EAST TROY, WI (WTAQ) – It was 25 years ago Thursday when electric guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan and four others died in a helicopter crash after a show at Alpine Valley near East Troy.
The 35-year-old Vaughan had just performed with Eric Clapton when one of four choppers heading to Chicago crashed into a ski slope, less than a half-mile after takeoff.
Vaughan was considered to be on the verge of stardom when he collapsed at a show in 1987, blamed on an out of control drug and alcohol problem.
After rehab, Jason Hanley of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says Vaughan was back to playing a “ferocious” guitar. As Hanley put it, “Who knows what he would have done next.”
Vaughan and his blues band Double Trouble were inducted into the rock hall earlier this year. Hanley says it guarantees that Vaughan’s work will be “honored and preserved.”
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
