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Fact #42481

When:

Short story:

Stevie Ray Vaughan dies in a helicopter crash in East Troy, Wisconsin, USA, aged 35.

Full article:

THE DEATH OF STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN

An Eye-Witness account, compiled by Johnny Black from new and pre-existing interviews

Greg Rzab, bassist for Buddy Guy : A few weeks before Alpine Valley, Stevie played in The Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor, Michigan. (13 +14 April) and he invited me up to see him play on the second night. I drove up from my place in Chicago, four hours. That was the first time I met his fiancée, Janna Lapidus. He played a fabulous show and we were in the dressing room afterwards, and I saw this gorgeous girl, so I went over, sat down and started talking to her, while Stevie was doing his usual thing of signing every autograph book in the place, and having his photo taken with his fans.

He saw me talking with this girl and he walked over to me and he said, 'Greg ... that's my fiancée. Hands off.'

Now, I stayed that night at a hotel in Ann Arbor, because Stevie told me that Eric Clapton had invited them to go and see him play at The Palace of Auburn Hills, on the fifteenth.

So on that day Eric arranged for a van to take us – me, Stevie, Chris Layton, and Tommy Shannon - to Auburn Hills. We went in the dressing room, Eric was getting ready to go onstage, we walked into the audience of this big basketball stadium. As we made our way to the VIP seats, the audience saw Stevie and they gave him a huge standing ovation.

At the end of the concert, Eric said, 'I have a special friend here tonight, and I'd like to invite him up here to play with me.'

So Stevie went up on stage to play with Eric, who had a green Stratocaster. Eric took off the guitar and put it on Stevie and they did a couple of songs during which Stevie was just phenomenal. It was Eric's guitar, but the sound was pure Stevie Ray Vaughan.

So, after the concert, back in Eric's dressing room, he said he'd love to have Stevie come and do a couple of shows with him at Alpine Valley. Stevie said, 'Awesome! Cool!' So that was when the seed got planted for those shows.


Aug 25, 1990 : Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble and Robert Cray play the first of two nights at The Alpine Valley Music Theater, East Troy, Wisconsin, USA. Jeff Healey joins Clapton onstage for the encore.


Skip Rickert (tour manager, Stevie Ray Vaughan) : I was Stevie Ray Vaughan's tour manager, did all his live performances from 1985.

I didn't know him as well as, say, the band members, but we got on well socially. He invited me, for example to family occasions, barbecues and so on, and he came to some of mine. My family, to this day, still remember Stevie cooking burgers and steaks on the barbecue and making a salsa that seared everybody's mouths. My old aunts were going, 'Who's the guy with the boots and the long hair?'

When we got to Chicago, we booked in at The Four Seasons hotel.

We had bussing available to take us back and forth to the venue. I knew that Eric was using a helicopter company, and I asked Stevie if it was something he wanted to consider. It was very expensive and our budget didn't usually allow for that kind of thing. Stevie asked me to budget it and see what it meant.

It turned out that the company Eric used, Omniflight, was really the only one of note, so I'd have to use them. They told me that for the number of people we had with us we could use two helicopters, but I'd also have to work around Eric's schedule, which looked possible. They actually offered us the helicopters at a reduced rate because Eric had already solidified them if you know what I mean. They were picking up some extra cash.

I took that information to Stevie who said he'd love to, but it was really expensive and, as it turns out, because of the success of the shows and how well Stevie was doing at the time, I think CAA was our agency at the time. Bobby from CAA, who died in the crash was Eric's agent.

Anyway, the agency said they'd pick up the costs if that made it easier for Stevie. So he was delighted and now we didn't have to ride a bus. We knew the venue and we knew it could take three or four hours to get out after a show.

On the first day, I think our two helicopters took off from Meigs Field and landed back in Chicago at in Midway. Those helicopters could take four or five people at the most. I think there was a pilot and three other seats, maybe one more if you squeezed in between. It was more of a weight restriction than capacity.

I remember everybody being quite giddy with excitement about going in the helicopters and seeing the views.

The helicopter entourage was Stevie, his manager Alex, his business manager Bill Vuylsteke, brother Jimmie, Whipper, Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon, Reese Wynans (keyboards). I think Jimmie's wife at that time, Connie, was there and myself.

It was a great flight, a very clear day, Chicago looked great.


Robert Cray : Saturday was a great day. Stevie's brother, Jimmie, came down to the show. We were all taking photos, just clowning around. He was really happy. I'll always remember how he kicked my ass all the time on the guitar. It was inspirational, you know?

Chris Layton (drummer, Stevie Ray Vaughan) : I remember thinking, at Alpine Valley, how good it was that we had put all these demons behind us, we had put so many things to rest. Everybody was so healthy, and our future was so bright. It felt like we really had a chance to do all the things we'd been really trying to do from the beginning.


Robert Cray : Jimmie Vaughan, and Buddy Guy was there all afternoon watching the shows, and we got a chance to chat.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : I spent most of the day of the concert in Stevie’s dressing room. He was so relaxed.


Robert M. Knight (photographer) : Stevie and I just hung out. We were talking about life and death and synchronicity. I said, ‘Oh, did you know that Otis Redding died over here?’” (Redding's plane had crashed in Madison.) Vaughan said he and Redding had a manager in common. It was a spooky, morose conversation.

He said he felt like something was going to happen in his life; that his career was going to explode, but he didn't know how long he'd have because he had a drug overdose and had done a lot of damage to his body. Still, he felt God had given him a second chance. There was just a lot of this interesting stuff we discussed, and I was sort of morose about all of it

Skip Rickert : I have worked with Robert over several years doing projects around my current employer (Santana) and he's a very good photographer.

