by Alan Paul
CONNIE VAUGHAN: Stevie was supposed to call and leave a message, and he didn’t, which I thought was weird. We had just gotten to sleep, and Alex called and said Stevie’s helicopter hadn’t gotten back. So we jumped out of bed, and I started freaking out.
RICKERT: Two hours after going to bed, Alex called and said, “Stevie was killed in a helicopter crash.” I said, “This is the worst joke ever.” And he said, “I’m sorry, but it’s not. Let’s get the band together.” And we all gathered in one room and had to have this awful conversation.
SHANNON: I got woken up by a phone call from Skip at 6:30 saying that we had to have a meeting right away. I said, “This is no time for a meeting. What the hell is going on?” And he said, “It’s very important.” I started feeling very uneasy, and a few minutes later, I got a call from Alex, saying that one of the helicopters had gone down, Stevie was on it, and there were no survivors. In the blink of an eye, my life was taken away from me. I was sitting on the bed crying, and Chris came into my room, asking what was going on. I said, “Stevie’s dead,” and he just lost it, too.
LAYTON: I was in denial, so I called security and forced them to let me into Stevie’s room. I really thought he’d be laying there sleeping, but when they opened the door, the bed was still made, the pillow turned down, and I realized, “My God, it’s true.”
SHANNON: Stevie’s coat was laid out on the bed, and oddly, the clock radio was playing that Eagles song, “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” with the line, “I may never see you again.” It was playing real softly, but it might as well have been a bullhorn into my ear. Then we all went back to my room, and Jimmie was there, and we were all a wreck, sobbing and dazed. It was the most horrible moment. I’ll never have anything hurt that bad again, ever.
LAYTON: I felt like a car had fallen on me, just completely helpless. Then we realized that the news reports said that Stevie and his band were killed, and I had to get ahold of my family and tell them that I was alive. We spent a bunch of time calling our families, just sort of going onto autopilot. If I started thinking about it, I couldn’t function.
CRAY: I got woken up by a phone call from Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns, who were touring with us. He wanted to make sure I was in my room because he originally heard I was in the tragedy. He said, “You better call your mom,” so I did. Reporters had been calling her, and she was very relieved to hear from me.
GUY: I was gonna make a big Louisiana gumbo for all the guys at my club. I got up early to go get the crabs and stuff, and on my way out the door, the phone rang. I went back to answer it, and they say, “Have you heard about Stevie?” I’m like, “What he do, get drunk or something?” They say, “No, he’s dead.” And I went, “What do you mean? I’m on my way to buy crabs for the gumbo I’m making him.” It didn’t add up.
Wreckage was found scattered across a wide area early in the morning of August 27.
Jimmie and Connie Vaughan, accompanied by Hodges, drove in a limousine to the crash site and from there to Lakeland Hospital about ten miles away to identify Stevie’s body.
CONNIE VAUGHAN: At the site, the FAA guy said, “If you see anything of Stevie’s, you can just pick it up, because we know what happened here.” I picked up a briefcase, which ended up belonging to Clapton’s road manager—the guy whose seat Stevie had taken—and he teared up when we gave it back to him. We got back into the limousine and were driving away when they radioed us to stop. This guy ran down and said, “Wasn’t this his?” and held Stevie’s Coptic cross out to give Jimmie. I said, “Jimmie, don’t you know what that means? He’s okay. He’s telling us he’s okay.” That’s what it meant to me anyhow.
We drove to some building to identify the bodies. I didn’t want to go in there, so Jimmie had to go in and do it by himself. It was unbelievable. Decades later, I still feel like it’s a nightmare that’s not true.
JOE PERRY: I have to wonder why they didn’t cancel those flights. I’ve been in and out of that venue by helicopter many times. I know guys that won’t fly at night, especially in bad weather. That accident didn’t have to happen.
LEWIS: He survived the substances, and what got him was a fucking helicopter. I know that helicopter. We’ve played that gig a million times, and they always offer you the ride, and I always say, “No, thanks. I’ll drive.“It’s a tedious bus ride, but I just do it. When I heard the awful news, I thought, “Oh, that fucking helicopter!”
