ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON AUG. 31, 1990
By Steve Newton
It was only a few short weeks ago that Stevie Ray Vaughan was in Vancouver for a Pacific Coliseum concert with British blues belter Joe Cocker. In advance of the show I interviewed him, and the Texas blues and rock guitarist seemed reflective, even pensive. At one point he voiced some weariness with the rigours of the working musician’s life.
“I’m not planning on quittin’ anything,” he said. “I would just like to have a few months to take a look and see what I want to write about. Sometimes that makes me feel better, when I stop and take the time to be a person, instead of just a robot that’s on the road.”
Maybe Stevie Ray should have taken that break. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Vaughan died in a helicopter crash early Monday morning (August 27), after playing a Sunday night concert with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and his brother Jimmie Vaughan, near East Troy, Wisconsin.
The seat Vaughan took came open at the last minute, when another passenger changed his plans. Fog was closing in and Vaughan had wanted to avoid being grounded by the weather. Also killed were three members of Clapton’s entourage and the helicopter pilot.
News of Vaughan’s death has devastated the blues community, always a close-knit circle of friends, many of whom knew Vaughan from his early days on the hard-living, hard-partying Texas blues scene. Two of the older musicians that Vaughan had learned from expressed their grief in interviews as the news of his death was broadcast.
Buddy Guy, one of Vaughan’s frequent jamming partners and a close friend, was visibly distraught.
“My head ain’t right yet,” he said. “He was one of the greatest I ever met.”
B.B. King, “saddened beyond words”, said 35-year-old Vaughan was like one of his children, and that he felt a great loss when he heard the news.
“He was just beginning to be appreciated and develop his potential,” said the blues patriarch. Indeed, Vaughan’s death came when the talented, Grammy-winning musician was enjoying a period of personal growth. The guitarist had apparently beaten a serious drug addiction, and was looking forward to the September release of an album he had recorded this summer with his older brother Jimmie, who, ironically, had himself recently taken a break from the road and from his long-time commitment to the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
As well, in Robert Johnson’s tradition of the haunted bluesman, Vaughan reportedly had premonitions of his death, and during our interview he commented on his mortality.
“I would hate to get caught playing my last gig not trying, you know what I mean?”, he said. “If it was the last one, it sure would be a drag if I didn’t try.”
That was never an issue though. Friends and fans of Stevie Ray Vaughan know that the man dedicated himself to his music with an intensity that is rarely equalled, and that will surely be missed in the blues clubs of Austin as well as on concert stages world-wide.
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