I can tell you that there are people in this industry who want to do nothing but gain more value for their brand, so they become more valuable. They can sell more photos, more comic books, more magazines, whatever.

During that time period Stevie was working very hard on his rehab program. He was making incredible strides. He had been in the program for several years already, and from 1985 til the day he died he was clean and sober. The first couple of years were rough for him. I went to hundreds of meetings with him.

He carried pieces of paper in his pockets wherever he went with sayings and reminders written on them. His big book was tattered from constant use, he read it all the time.

It brought a different clarity to him as time went on. He became a lot less fearful about being judged. He became very comfortable with himself. He was really getting there.


Donna Ramazzini (catering director at Alpine Valley Resort) : I had to go through his entire menu to make sure that none of the ancient Chinese herbs he was taking in his tea would have any reaction with his food. Everything was fine. He shook my hand, and he had a great show.

Eric Clapton : On the first night, I watched his set for about half an hour and then I had to leave because I couldn't handle it!. I knew enough to know that his playing was just going to get better and better. His set had started, he was like two or three songs in, and I suddenly got this flash that I'd experienced before so many times whenever I'd seen him play, which was that he was like a channel. One of the purest channels I've ever seen, where everything he sang and played flowed straight down from heaven. Almost like one of those mystic Sufi guys with one finger pointing up and one finger down. That's what it was like to listen to. And I had to leave just to preserve some kind of sanity or confidence in myself.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : He was one of the coolest guys in this business. He was all cleaned up and playing so well - so sharp and so focused.

Tommy Shannon : At that point in our career, we really felt like we were coming together as a band and really looking forward to our next record. We were all clean and sober and working together better than ever; it was just, like, something was about to happen musically for us. We felt like we were on the verge of breaking through to something much better than we’d ever done before. Unfortunately, now we’ll never know.”
(Source : http://www.vogelism.com/book/chris-layton-and-tommy-shannon-a-k-a-double-trouble-been-a-long-time-rock-edit/)

Eric Clapton : Stevie Ray had been sober for three years and was at his peak. When he played that night, he had all of us standing there with our jaws dropped. I mean, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan and Buddy Guy were just watching in awe. There was no one better than him on this planet. Really unbelievable.

Skip Rickert : Stevie had decided he did not want to jam on that night, so we did the show on that first day and, to make sure we did not impede Eric's schedule, we had to scoot. After we were done playing we climbed in the helicopters and we left, because they had to get to Chicago and then come back.

The trip was about an hour. Eric usually played a two hour or more set, so we were cognisant that the helicopters had to be back in Alpine Valley when he came off stage.

So we ran offstage, flew back to Midway – I don't think Meigs was open at night – they dropped us off and then they went back.

Aug 26, 1990 : Stevie Ray Vaughan plays his last concert ever, with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and others in the Alpine Valley Music theater, East Troy, Wisconsin, USA.
David Graves (Sheriff of Walworth County, USA) : I have been with the Sheriff's Office since 1976.  In 1990 I was a lieutenant in charge of the jail and S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons and Tactics).

During this time, Alpine Valley Music Theater hosted many big name rock groups such as the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, The Who, Bruce Springsteen ... the list goes on.  In 1988, for example, when I was a sergeant and often in charge of our operation on and off grounds, Alpine hosted 33 concerts in a three month period.

In 1990 these types of concerts continued.  Because of small country roads leading in and out of the theater, traffic was extremely heavy.  Some of the bands were late to their own concerts because they were caught in traffic, so they started to use helicopters to get in and out of the facility.  They would stay in Chicago and fly to and from the concerts.

Skip Rickert : Alpine Valley is a bit of a misnomer. It's at a higher altitude than Chicago, but it's not mountainous. Let's call it a hilly region. We're talking hills of several hundred feet, not thousands.

From the base of the ski resort to the top of the nearest hill might be a thousand feet. They're what we'd call bunny hills, in terms of skiing ability.

The resort is surrounded by a gold course, so obviously it's not mountainous. Our helicopters landed in the golf course, about three or four hundred yards from the backstage entrance of the venue.

It was fortuitous for the people who owned the property because they could create the Alpine Valley amphitheatre without having to move a huge amount of dirt.

I was in communication with Peter Jackson who was Eric's tour manager. I was fairly familiar with Peter because we'd met on several occasions. I remember getting the information on how Eric was going to travel for soundchecks, and how he would travel after the shows, and Stevie was happy for us to schedule around that. He was just happy to be there.


Nathan East (bassist, Eric Clapton Band) : The travel time from Chicago to Alpine Valley was approximately two hours by limo (which was how Stevie travelled there) and only thirty minutes by helicopter which is how we travelled to and from the venue on both days. Eric's contingent flew in four separate helicopters.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : We went just on the Sunday. Buddy and I went to Eric's hotel, The Four Seasons in Chicago, and had lunch with him. Then we all got into limousines to the small airport, Meigs Field, which is now a concert area.

So we took the limos out to the helicopters and Eric and Buddy were gathering to go into one particular copter. Eric had a girlfriend, and his manager with him, and there was a smaller copter that would only fit those four people in there, so I got into another one with Nathan East and Greg Phillinganes – the keyboard player for Eric at the time. I was sitting in the middle, between them, and when we started to lift off there was something wrong. It lifted off a few feet, then it set back down.

So all the other helicopters left but we had to get out because there was a technical problem. So they did some repairs, and while we were standing there, Nathan East had a video camera, and he wanted to record the moment, so I ended up holding it, panning back and forth, it was like a little documentary. Nathan probably still has that.

