Eric Clapton dedicated his life to the Blues and built an incredible career, being praised by most of his peers and millions of fans worldwide. Over the decades, not many artists impressed him as much as Stevie Ray Vaughan, who tragically died in 1990 at the age of 35 in a helicopter crash, just a few hours after sharing the stage with Eric and many of his heroes.
They were good friends and remained close, especially during SRV’s final years and Clapton gave his opinion on the late guitarist many times, saying some really interesting things about him and how talented he was.
What is Eric Clapton’s opinion on Stevie Ray Vaughan
In Clapton’s opinion, no one came close to Stevie Ray Vaughan as a guitarist when he was alive, saying he was “very high up the ladder” as a musician. “(…) The point about Stevie Ray, for example, is that he had been three years sober before he died. He was living a great, honest life, being a fantastic human being. And again, there was no reason for his death. He was up the ladder very high, musically. There was no one near him.”
“That was my first thought. Maybe it was time for him to go because he couldn’t get any better as a musician. I’d rather think that than the Robert Johnson syndrome. But how the hell do I know? How the hell can 1 say that? In fact he could have gotten better and better and better. So I really don’t think it’s wise to try to surmise why these things happen. Conor’s death (his son) or Stevie Ray’s death,” he told Musician magazine in 1992.
Curiously, during the same conversation, Eric was asked how he described his own style as a guitar player at the time and he said he was inspired a lot by the album “Family Style” (1990), made by Stevie and his older brother Jimmie Vaughan. “It’s inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan, that’s for sure. The album he made with his brother had some of the finest guitar sounds I’ve ever heard. And it had something to do with being on an amplifier very, very low. So you can hear the string on the fingerboard, almost.”
He continued:
“I’ve been trying to play like that more. On the score for Hush, which I’ve just finished, I’ve been playing very, very’ quietly. So if I hit a note and hold it with vibrato you can hear it just sizzling against the fret. But not very loud. You have to strain to hear it. And I love that. It’s different from the big, big sound people are more used to,” he said in the interview with Musician.
Eric Clapton would feel insecure about going on stage after Stevie
Eric really thought Stevie Ray Vaughan was incredible and would feel insecure to go on stage after him. “I remember being fascinated by the fact that he never ever seemed to be lost in any way. It wasn’t ever that he took a breather or paused to think where he was going to go next. It just flowed out of him. Always seemed to flow out of him. Actually even that doesn’t come just with virtuosity, practice or any of those. It’s not a question of doing it over and over again or anything like that. It’s just that he seemed to be an open channel. It just flowed through him. He never ever seemed to kind of dry up.”
“Because when I play, I sometimes stop. Every now and then I just stop and think ‘what I’m going to do know’. I don’t want to repeat myself. So I get caught up somehow. You freeze and most players do. I never saw him do that. So he was channel in some way. I saw him play in London one time. So I sat about six rows back at the Hammersmith Odeon and for about the first 10 minutes. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to take it because it was so loud. I thought ‘I can’t take this’ and actually got used to it. Within 20 minutes after that I was used to it and it was right. It got me, become all right.”
He continued:
“At the same time was kind of like that thing I had to surrender to it completely and in a way. When we were in Alpine Valley I couldn’t let myself do that. I had to put up a bit of resistance in order to keep my own kind of self-esteem up. Because I wouldn’t been able to go on otherwise. I’m not joking. To be completely absorbed by what he was doing, I would have thought “what’s the point?’ And done kind of done a runner and I cleared off, run away,” Eric Clapton said in an interview for the TV special “A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan” (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Clapton felt that something was wrong when his crew members and Stevie boarded the helicopter
Eric Clapton was first a friend of Jimmie Vaughan, having known him from the group The Fabulous Thunderbirds and he grew closer to Stevie after his older brother called Eric in 1986 and asked if he could visit SRV in a “drying-out” clinic in London. He visited the guitarist, showing his support and saying he had been through that himself and was there to help if needed. It was after that meeting that they became really good friends and had the chance to play together a couple of times.
“At that time (of his death) I would say he was one of the greatest electric Blues guitarists in the world, with a style very reminiscent of Albert King, who was his hero. On August 26 we were playing at a ski resort in Wisconsin, in a venue called the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, between Milwaukee and Chicago.”
He continued:
“Stevie Ray opened the show with his band Double Trouble, and watching him on the monitor in my dressing room, I remember thinking, “Man, I’ve got to top the bill after this.” His playing was so fluid. It didn’t seem like he was playing to emulate anybody, it just all came straight from him, seemingly without any effort. It was very inventive, and his singing was great, too. He really did have it all,” Eric said in his autobiography.
At the end of that night, Stevie, Jimmie, Robert Cray and Buddy Guy joined Eric on stage to play a 15 minute version of the classic “Sweet Home Chicago”. “When the show was over, we all hugged good-bye and were rushed off to a series of helicopters that were waiting for us. They were the kind of choppers with big Perspex domes, and as soon as we got in I noticed the pilot using a merchandising T-shirt to clean the windscreen, which was covered in condensation.”
Clapton continued:
“Outside, a thick wall of fog seemed to hover about ten feet above the ground. I recall thinking to myself, ‘This doesn’t look right’. But I didn’t want to say anything in case it promoted fear. After all, the last thing you want on a plane is a crazy person saying,’We’re all going to die’. So I just kept my mouth shut. At that moment, unbeknownst to me, Stevie Ray, who had been due to drive back to Chicago, had found a spare seat on one of the other choppers, along with two of my crew, Nigel Browne and Colin Smythe, and my agent, Bobby Brooks,” Eric recalled in his book.
The guitarist went back to his hotel that night and woke up with the sad news his friends had lost their lives in the tragic airplane crash. The rest of the day they reunited deciding if they should carry on with their tour or cancel out of respect. In an unanimous decision, they decided it was better to continue since it would be the best way to pay tribute to SRV.
Eric Clapton saw parallels between Jimi Hendrix and Vaughan
Eric had the chance to witness the rise of Jimi Hendrix as the best guitarist in the world up close, both as a friend and a fan, and he saw parallels between him and Vaughan. In his opinion, both of them were committed to their music and played as if there were no tomorrow.
“I never really knew Stevie Ray Vaughan well. We played together only a couple of times, but it was enough to be able to link him with Jimi Hendrix in terms of commitment. They both played out of their skin, every time they picked up their instruments, as if there was no tomorrow. The level of devotion they both showed to their art was identical,” he said in his autobiography.
Very few guitar players impressed Eric that much during his life. Interestingly, the first time he heard Vaughan was on the radio while he was driving, when David Bowie’s hit “Let’s Dance” came on. “I was in my car. I remember thinking ‘I have to find out before the day is over who that guitar player is. That doesn’t happen to me very often. About three or four times in my life I felt that way in a car listening to the radio where I’ve stopped the car, pulled over and listened and thought: ‘I’ve got to find out before the end day’. Not sooner or later. But ‘I have to know now who that is,’” Eric Clapton said.