BRAD WHITFORD: Getting in and out of these places where we have to work can be chaotic and dangerous. At Alpine Valley, you can look in almost any direction and there’s a clear path, other than this one little hill. If he’d been over a little to one side or the other, they would have been fine. We were in Bologna, Italy, when my road manager came into my room and told me the news. I was just devastated.
HAYNES: I was in the middle of an Allman Brothers tour, and my manager called me at 8:00 a.m. and told me about the crash. There was still speculation that perhaps some of the other musicians might have been on the same helicopter. We had played Alpine Valley eight days before [August 18, 1990]. The Allman Brothers refused to fly in helicopters; that was a deal-breaker for us, so we bussed it in and out.
A two-year probe by the National Transportation Safety Board found that “improper planning/decision” by the pilot was the main probable cause of the crash. An NTSB spokesman said that “darkness, fog, haze and rising terrain were contributing factors.” It could all be summed up rather simply as a flight that never should have happened.
26
LIFE WITHOUT YOU
Epic Records sent a jet to fly Stevie’s body to Dallas, while the rest of the band and crew made their way home in a daze. “We were running through the airport to catch our flight, and I just stopped in my tracks,” says Shannon. “I couldn’t find one reason to move.”
When Chris and Tommy landed in Austin, Cutter Brandenburg was waiting at the gate. They had not seen him since he quit and left them at Kennedy International Airport in 1983. “It was nice to see him standing there,” says Layton. “It felt right.”
“Stevie guided me through that horrible day because I did not know what to do,” Brandenburg said. “I was walking around in a daze, and having Stevie in my heart and soul is why I went to get them. He somehow sent me to pick them up.”
The town of Austin and indeed the whole state of Texas seemed to be in mourning, along with fans all around the world.
“Stevie’s death was obviously devastating to those of us close to him, but the fans also felt like they knew him,” says Doyle Bramhall II. “He was such a vibrant spirit that even from afar you could feel that this was a light shining brighter than most. He was really tapped into something much, much bigger, the way the great ones in any field always are.”
On Monday, August 27, as word of Stevie’s death filtered through a shocked city, thousands gathered for a vigil in Austin’s Zilker Park, sponsored by KLBJ, which carried Stevie’s music over the air to the teary, candle-holding mourners. In Dallas, a vigil was held in Kiest Park, just a few blocks from Stevie’s boyhood home, where his mother, Martha, still lived.
Austin musicians gathered at Antone’s to console each other and pay tribute to their friend and leader. W. C. Clark was the night’s scheduled performer.
FREEMAN: I was driving to Dallas when I heard the news on the radio that Stevie had died in a helicopter crash. I immediately turned the car around and headed to Clifford Antone’s office and record store across the street from his club. That spot became ground zero. The phone never stopped ringing.
PRIESNITZ: My assistant called and asked if something had happened to Stevie, because they had been playing his music nonstop on the radio. I immediately made a few calls and was stunned when I heard the news.
SHANNON: Several of us got together at Antone’s that night to comfort each other, to console one another, and help each other in our tremendous grief. It’s almost impossible to remember—it seemed like it was all a bad dream.
FREEMAN: I
believe that the gathering that night at Antone’s was born out of an instinctual reaction from everyone in Austin. When something that shocking happens, people just want to gather to support each other. No one knew what to do or say, but they wanted to be together. Everyone was in shock, whether they knew Stevie personally or not. Hearing of his sudden death like that, you don’t know how to deal with it or process it. It’s too much.
BRANDENBURG: All of Austin was trying to get into Antone’s, and I was in line. Lou Ann Barton walked up with Connie Vaughan and grabbed me and hugged me and took me in with them. Walking in, I felt tears well up, looked around and saw that everyone was crying.
LAYTON: I was mostly sitting home, in such a daze that I have no idea what I did. You’d have to ask someone else if I was at Antone’s because those days are a black hole in my memory. [He was not there.]