So they repaired the problem, we climbed in, and we flew. So we landed last at Alpine Valley mid-afternoon, then I went inside the building, met up briefly with Eric and Buddy in their dressing room, and then I said, 'You now what? I'm gonna find Stevie and say hello.'

Stevie's dressing room was a trailer that was set apart from the building. I knocked on the door and he opened it up, standing there with no shirt on but he had his big hat on. Big hugs, 'Hello, man, Howya doin'? Cool'

I ended up eating with him, walking around, hanging with him. Spent most of that afternoon with Stevie, then they did a photo-shoot.

Robert Knight (Photographer) : I had known Stevie for several years, and I was invited to Alpine Valley to do a photo shoot for Fender, a poster with Stevie and Eric in it.

Eric didn't have time for the photo shoot that day. He was late arriving, and he suggested that I should hang with Stevie for the day. He said, 'I'll let the other photographers shoot today, and then tomorrow you can have us to yourself.'

Stevie and I started talking about life and death, and he said, 'You know, I don't think I have much longer to live.' I asked why he would say that, and he replied, 'Well, listen, I was in Switzerland I basically had, like, an overdose in the street. I was throwing up blood. I basically died, was taken to hospital and came back to life.'

He said that was when he knew he had to go sober. He said he didn't know how much more time he had left. He wanted to help young people understand that you don't have to be part of the party.

We continued talking about life and death and he said that Dr. John had told him he was gonna die. I said, 'What?' and he said, 'Dr John told me I don't have long to live.'

Skip Rickert : No-one ever said that to me.

In response to comments about Stevie's 'prophetic dream'...

Greg Rzab : I didn't get that impression at all. Matter of fact, absolutely the opposite. Stevie was very calm, relaxed, very upbeat and joyful, looking forward to playing with Clapton. He was on top of the world.

That kind of thing doesn't ring true to me. I spent most of that afternoon with him. He was in a beautiful place. His career was exploding, he was engaged to this beautiful girl, everything was going right for him. He lived his last day in such a blissful state.


Chris Layton : No, I never heard that. I've heard people say things like, 'I was at that show and Stevie wasn't even standing on the stage, he was actually floating like, two feet up in the air. And he had a purple halo around him', something to do with Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze. You know, the mind is a funny thing because in our own heads and because of emotions and God knows what other factors, people start conjuring all sorts of things.

I'm not gonna say that Robert made all that up. I just never heard anything about it. I can't confirm what somebody else thinks they know.

Robert M. Knight (photographer) : We ended up doing the Fender photo session on the Sunday, when all the other professional photographers had gone. I had a photographic backdrop with me, and Eric and all the guys lined up with their Fender guitars and I got some great shots. I also did some band shots for Stevie, some shots with him and Robert Cray, it was a really jolly good photo shoot.

Then, getting towards show time, Robert Cray was about to go on, and I was able to shoot his live set without lighting because it was still daytime.

David Graves (Sheriff of Walworth County, USA) :  I was working at Alpine Valley Music Theater on the evening Stevie Ray Vaughan's helicopter crashed.  Besides being a 35,000 person concert venue, Alpine Valley is also a hotel/ski resort/golf course.  The ski area has a tall hill just south of the music theater.   

I was working for a private company which handled all the money that was collected during the concert at the gate and concession stands. Most of the artists who played the theater had agreed to receive their fees in cash.  That money was gathered and paid out in the area where I was working.  

Chris Layton (drummer, Double Trouble) : We talked about doing the next record the night that he died, but the only thing he said about it was that he was really excited about it. We would have probably started within the following four or five months.

Nathan East : On the evening of the second show, the father of a young lady I had just met the night before, a fellow private pilot offered me a ride back to Chicago in his twin engine Cessna. I took him up on his offer and he also invited Greg Phillinganes along for the ride. That left two empty seats in the helicopter and Stevie Ray took one of those seats, along with Bobby Brooks (Eric's booking agent), Colin Smythe-Park (our tour manager), Nigel Brown (tour security) and the pilot, all of whom died in the crash. The ill-fated helicopter would never make it back to Chicago. I'm lucky to be alive because if I hadn't taken the Cessna, I'd have been on that helicopter.


Nathan East : Stevie and I spoke briefly in the dressing room before he went on stage saying how much we all looked forward to jamming together at the end of the night. He seemed really happy to be there and was in great spirits.

Robert Knight : I grabbed my stuff and went out to shoot Stevie.

Buddy Guy : I actually wasn't on the show - they invited me up there just as a guest, so I was sittin' on stage from start to finish. And I've seen him play on many nights and this particular night he played incredibly well, he played licks that had neither one of us heard before. Something about that night so special. I don't know if that's because of his death or what but there just something special about that night.

Michael St. John, (music writer Wisconsin State Journal) : By the third song, Vaughan was playing like he wished there were a few more frets on his battered Stratocaster and his Double Trouble trio drummer KO'd the head on his snare drum. Little Sister was full of licks that could have given Vaughan's speaker cabinets third-degree burns. "Y'all ready?" was all the warning the crowd received before a frenzied romp through Superstition, Couldn't Stand The Weather, the musical machine gun bursts of Crossfire and the closer, Voodoo Chile, most of which was fired off one-handed.

