Personal Notes

Jimmie Vaughan has been playing guitar every day since he was 12 growing up in Dallas. He eventually made a name for himself during his long stint as lead guitarist for the blues and roots-rock band the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

But if you think 35 years with his instrument--or mounds of praise from fans and critics--have made him a cocky guitar hero, forget it.

“I’m still trying to find my way,” Vaughan, 47, said last week by phone from the resort town of Sandpoint, Idaho. “I want to keep . . . finding new possibilities for expressing myself. It’s all about capturing a particular moment in time.”

“I’m just getting started,” said Vaughan, who left the T-Birds in 1990 after 15 years for a solo career. “I feel like with this last album [‘Out There,’ released in June] that all the pieces are finally coming together. I touched on something that I want to dive all the way into . . . kind of a feeling that I’m making a connection.”

Vaughan, who performs Saturday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, speaks with a passionate, introspective edge--the kind that materializes when your world is turned upside-down.

His younger brother, flamboyant guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan, died in a helicopter crash in 1990, weeks before the release of the Vaughan Brothers’ “Family Style” album, their long-awaited and only collaboration.

Jimmie Vaughan withdrew from the public eye to spend time with his family and attend to his brother’s estate. He reemerged in 1993 with his first solo album, “Strange Pleasure,” which included the uplifting “Love the World” and “(Everybody’s Got) Sweet Soulful Vibe” as comforting celebrations of life.

Along with its bluesier, hard-driving numbers, “Out There” contains several selections that touch on deeper matters of the heart. “Lost in You” and “Positively Meant to Be” embrace the intoxicating powers of romantic love.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I think you ought to write and sing what you know about. . . . Life is not always perfect. It hurts, and it stinks, and it’s crazy and heartbreaking. And sometimes, it’s wonderful and fun. I want my songs to address all of those complexities.

“My motive is almost like you’re looking inside. . . . Not that the material is necessarily completely about me, but it’s about being a human. That’s the connection between all of us. I like music that moves me, and, in turn, I want to play music that touches others. The best way that I know to do that is to be open and honest.”

Vaughan favors what he calls “natural-sounding” instrumentation to foster an old-style, somewhat earthier musicality. Longtime organist Bill Willis fills two roles, playing a Hammond B-3 and pumping out bass lines with the foot pedals or his left hand. Rounding out the current touring lineup are pianist Junior Brantley, rhythm guitarist Billy Pitman, drummer George Rains and backup singer Mark Trotter.

Vaughan also said that he is more interested using his guitar to communicate than to unleash blazing barrages of notes.

“To me, a solo is supposed to say something,” he said. “I’m listening to my mind’s ear to steer me in an unknown direction where I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t even want to know what I’m going to say until I say it. That’s just how it works. You get to say what you feel right now. . . . It’s like jazz, only it’s the blues.

“Some people think if I’m not playing straight through the solo as fast as I can--like if it’s not flashy or overly-dramatic--then it’s wimpy or not any good. Or they might be polite and call it ‘economical.’ But anybody can learn a technique. I don’t like frenzied, egotistical riffing. . . . In fact, it’s disturbing to me.”

Vaughan prefers what he calls “giving his songs room to breathe.”

“My music does have space in it, and I think that’s why you won’t hear it on the radio,” said Vaughan, who returns to Southern California on Sept. 7 to play the Long Beach Blues Festival. “With popular music today, the song starts and goes straight through [to the end]. They fill-up every hole with something.

“My music has these great big gaps, where there’s just air and you have to think about, or feel, what you just heard,” he said.

One chore Vaughan continues to work on is singing. With Kim Wilson at the helm during his stint with the T-Birds, Vaughan never sang.

When producer Nile Rodgers told him he had to sing on the “Family Style” album, Vaughan recalled, “It was terrifying. I had never really sung before. I mean, I was 40 years old, so it was like I was starting over. To me, it’s people like Muddy Waters and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland who are great singers--and I knew I couldn’t sing like either of them.”

“So I finally just bit my lip and said, ‘OK, I’m going to sing--no matter what it sounds like.’ Once I made that decision, I thought, ‘All I’ve really got to do is sing like me, and I’ll be all right.’

“I have my good days and my bad days,” he said, “but I think I’m improving with experience. Besides, I can’t sing like anyone else, so, for better or worse, I think you’re stuck with me.”

* Jimmie Vaughan, the Delphines and Blue Jewels play Saturday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $23.50-$25.50. (949) 496-8930.