The Show Goes On for Vaughan : Pop music: The Texas guitarist pieces his life and career back together after the tragic death of his younger brother, Stevie Ray.

Jimmie Vaughan paused in the middle of a sentence and stared blankly past the cigarette in his right hand, his mind obviously elsewhere.

His attention returned after a few seconds, but his eyes were a bit glassy and his thoughts had shifted from the specific anecdote he had been telling to his general perception of life.

“I just don’t feel very much in control of the world anymore, like I used to,” said the 39-year-old former guitarist of the Texas blues-rock band the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Vaughan was sitting in the restaurant of a Beverly Hills hotel, reflecting on coming to grips with the recent helicopter-crash death of his younger brother, guitar hero Stevie Ray. “I used to feel I was the boss and was running things.”

He paused again and looked away.

“We do have a choice, but, uh, sometimes I don’t think we’re really in control. We think we are.”

He laughed nervously.

“Somethin’ bigger out there.”

It was the morning of Aug. 27 when Stevie Ray Vaughan, 35, died on a foggy hillside near Alpine Valley, Wis. The pilot and three other passengers--including rock booking agent Bobby Brooks--also were killed.

Only hours before the crash, the brothers--two of Texas blues-rock’s most talented and popular guitarists--had joined in a rollicking encore jam with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray at the conclusion of a two-day blues-rock festival at Alpine Valley in which Stevie and his band, Double Trouble, had been featured.

Jimmie had flown in to join his brother at the show, the two riding a high as they had recently completed recording “Family Style,” their first album together--something that had been a dream for both throughout Jimmie’s 15-year stint in the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie’s acclaimed ‘80s solo career.

“We’d never done that, not since we were kids at home just sitting in our bedroom with guitars,” Jimmie said of the making of the album.

But after Alpine Valley, in a scene reminiscent of Buddy Holly’s ill-fated last flight in 1959, Stevie was offered and accepted the one remaining seat in the first helicopter taking the performers and crew back to Chicago.

“A lot of times when you’re through with a gig and excited, sometimes it’s good to just get out of there and take a hot bath and relax,” Jimmie said, trying to explain his brother’s haste.

Jimmie’s flight got him back to Chicago in the early morning hours, unaware of the tragedy. It wasn’t until Stevie’s manager woke Jimmie at 6 a.m. that he learned the news. First thinking it was a joke, but soon devastated, Jimmie went to the crash site.

“We were so tore up, as you can imagine. We then went back to the (concert site) that day, calling people and making arrangements backstage--in shock,” he said. “And I kept praying and thinking to myself, you know, ‘Give me a sign or something that he’s OK, or make sense out of this, or something .’

“So we were in the car leaving, and this guy comes running, said ‘Wait! Wait!’ . . . So they come up on a jeep and they had this,” Vaughan said, fingering an ornate silver cross on a heavy chain around his neck.

“They found it, right the minute before we were leaving,” he said. “That’s what Stevie had on. It’s a Coptic cross that he wore. He wore it for years, every day. It was pretty. . . .”

His voice trailed off as he tried to describe the feeling of finding a sign of hope in the middle of his sorrow. And then he smiled.

“It’s just been one thing after another like that since then,” he said.

Vaughan’s trip to Los Angeles was one of his first ventures away from his Austin, Tex., home since Stevie’s death. The reason he had come West was not business, but pleasure: a trip to the annual Grand National Roadster Show in Oakland where, he proudly reported, his prized lavender pearl ’51 Chevrolet Fleetline took first place in its class.

The side trip to Los Angeles was to do the interview and a radio session. But it also marked the start of a busy year in which he is set to produce an album by Dr. John, play on a Muddy Waters tribute album and on another being put together by legendary guitarist Les Paul, and then near year’s end start work on his own solo debut album.

“I decided I could either sit in my house and think about everything and feel bad, or else I can get out here and start back on my life and try to make something good out of it, something positive out of it,” he said. “And I’m gonna get back with it. I want to get to work and do what I do. I enjoy working and I enjoy playing and doing music--and living. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

In truth, the feeling that he had a choice even if he wasn’t in control came to Vaughan before his brother’s death, even before they began work on the album. About a year ago, Vaughan decided to quit both the Fabulous Thunderbirds and drinking, something he had been doing for more than 20 years and a habit Stevie had quit a few years before.

“He probably learned that stuff from me!” Jimmie said of his brother’s alcohol abuse. “I came off a tour with the Thunderbirds, and we’d been out for 15 years--for-ever, it seemed like. And something told me I just needed to stop and change everything and go home. I didn’t know why. I was tired of drinking. I’d been having a party since I was 15. I just wanted to be with my family.”

The renewed closeness with his wife, Connie, and 20-year-old daughter, Tina, who had moved back in with them to go to college, helped give Vaughan emotional support that helped him deal with cleaning up, and ultimately with his grief. And it also finally provided the opportunity to make the long-discussed album with Stevie.

Growing up in Dallas, Stevie had learned guitar from his older brother, whom he eventually followed to Austin in the late ‘70s. Jimmie’s understated, economical blues style had made him a favorite there as the Thunderbirds served as the house band at the then-new Antone’s blues club and later nationally as the band went on to have such hits as “Tuff Enuff.” But Stevie’s showy, Hendrix-influenced flash quickly made him the local guitar hotshot.

But though they sat in with each other when they could, the two never really had a chance to work on a full project together. So the chance to make an album together was treasured.

“It was like starting over. The feeling was so good. Everybody was so happy all the time. We were spending so much time together and getting along so good, a happy feeling I can’t hardly explain. . . . I didn’t want to tour or anything, but we were having so much fun we were gonna put together a band and do a short thing, Memphis, New York, L.A., a few cities where we could maybe find a place and do a gig for a week or so in each city.”

Instead, Jimmie’s finding himself on his own, facing the press and the public, sorting through the “boxes and boxes and boxes” of mail he has received from his and Stevie’s fans and preparing himself emotionally for a return to performing.

That will come in late February, when he will appear on one night of an ambitious 24-show series that Eric Clapton will be doing at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

“That night will have the musicians I played with last,” Vaughan said. “So when Eric called it just seemed like the right thing to do. Everything’s like a healing process, you know? And it’s not just for me being healed, but for other people who knew Stevie or liked him.”

With that in mind, Vaughan knows that the ovation he is certain to get when he steps on the Albert Hall stage will be as much for his brother as for him.

“I try not to think about what it’s gonna be like,” he said. “I’m just looking forward to playing my guitar. I’ve been playing at my house every day. I guess it’s been four or five months, I think. I haven’t been counting the days or anything.

“So (working again) is what I should do. I’ve done it at my own pace. Nobody’s said, ‘You have to get to work,’ or ‘What are you doing? You can’t sit around.’ Everybody’s been really nice and I’ve really got a lot of great friends and people that have helped me. I’m fortunate that way.”