Robert Knight : Stevie had made a point of saying he was going to do a special version of Voodoo Chile, just for me. He insisted that I should shoot that. 'I want you to be there.' He was saying that this day was, like, maybe, one of the last days that Hendrix had played. I don't know. There was some connection between Jimi Hendrix, that night, me and Stevie. [He released Purple Haze on that day in 1967, and played Monterey Festival on that day in 1970]

So I shot the show and he comes out for the encore and it's Voodoo Chile, and as I'm shooting, both my arms turned to ice blocks and my camera felt like a piece of frozen ice. It wasn't a cold evening. I kept shooting for two or three minutes but I couldn't take what was happening to my hands, and I left in the middle of the song and went backstage.

Eric Clapton : He had all of us standing there with our jaws dropped. I mean, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan and Buddy Guy were just watching in awe. There was no one better than him on this planet. Really unbelievable.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : I swear there was a glow around him. There was a light around him, which I always found interesting, especially now that we know what happened. He was playing his ass off, and he had this sort of glow around him. He destroyed the audience, went crazy.

Buddy Guy : His set was just incredible, man. He was in a great mood, the guy was jolly. He played like thunder and lightning.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : I played with Stevie quite a few times, and I'd seen him play often, but that was the best he ever played. I swear I saw a glow around him and those were his last moments on stage.

While I was standing at the side of the stage watching this, Eric came and stood next to me. He said, 'There's no way I'm going to be able to follow this.'

Buddy Guy : While Eric was playing, Stevie was standing backstage talkin' to me and he said "Man, you know, we gotta get you into the studio, we don't have nobody to steal licks off no mo' so we gonna get you a recording contract that we have to go in there and do it an-an-an do it ourselves" and him and Eric and Robert Cray and his brother and all them put down around me sayin' 'You'll be recorded before the year is out'.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : One of the regrets in my life is that, at the end of that show there was a big jam session, and Stevie had asked me to play bass on that. But when the moment came for that big encore, Nathan was waving to me that it was time for me to come up, but there were so many people going to the stage, equipment was being moved around, there was such chaos going on that I decided I'd keep things simple and I'd do it next time. So Nathan stayed on stage. I wish I could have that moment again because, of course, there never was a next time because it was Stevie's last time on stage.

Buddy Guy : They said we were gonna jam. They all looked at me to see what we were going to play. I said, 'Man, we all should know something about Sweet Home Chicago.' That's what we did.

Robert Cray : We got a chance to sit in on Clapton's encore, and we played Sweet Home Chicago together. We had this big jam session with everybody on stage, which was a lot of fun.

Chris Layton : Eric introduced Stevie as the world's greatest guitar player, and when he played his first note, it sounded like he bent the string farther than there was fretboard, it was like the fretboard had been like four feet wide, this note just like shot out, and it was like amazing. Cause once again, I remember thinking, just like the very first time I ever heard Stevie ... I thought 'God, I got these chill bumps' it was like this thing ran up my spine. I went "Jesus, what is goin' on?' cause I never heard him play a note like that, quite like that.

Nathan East : We had a wonderful full jam on Sweet Home Chicago to a packed house that night and it really felt like a final celebration of the two nights we performed there. Everyone really played their hearts out!

Robert Knight : Backstage, I think it was Alex Hodges, said, 'Robert what are you doing? Stevie wants you to shoot the encore.' I told him there was something wrong with my arms. There was only a minute or so left.

Stevie came off, walked up to me, and said, 'Why did you leave?'

I rolled my sleeves up and said, 'Steve, look at my arms.' I had goosebumps that looked like they were frosted.'

Stevie said, 'Look at mine,' and he rolled up his sleeves and he had the same thing.


Tad Laszewski (audience) : After the encore performance of all those great musicians, they started to wave and leave stage left. The last to leave the stage was Stevie Ray. He was always known for his Texas black-rimmed hat, which he never took off. Before exiting, he removed it, waved it to the crowd and disappeared into darkness.

John Bezak (audience) : When the concert was over, we walked out the back way, right past where the helicopters were parked. It was an extremely humid night with heavy fog rolling in. The copters were drenched in dew. The doors were open and as we walked by I looked inside and could see that the windows were soaked. Unfortunately, the next thing I said became quite prophetic. I looked at my friend and said, 'How can anybody see where they are going?'

David Graves (Sheriff of Walworth County, USA) : The day of Stevie's concert had been very hot but it cooled at night.  The concert stage is located in the low lying valley where, on these nights, a heavy fog would set in.  That night, visibility was extremely poor.  I remember walking from the back gate of the theater toward my car in the hotel parking lot.  I could barely see the helicopters as they sat on the ground.  I thought to myself, "I can't believe the pilots can fly out of here in this soup."   But, I had seen them do it before with the other bands.  

As it turned out, on this night, they couldn't.  

Skip Rickert : It was getting misty, damp, the temperature was changing, it was the middle of the summer and in that area of the world it can be blazing hot in the day and then it cools off, and moisture develops around these low-lying areas.

When I say it was foggy, I mean I could make out and recognise another person from 100 feet away. My recollection is very clear on this. I could see all four helicopters sitting in the field. So, visibility issues? Bullshit, man.

Nathan East : Directly after the show, Greg and I were driven to a nearby airport and took off in my new friend's Cessna landing safely in Chicago twenty minutes later without incident.

Eerily, a phrase that many pilots use after a safe landing was uttered by our pilot the moment the wheels touched down... "Well, I guess we cheated death again". Little did we know at the time the literal truth in his statement.



Chris Layton (drummer, Stevie Ray Vaughan) : Right after that last show, Stevie and I sat by ourselves on two chairs backstage, on the lawn and the tarmac behind the backstage area, and had a really long talk, about 40 minutes, talking about all sorts of things that we hadn't talked about in a long time, and some that we had never spoken about. We both had a real serenity and peace.

