Tommy Shannon – Bass

Tommy Shannon (born Thomas Lafitte Smedley; April 18, 1946) is best known as a member of Doube Trouble, a Blues/Rock band led by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Shannon moved to Dumas, Texas, when he was nine, where he originally started as a guitarist, though he started playing bass at the age of 21. He appeared with Johnny Winter at Woodstock in 1969. He later joined Double Trouble in 1981 and became a permanent member until Vaughan’s death in 1990. Shannon and bandmate Chris Layton later formed supergroups such as the Arc Angels.

(biographical information from Wikipedia)

This transcription features the complete Shannon performance of the tune ‘The Sky Is Crying’ from the 1991 Stevie Ray Vaughan album of the same name (sorry, I got the spelling wrong on the title on the transcription’ (too many Blue Note records). It is as generic a Blues bass line as you can get but, as it is in B, there are lots of accidentals to contend with.