SRV - 27 years ago today


 

Jim Lampe

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
...in the early morning hours of August 27th, 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan died tragically in a helicopter crash at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin.
I've seen Stevie Ray in concert more (4x) than any other musician and, ironically, although we had tickets to his last performance, we also had tickets to Bonnie Raitt's show in Milwaukee the same evening, a birthday gift to my wife from her parents.
Reluctantly, I gave away my SRV tickets to a friend and we attended Bonnie's show at The Marcus Amphitheater on Milwaukee's Summerfest grounds.





Stevie Ray Vaughan
October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990

Stevie_Ray_Vaughan_Memorial_Helmick_1.jpg
 
Never saw SRV in concert, had always wanted to though. I remember the morning they announced he died. I felt ill from the news
 
He was truly one of a kind, and maybe unsurpassed, I loved his "spin" on things, especially when he played with Dick Dale from the Ventures.
 
What is it that BBQ and Blues go so well together?

I particularly liked SRV's mix of Rock and Blues and the way that he mixed-up tempos - some slow & mellow / some loud and fast and all shades between but still ALL shades of his / his band's own kind of COOL.
I may be getting up-there in years, but I STILL like a coolish Summer night, hurtling down the highway with some good tunes (including Mr Vaughan) cranked-up to "11".
(When I out-grow that, stick a fork in me - I'm DONE...)
 
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Rember seen him back in the 80s in Santa Cruz CA at some run down high school gymnasium...Wow what a show that was one of my all time favorite concerts.
 
Jimi and Janis passed away when I was 12, and I was too young to really appreciate the music.
Ronnie van zandt, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon where all moments that set you back ( when you heard the news) cause those hurt.
SRV was one that was hard to deal with.

Tim
 
I remember the PBS tribute to SRV, with BB King, Bonnie Raitt, etc.
I can't recall the exact words, but i hope I got the gist of it:
BB King said something about how you hear a musician play a solo and it's kinda like they have a thought or thoughts, they play out those thoughts out like sentences in a paragraph. Then they have to pause and start another thought, or sentence, in another, new, paragraph. He said Stevie Ray never played like that, you couldn't tell when he came to the end of a paragraph, he just kept going. He said he'd never heard anyone else be able to do it like he could.
 
Jim, I feel your pain! Way back when I was a lot younger and stupider, my best friend and I spent our Lynyrd Skynyrd ticket money on a mini bike, figuring that we would just catch them the next time around. Idiot teenagers!
IIRC, it was 3 months later that the plane crash happened that would change the music world for a while.
My buddy and I really kicked each other you know where!
 

 

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