We talked about how he'd made the record with his brother, and he was glad he'd got to do that because it really worked a lot of things out. It was wonderful to do that because he'd wanted to do it his whole life.

At the same time he was really excited about the prospects for our next album, he'd had a lot of great ideas for it.

Then he said, 'Hey, I've got to go to the restroom. I'll be back in a moment.' He walked out and he was gone for about five minutes.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : Eric, Buddy and myself were talking in Eric's dressing room, and then Stevie came in, and Jimmie Vaughan too. Everyone was hugging, congratulating each other, thanking each other, talking about how great it had been. I remember Eric and Stevie examining each other's fingers, looking for callouses and blisters on their fingertips. It was a joyful moment.

Robert Knight : That was when Eric mentioned that Nathan East didn't want to get on one of the four helicopters, because he'd met a girl, and he had a plane, and he could fly to Chicago. I don't remember the details, but there was some reason Nathan East didn't want to go.

So it was thrown out to everybody standing round, 'Does anybody want to go back to Chicago on a helicopter. We've got an open seat on a helicopter.'

At one point, Stevie said, 'Let's go to Chicago and see Buddy Guy play.' And I'm like, 'Well, no, there's only one seat.'

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : Buddy had just opened his new blues club in Chicago, so he invited us to do a jam session at his club, and we were all like, 'Yeah, cool, let's do that.' So Eric was going to get his drummer, Steve Ferrone, to go, and it was all getting co-ordinated. I thought it was great because I'd missed out on playing in the encore.

Stevie wanted to go and see his fiancée, so he wanted to get out of there real quick. I think Jimmie offered him his seat. So Jimmie gave up his seat and Stevie got in there.

Buddy Guy : Stevie was gonna ride back with his brother in the car, I was gonna cook gumbo for them. They ran back in and got Stevie [and said,] "There's a seat on the chopper."

Skip Rickert : About that time, I was in the settlement office and there were four or five accountants there. It was a very profitable date, and the agents were very interested in ticket counts and profit potential.

While I was there, it was brought to my attention that Stevie wanted to depart earlier to go back to Chicago to call his girlfriend Janna.

He had discovered that there was a seat available on one of the helicopters. So, I was fine with that, so long as I knew what he was doing.

I didn't see Stevie's helicopter take off for Midway. I was in the settlement room at that time. I spoke to him maybe fifteen minutes before takeoff just to confirm that I was happy for him to fly back to Chicago on an earlier copter. He didn't need my permission to do that, but he wanted to be sure I knew what was happening.


Chris Layton : When Stevie came back he had all of his bags.

I said, 'Where you going?'

He said, 'I'm going to Chicago.'

He said there was a space on one of the helicopters, and it had been offered to him, and he was gonna go back and call his girlfriend. I said, 'Well, they've got phones here.'

He said, 'No, I've gotta go.'

So I said, 'OK, man.' I told him I loved him, and maybe we'd get some breakfast in the morning before we flew back to Texas. He said, 'Yeah, man, but I want you to know I love you.'

Greg Rzab : Then Eric's manager came and said, 'OK, guys, the weather's bad and it's getting worse. We gotta get out of here now.'

Buddy Guy : I was nervous when I walked out and saw the fog.

Bob Kenny (helicopter pilot) : There was some low ground fog, and some cars leaving the parking lot were kicking up dust, but it was nothing to be concerned about.

Lt. David Starks (Walworth County PD) : Fom talking to helicopter pilots that I know, that particular model of helicopter (a Bell 206B Jet Ranger), if you have humid, hot weather, the front windshield, tends to fog up very quick.

Greg Rzab : Four vans took us out from the dressing rooms to the helicopters. We got out there and the weather was horrible, but the copters were all revved up ready to go. And it was, 'Everybody just get in the copters'.

Brad Wavra (production manager, Alpine Valley) : I helped put them in the helicopters, and watched them change seats to balance the weight.

Greg Rzab : I went to climb into the one with Eric and Buddy, but it was full, so it was, like, 'Well, man, just get into any one.' So I went to this other copter, and I was just about step into that helicopter when Eric poked his head out and said, 'Let's not get separated' because we were all going to the same hotel. 'Come back in this one'.

So they took one gentleman out of Eric's helicopter to make room for me. He went into the other helicopter and then Stevie got in. I was a split second from climbing aboard that helicopter.

Our copter was Eric, his girlfriend, Buddy and me in the back and Roger Forrester in the front. The fog and the condensation meant you couldn't see out. Someone outside took off his t-shirt and wiped the moisture off the bubble of the helicopter but, as soon as he did that, it immediately fogged over again. You couldn't see out.

Brad Wavra (production manager, Alpine Valley) : I wiped down the windshield with my t-shirt and sent them up in the air with a thumbs up... and was probably the last one to see them alive.


Greg Rzab : We were like, 'Wow, this is crazy.'

Greg Rzab : It was about 12.30 am when we watched the first two helicopters take off. We could see their lights and the propellers turning.

The fog was so dense that as soon as they lifted off they immediately disappeared into the fog.

Roger Forrester (manager, Eric Clapton) : We had four helicopters and Eric and I were in one directly behind it when it suddenly disappeared from vision.

Lt. David Starks (Walworth County PD) : The pilot (Jeff Brown), it was his first time flight into that area, and he wasn't familiar with the terrain.

Greg Rzab : We were in the last helicopter that took off, and it was shaking and banging, not a smooth ride at all. The machine was shaking, it was dark, fog everywhere, and all I could see was that in the front panel of our helicopter there was a green light blinking.

