Stevie Ray Vaughan died 35 years ago, but his legacy lives on

Ican still remember Aug. 27, 1990, like it was seared into the memory cells of my brain.

I was a college student, on my way to class, and on the radio the DJ had played a succession of songs by Stevie Ray Vaughan. As a young guitarist as well as a budding journalist, that made me happy. I adored SRV and his music. I'd just come off of seeing him in April at Omaha's Civic Auditorium. His show had closed with an encore of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" with so much power that people left the room in silence, like leaving church.

As another song played on Aug. 27th, though, it seemed strange that the radio was going through his entire catalog. Then came the news from the DJ — and I don't say this as apocryphal — in a strained and broken voice: Stevie Ray Vaughan was dead. H