On this date, August 27, in 1990, a Monday, I heard on the radio that a helicopter heading for Chicago's Midway International Airport had crashed.  The flight was coming from a blues festival at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin. Initial reports still weren't certain as to who had died in the crash, but based on the performers at the show, it appeared that it was either Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughn. 

I was praying that it was Eric Clapton.

By 1990, whatever rock 'n' roll cred Clapton had garnered with the bands Cream and Blind Faith had long since dissipated, and adult-contemporary radio was overplaying his sappy, middle-of-the-road pop ballad Wonderful Tonight.  And then, on August 5, 1976, a visibly drunk Clapton declared on stage: 

"Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. I don't want you here, in the room or in my country . . . Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the w*gs out. Get the c**ns out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man. Fucking w*gs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard w*gs . . . The black w*gs and c**ns and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans don't belong here, we don't want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don't want any black w*gs and c**ns living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake? Throw the w*gs out! Keep Britain white!

The reference to Jamaicans is particularly ironic, as one of Clapton's first solo hit singles was a white-boy, soft-rock cover version of Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff.  The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Clapton made a fortune off of a Jamaican song, yet still hurled racial epithets and "Get Out!" warnings toward Jamaicans from the stage. What an asshole!

But it wasn't Clapton who died on this date.  It was the at-the-time underrecognized blues guitar genius Stevie Ray Vaughn who died in the crash.  Vaughn had a flamboyant style in both fashion and music, and could cover Jimi Hendrix solos note for note and play them as well, if not better, than Hendrix himself.  I  was lucky enough to have seen Vaughn perform a couple of times at the Saratoga Spring Performance Center in upstate New York, but many people only heard of Vaughn for the first time after the helicopter crash.  

Stevie Ray Vaughn died for Eric Clapton's sins.

As predicted, Tropical Storm Nine has become a hurricane, and has been given the name Ida.  And also as predicted here, its projected course is starting to veer eastward and Atlanta is currently within the cone of its probable path.  In other words, we've got yet another hurricane heading toward Atlanta next week.

I hate being right about these things.