Documentary on Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughn tells untold stories - The Dallas Morning News

Documentarian Kirby Warnock has spent four years getting the story of the Vaughan brothers, Jimmie and Stevie Ray, on film.

Now, it’s finally ready.

The Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff will screen Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues at 7 p.m. Thursday as part of a four-city Texas tour.

Warnock will introduce the documentary and have a question-and-answer session afterward with Jimmie Vaughan in attendance. Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash in 1990.

The tour began Wednesday night in Austin, where the Vaughan brothers’ careers took off.

The Vaughan brothers grew up in a 1,100-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Oak Cliff. Warnock, also a former Oak Cliff resident, was behind the effort that brought a monument to the brothers to Oak Cliff’s Kiest Park and worked with them while a photographer for Buddy magazine.

It’s hardly the first examination of the Vaughan brothers’ lives and music.

Kirby Warnock is returning to Dallas on March 23 for a screening of his new Vaughan brothers... — Kirby Warnock is returning to Dallas on March 23 for a screening of his new Vaughan brothers documentary at the Texas Theatre.(Kirby Warnock)

“There always been several books out and a few documentaries about him,” said Warnock, a former Oak Cliff resident who now lives in West Texas. “But from my vantage point, the one thing that was missing in all this stuff was nobody ever talked to his older brother, Jimmie.

“And really, that’s the person who knows Stevie better than anybody because he was there when Stevie was born. They shared a bedroom together in that little house in Oak Cliff.”

The documentary, which became available on various platforms last month, includes newly revealed photos, home movies and previously untold stories.

In the film, Jimmie Vaughan shares stories of his younger brother Stevie Ray and never-before-seen family photos. It also contains memories of Stevie Ray’s contemporaries — Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Jackson Browne and Nile Rodgers — and the Vaughan brothers’ early bandmates and friends in Oak Cliff and Austin.

“It’s pretty amazing that they not only became famous, but they earned the respect of the really famous rock stars of our era,” Warnock said.

Warnock had heard a lot of the stories, but no one had documented them on film.

“So I’ve tried very hard to put stuff in this film that people have not seen or heard before,” he said.

In particular, Warnock wanted to hear from Clapton “because he and Jimmie were at the same concert in Wisconsin when Stevie died.

“I wanted to get their recollections of what that last night was like, and we were very fortunate to get it,” Warnock said.

More than anything, Warnock, who spent almost 45 years observing the Vaughans up close, wanted to capture the dynamic between the brothers.

“Whenever one of them was performing, the other one would always be there backstage or something,” Warnock said. “I just saw them together a lot. So they were really a mutual support group.”

“These are two brothers that adored each other,” Rodgers said in the trailer.