Number 8

Stevie Ray Vaughan

SRV was simply the greatest blues guitarist of all time. Sorry, folks, but it’s true. If you disagree, you’re wrong. He could bend a guitar string and hold it for 14 seconds and make you cry, or he could fill 1 second with 64 notes and blow your mind. He was really, really, REALLY good at blues guitar.

There is footage of Stevie showing up for a guitar check where he is clearly hung over. He has piss-pot eyes, sagging skin, and walking like he just fell down the stairs. But he puts that guitar in his hands and holy shit...he’s reborn. Hell…I’M reborn. What this guy could do on guitar is so far above other blues players that it seems he’s almost not even playing the same form of music. But he is playing the same form of music. Just like Johnny Cash’s version of Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt” transforms the original into a totally different meaning, every song SRV covered transformed that song into something more magnificent, and the originals he wrote transformed the entire genre of the blues into something totally and completely new. Matter of fact, if the blues has one fault (and it might have only one fault), it’s that it is the same thing over and over again. Pretty much 5 blues songs have been written and they have had the lyrics change and that’s it. But the way Stevie played the blues…it’s the first advancement in the form since Robert Johnson set the groundwork for the art known as Rock and Roll.

Stevie Ray Vaughan never seemed lost at what to do next when playing guitar, and, as a guitar player myself, I can tell you, that is a very, very rare gift indeed. Some of the greatest guitarists of all time struggle with that, including, by their own admission, George Harrison and Eric Clapton. And Stevie did that all while singing at the same time. Let that sink in.

On August 27, 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan and four others were killed in a helicopter crash after performing at the Alpine Valley Music Theater. Much like my number two on this list, it was pilot error. A senseless waste of an incredible talent. I remember hearing it on CNN. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it because Stevie had literally just broken through to “household name” status. He was on MTV a ton. He was on the radio a ton. He was in magazines a ton. And then he was gone.