studio album Texas Flood (1983). "Pride and Joy" was released as Vaughan's debut single and has become one of his most popular songs.
Contents
Lyrics
"Pride and Joy" was a feature of Vaughan's live repertoire before he recorded it. According to Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton, Vaughan wrote it for a new girlfriend at the time; somewhat ironically, a later fight with her inspired "I'm Crying".
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 44 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♭])".
Personnel
Credits and personnel are adapted from Texas Flood album liner notes.
Double Trouble
Stevie Ray Vaughan – guitar, vocals
Tommy Shannon – bass
Chris Layton – drums
Production
Stevie Ray Vaughan – writer, producer
Tommy Shannon – producer
Chris Layton – producer
Richard Mullen – producer, recording
James Geddes – assistant engineer
Lincoln Clapp – mixing
Don Wershba – mixing assistant
Harry Spiridakis – mixing assistant
Ken Robertson – mastering
Chart performance
The song was released as a single and reached #20 on Mainstream Rock.