Eric said, 'Do you think we should be doing this?' It was very frightening, so I said, 'Well, we don't really have a choice. We're lifting off.'

We lifted straight up in the air for a couple of minutes which, apparently, Stevie's didn't.

Lt. David Starks : The pilot went up vertical, probably what he thought was high enough in normal circumstances, to clear telephone poles, street lights or radio towers, but he wasn't high enough to clear that hill.

Nathan East : There was a man-made ski slope, about two hundred feet high, just behind the venue and in the dark of night, they flew into the only hill in the area.

Sheriff David Graves : The chopper never cleared the ski hill.  No one heard it go down.  Most concert goers had left or were leaving. The dense fog seemed to deafen the sound of the bird as it moved upward over the hotel, headed south.

Skip Rickert : No-one heard a thing. The helicopter took off, headed towards Chicago, but then veered off to the right, so it was heading back towards Alpine Valley, and it smashed into the backside of this hill, no more than three-quarters of a mile from the golf course. The landmass of the hill muffled the sound. The fog obscured the view. There was no fire, no glow in the dark, nothing like that.

The pilot went up over the hill and then came back down into the backside of the hill. He was on the other side. That's why you couldn't see it or hear it.

From my perspective, it can only have been operator error or mechanical failure that killed those people.

Greg Rzab : We knew nothing about any of that. We had lifted above the fog and the helicopter settled down into a perfectly calm flight pattern and we flew to Chicago. I remember we could see miles and miles of traffic jam, which was the reason why they'd scheduled the helicopters. Alpine Valley is notorious for its traffic jams. There's really only one road into the ski resort.



Greg Rzab : I think it was about a 90 minute helicopter ride, and I remember Eric pulled out a hand-held Tetris game, put on his glasses and played Tetris for most of the journey.

When we landed at the airport, and this was very spooky for me, the other two copters had already landed. There was limousines waiting to take everyone on to their destinations. So we got into one of the limousines and drove off. I remember looking out the rear view window and seeing another limousine waiting on the tarmac, with its trunk open to collect the luggage, engine running and the exhaust coming off. It was waiting for Stevie, but that helicopter never arrived.

In the limo, Eric invited us back to his hotel for a drink but Buddy said, 'No, you can just drop us off at my club.' So Eric took us back to Buddy's club, and there was a queue of people outside and when the limo drew up everybody turned and looked. So we had big hugs and promised to meet up again for the jam session. Eric went back to his hotel, and Buddy and I went into the club and relaxed with couple of cognacs, and chilled.

So I hung out with Buddy for a while, then I drove home to my house which was about an hour away, exhausted, went to bed.

Skip Rickert : We knew we would be subject to the helicopters coming back to pick us up, and it would be at least a two hour wait.

So everyone chilled in the dressing rooms and just waited because we knew it was going to be a long night. There were cocktails, backstage revelry, just a good feeling because it had been such a great show.

With Eric and Stevie gone, though, things were winding down. The load out had to be done.

The weather noticeably got worse. You could see the fog rolling in. It got so bad that there was doubt about whether it was safe for the helicopters to pick us up from the golf course.

Brad Wavra was talking with the helicopter company and the pilots, and we learned there was an old Playboy club about thirty or forty miles north that had a runway. So we piled everybody in the vans we had available and drove up there, where the fog was not so bad.

We got to the Playboy club about 2.30 in the morning, and two helicopters landed, we all piled in and took off. We went straight up, saw the lights of Chicago and headed that way. Looking down, though, you could see that the fog was now like a thick cloud that had settled over the area. You couldn't see anything.

So I had the headphones on and I could hear our pilot, who had veered off course and was talking to someone at O'Hare Airport. And I remember him asking if they had heard anything from some particular aircraft. The answer was no, there had been no contact. So our pilot says, 'Well, if you do, ask him to phone home.'

It meant nothing to me at the time, but of course I realised later he had been talking about Stevie's helicopter.

When we landed at Midway, there were already two helicopters on the ground. We were in two helicopters so, to me, that meant all four helicopters were accounted for. There was a limo waiting there, and they said they'd been told to wait for us. So the whole lot of us piled in, and again it didn't dawn on us that this was the limo that had been meant to collect the guys from Stevie's helicopter.

It must have been about 3.30 or 4am when we got to the hotel, but I still had to put my schedules for the next day, I call them my Daily Planets, under everybody's doors. And, of course, I put one under Stevie's door because, as far as I knew, he was in there fast asleep. Then I went to bed.

Aug 27, 1990 : At 4:30 am, Civil Air Patrol is notified of the accident, ultimately locating the crash site at 6.15am.Helicopter is found on the side of the hill.


Jim Wincek (director of marketing, Lakeland Medical Center) : When the other helicopters arrived in Chicago, they notified authorities. The Civil Air Patrol put two and two together and started a search.

Lt David Starks (Walworth County PD) : The helicopter was reported missing and we started searching that next morning.

The Civil Air Patrol, a volunteer group of people, assisted us with locating the helicopter. One of their members was out on patrol with one of our uniformed deputies, Rick Schriever, and they went up on the hill from the other side. Rick died several years ago from cancer.

They parked the squad car on Kniep Road on the South Side of the hill, towards Chicago, and walked in along Candlewood Drive, maybe a quarter of a mile from the road.

I got to work around 7.30 that morning and immediately the Sheriff, Dean McKenzie, says, 'Oh, they're looking for a helicopter.' Then he says, 'You're in charge.'

