Enter Stevie Ray Vaughan
As the 1970s ended and a new decade began, different genres of music like techno-pop, punk, glam rock, and disco were starting to replace the classic rock bands, especially their lead guitar players. For a while, it seemed like it just wasn’t cool anymore to be the frontman of a rock group. But then Stevie Ray Vaughan arrived on the scene.
Photo by Andrea Laubach, Retna UK, Shutterstock / Eugene Adebari, Shutterstock
Booze and drugs are habits that, unfortunately, many musicians know (or knew) only too well. But Vaughan went deep, and it even worried Muddy Waters, the veteran bluesman. “Stevie could perhaps be the greatest guitar player that ever lived,” Waters stated while Vaughan was still alive. “But he won’t live to get 40 years old if he doesn’t leave that white powder alone.”