GRISSOM: Two days after Stevie died, Eric Johnson played at Steamboat, and I think I got up and played with him, but it’s hard to remember because it was such an emotional time. A lot of people were there, showing emotional support for each other, and Eric made some really nice remarks about Stevie. There was a feeling of tremendous sadness and also the need to be together.
“He was such a vibrant spirit that even from afar you could feel that this was a light shining brighter than most.”—Doyle Bramhall II (Tracy Anne Hart)
PRIESNITZ: I called Eric and asked him if he still wanted to play his scheduled date at Steamboat, giving him the option to cancel if it was too emotional for him. And Eric said, “Do you think Stevie would want us to cancel?” and I said, “No.”
GRISSOM: The entire town came together: there were signs in the windows of just about every store or business, saying “Rest in Peace, Stevie” and “We Will Miss You.” He was a big part of the city’s soul, and his passing was a real demarcation point of the Austin scene. It was the end of an era.
Four days after the crash, on Thursday, August 30, Stevie was buried in Dallas. After a private chapel service at the Laurel Land Funeral Home with family and close friends, the coffin was carried outside for a public graveside service, which was the family’s wish. Thousands of people stood behind yellow police tape and jammed a grassy hillside in hundred-degree-plus heat. Given Stevie’s deep roots in Dallas and Austin, many of the mourners had some direct connection. A picture of Stevie sat on an easel, his hat resting atop it at an angle.
Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne sang “Amazing Grace” a cappella. Nile Rodgers delivered a eulogy, calling Stevie “someone who was touched by God with the gift of music.” Struggling to speak without breaking down, he added, “I learned a lot about family from Stevie and Jimmie. They made me a member of their family. They made me an honorary brother. Thank you for helping me to remember how important family is. Thank you for making me remember music.” His words were followed by a playing of “Tick Tock” from the still-unreleased Family Style. The members of Double Trouble were pallbearers. None of them delivered eulogies. “We couldn’t speak,” Shannon says simply.
LAYTON: Stevie Wonder sang “The Lord’s Prayer” a cappella. I was crying so hard.
WYNANS: Stevie Wonder’s singing was the most beautiful thing you could ever hear in your life. During the service, this woman was playing sort of nondescript church music on the organ. Then Dr. John got back there and started playing beautiful stuff. It was the way it was supposed to be.
DR. JOHN: It was really gut-wrenching. I played every hymn I knew, then Stevie Wonder came up and said, “Ave Maria in G,” but I didn’t know it. So I stopped and let him sing. Once I wasn’t playing, I got really aware, “Man, I’m with his coffin,” and went into that zone, where it was all hitting me like gangbusters. Being in that little church and realizing that Stevie’s feet were just a few feet away from me was so damn heavy I could hardly breathe. And his family is such sweet people, they was supporting me, when it should have been the other way around.
BRAMHALL II: At the memorial, I was wearing a Holter monitor for my heart because I was suffering panic attacks.
SHANNON: I was so numbed out from emotion that there are a lot of blank spaces in my memory.
WYNANS: I felt that I was there to help support the family.
SHANNON: I couldn’t support anybody. Stevie was my best friend. There was nothing I was ashamed of around him, so the first thing I thought when I realized he was really dead was, “I was supposed to be with him.” His death changed my whole view of the world. I feel now that if you don’t have a faith strong enough to face death, it’s not faith. You look around at the things you love and realize that someday, it’s all going to be gone. But that’s not necessarily bad, because freedom comes when you’re not attached to anything.
BRAMHALL II: I put Stevie on a pedestal, and when he died, I lost it. I became an atheist. I didn’t believe there could be a God who could take away the life of someone who had come from such depths of despair, hopelessness, and near death from drug and alcohol addiction, only to then be sober and starting to help so many people and enjoy his life on every level for the first time. It just felt so cruel and meaningless, I didn’t see the point. I spiraled into a very dark place of my own. Making a person your higher power is dangerous. I’m sure Stevie would’ve agreed that your higher power shouldn’t be a person. He inspired me so much and still guides me today.