So I went to my squad car to head for Alpine Valley and as I did that, Rick Schriever called me up on the radio and told me they'd found the wreckage on the hillside.

Sheriff David Graves : At about 7:00am the next day I reported for work at the Sheriff's Office.  The temperature was already in the 90s.  As I entered the building, I was met by a fellow Lieutenant, David Starks, who advised me that Vaughn's helicopter never arrived in Chicago.  Starks, who was trained in search and rescue, stated he was on his way to conduct a search for the aircraft in the area of the Alpine Valley ski hill.  

We debated calling the SWAT team out so we could have more personnel for the search, but we decided the search wasn't a SWAT function.  Starks asked me if I wanted to go along on the search.  I told him I had too many meetings and besides, I had spent the entire previous day at Alpine. I wished him luck and told him to be careful in the heat.  

No-one had heard or seen anything unusual when the helicopter left the ground, so we didn't know if they had landed somewhere else or crashed away from the theater.  

Sheriff David Graves : Later that day, the helicopter was located toward the top of the ski hill.  Deputy Schriever (who is now deceased) was one of the first deputies on the scene. When I spoke with him he was visibly shaken by what he had found.   I believe members of the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian volunteer group, were the first ones to find the remains of the crash.  

It appeared the helicopter blade had struck the ski lift which forced it to the ground.  

Bill Bruce (National Transportation Safety Board investigator) : It was a high-energy impact at a shallow angle.

Lt David Starks : The fog had dissipated by about 8.00am. You could see clearly but it was already very hot and humid, just sweltering out there, approaching 100 degrees.

So I put a call out to get detectives to the site, and then with the help of the CAP cadets we started marking out all the crash debris, and where the bodies were located, with flags. Then we diagrammed the scene so there would be a record. We had eight or nine detectives, four of five uniformed deputies, and ten or more cadets. Later on the Transportation Safety Board sent out a couple of people to help investigate.

The down slope, where everybody skis, is on the North Side of the hill. The South Side is elevated considerably. There's a road that goes round on the North Side of that hill. It's a much higher elevation on the South Side so, when you walk in, you're already close to the top of the hill.

When they got to the top of the hill, they looked down and saw where the helicopter had impacted. It's no more than half a mile from the back of the theatre, but you can't see it because of the terrain.

The helicopter rotor blades actually hit the ski lift cable that pulls people up the slope behind the resort. It was about three quarters of the way to the top where the helicopter went into the hill.

When those rotor blades stopped, their energy was transmitted into the body of the helicopter, which would then start to turn and, from all of our measurements and observations, they were all thrown out of the helicopter as it came apart.

The helicopter did not explode, but all the aircraft fuel was spread all over the area and we had to be very careful not to make sparks or allow anybody to smoke, because it could all have gone up in flames. It covered the debris, the ground and the bodies.

While we were looking around the crash site, I saw a hat on the ground and I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It was Stevie Ray Vaughan's black silver-bangled hat and I wanted his family to have it. I took it down and locked it in my squad car right away. I clearly remember having Stevie's hat in my hand and, later in the day, I gave it to his brother Jimmie.

Another thing was that the musicians had been paid in cash, so Stevie Ray Vaughan's manager had a case full of money in the helicopter, and it got scattered all over the scene of the accident. It was covered in diesel fuel, and the cadets staked out where every bill was found, and after it was all collected and counted, we went to the office at Alpine Valley, and it turned out we had found every single nickel.



I had men stationed at each of the little wooden bridges over the creek behind Alpine Valley Resort, so that no-one could come onto the site. I also had someone on the top to watch from up there. By mid-morning, though, we had news crews out of Milwaukee flying over in helicopters, and the downdraft from their rotor blades was blowing things around, so we had to call the FAA and make it a no fly zone.

All the photographs and the police reports should be available because Wisconsin has an open records law. You'd have to write to Dave under an Open Records request and they'd have to give you everything. There'd probably be a charge.



Jim Wincek (director of marketing, Lakeland Medical Center) : All the bodies had been thrown free of the wreckage. There was no sign of a fire ... and all were pronounced dead at the scene.


Sheriff David Graves : The cash I spoke about earlier was scattered around the crash site, but it was all recovered.  


Roger Forrester (manager, Eric Clapton) : We were not aware of the tragic circumstances until the early hours when daybreak broke and they discovered it on a ski slope directly behind (where) we had just performed.

Skip Rickert : Alex Hodges called me not long after six, very matter of fact, stone cold. 'I've got awful news. Stevie's been killed. Call the band and let's all meet in my room.' I said, 'Alex, this is the cruellest joke you have ever played on me.' I could not comprehend how that could even remotely be possible. Nothing from the night before indicated that was possible.

His reply was, 'I really wish that it were.'

I couldn't grasp it. Even thinking about it now, it seems surreal.

We all got together and everyone's crying. Things like the pilot talking to O'Hare and the limo at Midway suddenly started to make sense. To escape the grief and the shock, I went into organisation and logistics mode.

We had to think about how to get the band out of a hotel surrounded by paparazzi. Jimmie and Alex were tasked with going back to Wisconsin to positively identify the bodies, and take care of the release documents and all those things.


Tommy Shannon : I didn't find out 'til the next morning and our manager Alex Hodges called me. I can't put in words how I felt you know, he said one of the helicopters went down last night that Stevie was in and they reported no survivors and that's probably the worst moment of my entire life, I mean we shared things we'd never tell anybody else - ever. He was the best friend I ever had.

