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SRV & DT



> Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 09:59:29 -0600
> From: "Jim Sigel" <drjimmy_mrjim@hotmail.com>
> blues.  But I still think he was awesome.  Let me tell you a story.
Gather
> 'round kiddies and listen...  Once upon a time, there was a white-boy
blues
> guitarist named Stevie...

(edit for brevity)

> However, the very next day, SRV's helicopter crashed in the very fog I had
> been partying in at the lakeside cottage of a friend which was a few miles
> away from where the crash took place.  We didn't hear about it until the
next
> day when we got back to Chicago.  After seeing SRV that night though, he
was
> more than what his recordings reveal.  Much more.  His death really was a
> shame, it really was.  He was after all, only a blues player, but great
diggly
> damn, what a great blues player he was.
>


I rather enoyed that.  That was the day the music died for me.  August 26,
1990.

This actually ties in a bit with my getting away from loving The Who, as we
were arguing about earlier.  After Pete shut the band down in 1983, I was a
bit lost, musically.  My two best buddies gave me endless crap about loving
the "washed up" Who.  Being very young men, such ribbing really meant
something.  I acutally gave a damn about what my friends thought of *my*
band.  These two buddies were into SRV&DT in a big way.

Anyway, I was moping around about the demise of The Who, and the fact that
my Who experiences were inferior to those lucky people who had seen Moon,
and that Pete had damaged their legacy.  My friends would often tease me
about the lousy legacy of my band, but they convinced me to see SRV + The
Fabulous Thunderbirds at Merriwether Post Pavillion (in Maryland).  We're
sitting on the lawn (which I have never done since) and I was pretty bored
through The Fabulous Thunderbirds.  I did not want to like SRV, because that
would mean that my buddies would have won the argument.

When SRV & DT came out, I was hooked.  I hated to admit it to my buddies,
but he was great.  Like you said, Jim, he had to be seen live to be
appreciated.  Simply fantastic.  I saw 3 of their shows that year, including
the last one in a 2,000 person auditorium in Washington that was one of the
best shows I've ever seen.  By great show, I mean that I had a great time.
He was fantastic all 3 times.  He had tremendous energy (from doing coke as
it turned out), charisma, and an all-around fire in his belly.

Anywho, the year SRV died was the year after The Who went "On Ice".  Music
was dead to me at that point.  The thrill of live music is what it is all
about for me and my two favorites were dead.

Thanks for sharing, Jim.  Just what I needed on a Monday - thoughts of death
and opportunities lost ;-)

Jeff