BRANDENBURG: The morning after the funeral, I went back to Laurel Land, and many people were laying flowers and notes to Stevie, and his music was playing from all around. Everyone was trying to console each other, but it just felt like this sadness and heartache was never gonna heal.
SUBLETT: The only comfort I could take was that he didn’t go out in the state he had been in back in ’86. He was a clean and sober guy preaching that gospel to everyone who came to see him. I’m certain that he changed a lot of lives in those four years.
HUBBARD: His musical legacy is giant and would have been enough, but his true legacy is so much bigger that. He’s left a path for others to follow, people that get down in that hole so deep you can’t see the top, to help other people recover from a hopeless state of mind and body.
FREEMAN: Fortunately, Stevie got to feel Jimmie’s unconditional love and support for a good while there. Jimmie just loved him so much, and that was real obvious, as was the fact that Stevie worshipped Jimmie.
CONNIE VAUGHAN: Recording Family Style brought them back together. That’s what’s so sad, but what’s so good, too. Stevie was so grateful for every day he lived, and he got to help so many people. He was on a roll.
BENSON: After he died, it struck me that somewhere deep in his genes he knew he wasn’t going to be around forever, and that’s why he played the way he did.
BRAMHALL II: Some people have the DNA of destiny, and everything about Stevie indicated that. He worked harder, he burned brighter, he was more kind. He wanted to touch as many lives as he could. It was like it was written in his fate that he would do all these great things, and I think he knew that on some level.
LAYTON: I had never realized how much of an impact he had on the world, though one would think it would have been obvious to me. Coming home the day after Stevie died, I saw his picture everywhere and the tremendous outpouring of emotion from the world. It had never really dawned on me how big it had all become, because I was so wrapped up in it.
LAPIDUS: I was sitting in the funeral home and it suddenly dawned on me that Stevie was going to be a legend. He never thought of himself in that way.
ALBERT KING: Stevie was one of our best players. I was sure hurt when we lost him.
Family Style was released almost exactly a month after Stevie’s death, on September 25, 1990. The first single was “Tick Tock,” sung primarily by Stevie, with Jimmie delivering a spoken introduction. The chorus suddenly seemed eerily prophetic: “Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, people/Time’s tickin’ away.”
PROCT: The album had been mixed and was ready to go, but Sony was very sympathetic following Stevie’s death
and asked Jimmie if he was okay releasing it. He was, because he was so proud of it and knew that Stevie had also been very happy with it.
RODGERS: An immense sadness washed over me like a wave when I tried to listen to the album to check quality control. I cried like a baby.
PROCT: It was all hard to deal with, but “Tick Tock” was particularly difficult. We agreed to make a video, and it was really just so, so challenging to complete. I couldn’t stop crying. Jimmie was standing up there alone at a microphone instead of with Stevie and the emotions were immense.
Family Style was the highest-charting album of Stevie Ray’s career, a Top 10 hit. Though they had not finalized plans or hired a band, Jimmie and Stevie had planned on touring together.
PROCT: Jimmie and Stevie would have gone on the road to promote Family Style, likely by January, after Stevie completed other obligations. They had not picked a band yet, but it would probably have been new people. Specifics never got to the table, but it was going to be a serious tour.
ABERMAN: At a listening party for Family Style prior to Stevie’s passing, [Sony executive] Tony Martell shook my hand and let me know that he was excited for a Vaughan Brothers tour. The label was very excited and was envisioning all kinds of possibilities.
HODGES: The next album was going to be Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble and then maybe another Brothers album.
SHANNON: Stevie totally lived in the moment. His playing was so immersed in what he was feeling, they became one and the same. If he was in pain, he’d play that pain; if he was happy, he’d play that happiness. He couldn’t separate his playing from his own inner being. Playing music for him was a transmission of something deep inside. He reached as far down into his heart, his soul, and his life as he could reach.
