On this day in 1990, a helicopter hit a man-made ski slope while trying to navigate through dense fog, killing Stevie Ray Vaughan and three members of Eric Clapton’s entourage. Vaughan had performed at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, Wisconsin with Robert Cray & His Memphis Horns, and Eric Clapton. A member of Clapton’s crew informed Vaughan that three seats were open on a helicopter returning to Chicago, with only one seat left. Vaughan requested it from his brother, who obliged.
What I am trying to get across to you;
is please take of yourselves and those that you love; because that is what we are here for, that’s all we got, and that is all we can take with us. Are you with me?
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Before his untimely death in 1990, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan had become the leading figure in the blues-rock-revival he spearheaded in the mid-’80s.
Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Albert Collins and rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. Vaughan co-produced the Lonnie Mack 1985 comeback, Strike Like Lightning. Despite a short-lived mainstream career spanning just seven years, they consider him one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of blues music.
Inspired musically by American and British blues-rock, he favored clean amplifiers with high volume and contributed to the popularity of vintage musical equipment. He often combined several amplifiers together and used minimal effects pedals.
Vaughan received several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1983, readers of Guitar Player voted him as Best New Talent and Best Electric Blues Guitar Player. In 1984, the Blues Foundation named him Entertainer of the Year and Blues Instrumentalist of the Year, and in 1987, Performance Magazine honored him with the Rhythm and Blues Act of the Year. Earning six Grammy Awards and ten Austin Music Awards, they inducted him into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2000, and the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2014. Rolling Stone ranked Vaughan as the twelfth greatest guitarist of all time.
Before the last song of this last show before his death guitar legend, Eric Clapton stepped up to the mic “I’d like to bring out to join me, in truth, the best guitar players in the entire world: Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray… Jimmie Vaughan.” The band played an extended jam of the classic ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ for 40,000 fans.
