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One Sunday in 1983, Billy Pinnell Changed My Life.

I know where I was, who I was with and what we were doing the night Billy Pinnell changed my life. I was a passenger in Davy’s orange beat up 120Y wagon, heading back to Melbourne on a Sunday night for the coming week of uni.

And on the radio, as usual, was EON FM’s Album Show, hosted by someone called Billy Pinnell.

Until then weekends were about beer, pizza and teenage pussy. If we were able to get our shit together on those dreary Sunday-Arvos-Coming Down we would either grab the train back to the city, or hitch a ride with Davy. I was doing Arts at Melbourne Uni and Davy was crawling through some sort of Weather Map Reading degree at RMIT.

And the Album Show was always on the car radio. We didn’t know who Billy was but it seemed he was some sort of anti-radio rebel. Instead of playing singles he played ‘album tracks.’ The tunes that didn’t get played by the bands we loved: Chisel, Aussie Crawl, The Animals, Pink Floyd and the Stones. He also played stuff we had never heard but it kinda made sense. George Thorogood, David Lindley, Lobby Lloyd and Rene Geyer. Lots of Springsteen and Tom Petty. All good shit.

Billy didn’t talk like a DJ. He mumbled away, sounding like some old bloke talking about lawn mower parts with your old man. He played songs by the same band back to back, and then some more later on. I am sure I remember him playing whole sides of albums. He didn’t always back announce. Sometimes he’d tell you what was coming up, or play half and hour of blistering rock tracks and then go on to an interview leaving you wondering.

‘I like this bloke,’ Davy used to say, ‘I wish I knew him.’
But we kinda did. He was someone we knew already; the idea of Billy, the voice of Billy and the love of rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe he was the older, wiser us? Perhaps he was just there at the right time. I think in our way we loved Billy.

Because Billy changed my life.

One night we did the usual. Davy came over after dinner on Sunday evening. We loaded the Datsun with our washed and dried clothes, Mum-baked cakes and an esky full of flathead caught, gutted and scaled by Davy’s dad. My Mum always gave me a box of fresh vegies and groceries, just in case I was ‘short.’ Sometimes we had Rick with us. Rick lived in a boarding house in St Kilda. Old men, fire evacuations, bruising Maoris and no locks on the doors. That was OK though because the beer was cheap at the Prince and the Espy and the George. And in those days you could buy dope in little ziplock bags from a kebab place in Fitzroy Street. Country kids, in the city.

Rick was there sometimes. I wasn’t always there. But Davy was and he loved Billy’s album show as much as the rest of us. And so, one night Billy garbled on about this gun new guitar player from Texas. We loved guitar. We were 19 and horny and guitar was like the giant cock of rock ‘n’ roll. We idolised Mossy and Thorpey and Jimi and Dave Gilmour. Billy played them all. Sometimes he would tell the backstory. In that way we found out about Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and Skip James. We soon realised that Jagger and Richards had ripped off Robert Johnson, and Cream and Led Zep had recycled the blues by turning it up to 11 and adding a monster rhythm section. Billy was our teacher. George Thorogood sure could play. But he wasn’t much of a bloke and there was no way Billy was going to play his ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer’ without telling us all about some blokes called Toombs, Milburn and John Lee Hooker.

John Lee Hooker? He was that old black guy busking on the street in The Blues Brothers. That bloke? He was ‘someone?’ Life was starting to get complicated. How about this Hendrix freak? Billy used to play him every week. And go through whole sides of Axis Bold as Love. And tell us about the studios, the session players and the groupies. You didn’t hear this on 3CS Colac. Davy had got hold of a copy of Electric Ladyland. The cover was sensational. Nude black women draped all over the place. Tits. Bush. The Blues!

Jimi blasted through old blues numbers too. He didn’t turn it up to 11, he set it on a course for the moon, the sun and stars. He wrote his own songs as well. Maniac, genius, dead. Dead? All we had was what we had; the stuff that Billy played. We would never get to see him live. Never get to scream and pump our fists in the air during ‘Voodoo Chile.’ Sure, George Thorogood could spray a passable ‘Star Spangled Banner’ through our radios, but it meant something else for George, I think. He wasn’t Jimi.