Chris Layton : Alex was trying to be as gentle as possible, said he was with Roger Forrester, Eric's manager and that-that one of the helicopters, the one that Stevie was on, didn't make it back, it was 98% - that's the way I remember him sayin' - 98% certain that there was no survivors and I thought this can't be. I remember I went and ran and got security and made them open Stevie's door just to prove that this was like a nightmare. 'Member went and opened the door and the door opened up and there's the bed was untouched - he had never made it back. The radio was on like when they do turn-down service and I heard the first report of it over the radio right then as I was standin' by his bed.

Tommy Shannon (bassist, Double Trouble) : I was really shocked when it happened and devastated, 'cause he was the best friend I ever had in my life and to this day, I still love him.

Tommy Shannon: "The whole thing felt like a dream…or a nightmare. I remember, after we got the news, a security guard let me and Chris into Stevie's room, and when we saw that the bed was still made, that it hadn't been slept in, that's when it started to feel real to me."

The strange thing is, when we were walking in, the radio was on and that Eagles song, the one with the line 'I may never see you again' [Peaceful Easy Feeling], was playing. I always thought that was so eerie."
(Source : http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/double-troubles-chris-layton-tommy-shannon-on-stevie-ray-vaughan-265649)


Nathan East : I'll never forget the phone call from Eric's manager (Roger Forrester) the next morning, informing me that one of the helicopters had gone down and Stevie Ray Vaughn was dead. This was the same helicopter I had flown to and from Alpine Valley the day before and to the final show. It was the saddest day of my life to learn that my friends had lost their lives in this tragic accident.

Greg Rzab (bassist, Buddy Guy Band) : About 7.30am, I don't remember exactly, but my phone rang and it was my mother. She said, 'Thank God!' All the news reports were saying that Clapton had been killed in a helicopter crash, and she knew I was flying with Eric.

So I called the Four Seasons, where Stevie was staying, and Tommy Shannon answered, and I could hear him sobbing, and all he said was, 'It's Stevie.'

Buddy didn't know yet, so I called his house, and he double-checked and called me back.

When I learned that Stevie's helicopter had crashed, that was a life-changing moment for me, because that could have been the end, but I'm thankful that I'm still standing here.

Tommy Shannon : It shook the faith that I had at the time very deeply because I think Stevie’s death brought the living reality of acknowledging death for the first time in my life. I don’t want to get morbid or anything, you can use this or not - it’s up to you. But it’s like after he died I started reading books about dying and I’ve realized in my life that I have to find faith that can withstand death. And that’s something I’m working on and I’m very happy to say that I am slowly coming to understand this - the impermanence of everything. Everything dies and everything’s born, nothing’s really mine - I’m just passing through.
I remember one thing stood out when I heard Stevie died. I had this thought that I was supposed to have been with him. Now I can’t explain that really, except that we had done everything together, then all of a sudden it was like he was gone. And I thought well, I got left behind here, I wonder why? I’m not sure why still, but I’m glad I’m still here.
(Source : http://www.daveonbass.com/nl4.htm)


Brad Wavra : I helped gather things from the wreckage, and me and Jimmie Vaughan found Stevie's cross necklace in the gas-soaked mud.

Lt. David Starks : I did the press releases for Entertainment Tonight and the other news media, and they were asking questions like, 'Were they torn apart?' 'Did they get cut up by the helicopter blades?' They were asking these questions in front of family members and friends.


Greg Rzab : I took the bus from Chicago to Toronto, because we were playing a big outdoor festival, with B.B. King and Albert Collins in Toronto, at Ontario Place. Buddy went to the funeral and then flew up to Toronto in time for the show.

Keri Leigh (author/friend of SRV): I attended the candlelight vigil at Austin's Zilker Park that night, the mood of the crowd just didn't fit with the way I was feeling. It was too crowded; too loud - like being at a rock concert - not what I had in mind. I ended up over at Antone's, Stevie's favorite club, where it seemed like every musician who ever knew SRV (in this town, that's a lot) was packed onto the stage.


Nathan East : There was one more strange twist: Two days later, a storm came through Chicago and high winds destroyed several airplanes parked on the tarmac of the same airport we landed, including my friend's Cessna. So our late night flight after the concert was the final mission of his airplane as it was totalled beyond repair within 48 hours of our landing. I'm eternally grateful to my friend for saving my life and we remain friends to this day!

August 30, 1990, first memorial service, at Laurel Land Cemetery in Dallas
Skip Rickert : I went to Dallas to meet up with Stevie and Jimmie's mom, and then out to the airport to meet Jimmie with Stevie's remains, and take them to the funeral home.

Then there was a private and a public funeral. At that point my logistic work was done, so I didn't know what to do. I tried to help out with organising the funerals. I remember sitting at Martha's kitchen table handling the phone calls, taking notes so the family knew who was calling.

Jimmie honoured me. He's a man's man, he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He allowed me my own private goodbye to his brother, which was not accorded to many. I'll never forget his kindness in doing that. It was a closed casket and he didn't allow many people to see Stevie.

The private funeral with family only was the next day, and then Dr John delivering a wonderful eulogy, Bonnie Raitt and Z.Z.Top came. I was honoured to be a pallbearer.

B.B.King : Stevie was on tour with Eric (Eric Clapton) when he died in that crash in 1990. When I first got the news on the radio, I heard it was Eric who’d died. Later I found out it was Stevie. I hurt just as bad.

Whenever he’d come to see me, he’d sit down, lean against my legs and talk. He had a thing about him that just made him lovable.

Bob Dylan : He was a sweet guy. Something else was coming through him besides his guitar playing and singing. (USA Today)