The death of Stevie Ray Vaughan struck a deep chord in me. Back when he was making his breakthrough in the early ’80s, an upstart Akron radio station, WONE, became an early supporter of the guitarist and his band, Double Trouble. I had listened to ONE since it took to the airwaves; therefore, I quickly became a fan of Stevie Ray and his remarkable talent. As his legend grew and his life story became available (this was before the Internet, so whatever information you learned about your favorite artists generally came through the voice on the radio), I soon learned that Stevie Ray had an older, less flashy brother, Jimmie, the longtime axe slinger for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. The T-Birds were enjoying their own wide success in the mid-’80s, with their “Tuff Enuff” single and album. As I found out more about the Texan brothers, I became fascinated at how the Vaughan brothers it mirrored my own life in a small way.
I grew up worshiping my older brother, Budd, especially his drumming skills. He is a more nuanced drummer than I ever was, and much better technically. Budd had a knack for playing any song thrown in front of him, be it Rush, Chicago, Missing Persons or even the fusion jazz of Maynard Ferguson. You name it, he had the patience and diligence to master what was on the record before making it his own. That he was always a beatkeeper first, choosing his moments to display his own pizzazz, speaks volumes about his personality: Finish the job at hand before showing off and having fun. I, on the other hand, never met a drum fill I didn’t love, or an empty space in the music to place them. It would be years later before I would appreciate what Max Weinberg and Stan Lynch were doing with the E Street Band and the Heartbreakers, respectively. You can see how I would correlate my life with Stevie Ray’s: Younger brother who lives in the shadow of older, more talented brother, goes on to become flashier musician, maybe even trying to outshine the sibling. That’s not to say I was bitter. Hardly. Like Stevie Ray, if anyone asked me who my influences as a drummer were, at the top of my list was Budd (just like Stevie always mentioned Jimmie as one of his).
On August 27, 1990, Stevie Ray boarded a helicopter to fly to Chicago after finishing a gig with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and Jimmie. The helicopter crashed in the dead of the night and Stevie Ray Vaughan died at age 35.
