When I was 11 years old there was a family get together, not really a family reunion, but a gathering of many of the Vaughans and friends. Before I get into the anecdote, there is something I wanted to explain. Most of us are mutts. We encompass a various amount of different races and cultures from our ancestors and our heritage. Many times in life we choose to embrace only some of these; depending on how it fits our circumstance.
I have stated my heritage being Welsh (which is essentially Scottish), Jewish (which obviously is Israeli) and I say black (as I often have stated there are no resources to trace back that part of my heritage to state whether my ancestors came from Africa, Jamaica, the Caribbean, etc,) but you can throw in a little bit of Indian (or to be politically correct Native American) I'm sure there is some Irish along the way. Who knows.
What's interesting about my family history is how the names have changed when coming to the US. For instance I had stated that my Jewish side came to the US by way of Poland. My Welsh side came directly from Wales before the US even had established colonies. So again, before I get into my anecdote, I want to explain some of my surnames. My great great grandparents were both Vaughans. When they had children, most were boys, but one of the few daughters married a Smith (my great grandfather). So obviously a Smith marrying a Vaughan. Yet, this is only one side of my family. On the other side, both my great grandparents were Smiths. I hope no relation for either side. Obviously trickling down to my last name of Vaughan. And on an added note, through divorce, but having children once remarried, I have had three sets of grandparents. Very complicated.
When I first started out in music, I used the last name Smith; which is what my Twitter handle is. But my actual name on Twitter is obviously Joshua Jet Vaughan. I chose the name Smith over Vaughan, at the time, because for some idiotic reason I had gotten it in my head that I wanted anonymity; and so I wanted to use the very common name of my ancestors: Smith. I wanted to make it on my own accord. After several record deal offers, and several major tours before I became seriously ill; I was doing Mardi Gras and the Blues and Jazz Festival that immediately follows in New Orleans. Though I was headlining (as there are multiple acts throughout the day, evening and into the wee hours) at this time I had met Lenny Kravitz.
Lenny had heard me playing on the main stage as later I played the House of Blues. There was about a two hour window between the outside gig, and playing in the House of Blues. During that time Lenny was playing after me on the outside stage. There was about a 15 minute window between him and I. Now again, this is before I became extremely ill. My guitar playing and my voice were phenomenal. After I got done, Lenny had come up to me. We talked for half an hour, which was 15 minutes after he was supposed to be up playing, but it's Lenny Kravitz.
During my set I had racked out a twenty minute version of Texas Flood. In those days I played a lot of lead. I suppose it's what most guitar players do before they learn that the all around music is the most important part of all especially with blues music. But in live gigs, especially outside, it's really what people love to hear. Lenny complimented me on the fact that my sound was thunderous and everything was perfect. He had asked me my real name, which I told him.
I said, how did you know it was not my real name?
He said, because you don't look like the name you are going by.
Before Lenny ever made it big, he went by the name Romeo Blue. He expressed how he could not believe the ridiculousness of calling himself that. He finally went to his real name, which he had definite approval from his father, and of course, his career took off. So Lenny asked me to get up on the stage, but I did not know this was going to happen.
After his first song he said, I would like to bring someone up on the stage named Joshua Vaughan. I did not include my middle name until later in life. I appreciated the fact that he did not say the cousin of the late, great Stevie Ray. And I was thankful as I realized that this is the name I should be going by.
After I got offstage and had to rush over to the House of Blues, which is off from Bourban and Craft in the French Quarter, I had a very important memory that I had forgotten all about. As I stated, in my youth, I had a family event. Most of you have seen Stevie wearing full Indian head gear. He loved the culture, was part Indian, but obviously was primarily Welsh. He had told me that Wild Sumac is how Indians would make lemonade.
I said, I thought it was poisonous.
SRV was a self-educated man. So humble, but what we would consider today as being a Rhodes Scholar, stating that lemons were very scarce to the Indians, and explaining the difference in the look of the sumac, where it grows, advising me on which plants are poisonous and which are not. So he says, take a bite. Now, if you've ever seen them, they look like little red berries with fuzz on them. So I picked one off, trusting in Stevie, and yes, it tastes exactly like lemonade.
Now let me explain, not like lemons, but like lemonade. We picked a couple handfuls, and we went back, as it was about a quarter mile walk to our family event, not spending a lot of time talking about music, but about life, culture and love; about being proud of who you are and that your worthiness comes from your spirit within, not from what another man has to say about you. I've learned that we can't do much about what others think about us. And our best way when people talk negatively about us, or do bad to us is to set through and by example a character of being a man, which can only be held up from the platform of love and forgiveness.
And in these two things, all virtues are encompassed.
When we had gotten back home, there were the old style glass pitchers of lemonade, and we took our handfuls of wild sumac, and dumped them in the pitchers of lemonade. It is the best tasting lemonade I ever had. As a precautionary statement, do not try this at home. It is very difficult to find non-poisonous wild sumac, and it only grows in certain parts of our country. I could literally go into the biology of the sumac and explain why some are poisonous and some aren't. But that's not the point of the story.
Now usually I would put a Stevie Ray Vaughan song after this post; but I'm not going to do that this time. As I've stated, I do not use the word fan. I don't subscribe to it. But in this case it is appropriate. I am not much of a fan of Tim McGraw. But I believe this song fits Stevie, myself and my anecdote perfectly.
Take Care Friends
~Joshua Jet Vaughan~
