“Everything in Double Trouble was a spontaneous thing – there was no plan”: How bassist Tommy Shannon stumbled onto the funky foundation for one of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s biggest radio hits

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Tommy Shannon, of the group Double Trouble, perform in concert, New York, New York, circa 1987. .

The indelible image of legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan is him standing at the front of the stage, growling into the microphone, and doing things to the guitar no one will ever completely duplicate as he worked himself into a sweaty mess of revitalised blues.

But even for a once-in-a-lifetime artist like Stevie Ray, there was still a rhythm section grounding him, pushing him, and taking him to new places. For Vaughan, that rhythm section was Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton, and they stuck together from 1980 all the way until Vaughan's untimely death in 1990.