But then it happened. The sky opened, the world changed forever. Billy played an instrumental called ‘Lenny’ by Texan band, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. A song about Stevie’s wife, according to Billy. Discovered by John Hammond. Hey, we knew him. He had unearthed Dylan, Hendrix and Springsteen. It would have to be OK . OK? It blew us apart and we fell from the clouds back to earth as different people. 1983. A Sunday. A Datto 120Y. Billy played Stevie Ray Vaughan on EON FM.

I peddled my old pushie into the city first chance I had the next day. Monday’s lectures and classes were ‘optional’ anyways. We were all too hungover or too cool or too disinterested on Mondays. I was on a mission. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Debut album. Texas Flood. Billy said it was ‘hot.’ I had to get it.

The city was different in 1983. There were a lot more independent record stores. No JB HiFi or Virgin. There were the big retailers of course like Brashes in Elizabeth Street and Allens around the corner in Collins Street. Myers in Bourke Street wasn’t bad for a bargain. But there were also little record stores scattered about the CBD. Missing Link in Flinders Lane was fantastic; edgy and a bit scary. Collectors Corner on Little Lonsdale was great for second hand records and posters, and Central Station Records, underneath where Federation Square is now, was handy for the heavy, speed metal albums. But this time I went straight to Discurio. It was a cut above the rest in those days. Polished floor boards. Middle aged beatniks. Classical music. Had more obscure and specialist artists. I had previously been there looking for older bands like Buffalo Springfield and bluesy records like Muddy Waters ‘Hard Again.’

And there it was, a grey cover with SRV looking cool and sort of Mexican playing a black Strat with a black strap decorated with big white musical notes. It was mine! Carrying a record home in your backpack whilst riding your bike was always a bit of a risk, so I wobbled home with one hand on the handle bars and one holding my purchase, safely ensconced in a complimentary plastic sleeve.

I didn’t have a turntable at this stage but it didn’t take me long to bash down a friend’s door and drop the needle on Track 1. ‘Lovestruck Baby.’ Loud!

I played the album over and over. As well as his guitar playing Stevie could sing. The band rocked and that guitar was enormous. It cooked everything we loved into the one pot. The 12 bar blues of Thorogood and the older guys like Muddy Waters, the over the top solos like Hendrix, the husky voice, on some tracks slow and burning, on others racing along frenetically. The thud of the bass and drums. But burning in the centre was the meteor that was Stevie’s guitar. It swung, it rocked, it was jazzy. It was fast and it was slow. He was our Hendrix, but Texan, alive and just beginning. He was our Freddie King. He was ours.

It took another year, and another album, to see SRV in concert. He played a scorching show at the Melbourne Concert Hall. The stage was almost bare save for the drum kit, amps and microphones. The band began playing a simple, upbeat blues without SRV. And then he came on stage. A black fedora over long hair, a white shirt and scarf, a suit and snakeskin boots, both red. He shuffled across the stage sideways from our right to left and back again to the centre, all the while blasting out the speedy instrumental ‘Scuttle Buttin’ from the new album, Couldn’t Stand the Weather. Loud!

The earth shifted on its axis. He was stunning; tall and slim, a little beard under his lip. Eyes under the brim of his hat. He sweated, grimaced and grinned. Like a creature from another planet. Texas. Gunfighters, horses, hats and saloons. The red suit was so right, yet so ridiculous. The boots were too cool. He played with his teeth and behind his back. The music was a shuddering, thrilling , wailing triumph. It hit me in the chest, in my heart. And yes, we pumped the air with our fists during his cover of Jimi’s ‘Voodoo Chile.’ It was the dusty past, the crazy present and the unknown future. Who knows where that future and search through the past would take us? But it didn’t matter. He was our Stevie Ray Vaughan; he became ‘Stevie.’ Ours.

And we were there.

Thank you, Billy Pinnell. You changed my life.