Thirty-five years ago, Eric Clapton lost dear friend Stevie Ray Vaughan when the Texas blues legend's helicopter smashed into a Wisconsin hillside after the pals played a concert on August 27, 1990.

There’s a reason more than one person claimed Stevie Ray Vaughan reduced the stage to a pile of smoking cinders—his guitar didn’t just sing, it blazed. Too bad the same heat that fueled his music also ...