Screenshot via YouTube video "Stevie Ray Vaughan 5-6-90 Jazz Fest NOLA"

Video: Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Final Jazz Fest Performance

Stevie Ray Vaughan, one of the most talented players to ever pick up a six-string, was born on this day in 1954. The incomparable guitarist was at the forefront of a 1980s blues rock revival before a tragic helicopter crash cut his life short on August 27, 1990. His untimely death came one month before the release of Family Style, the Texas icon’s only album of collaborations with his brother, fellow guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.

Just a few months before his death, Vaughan took the stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for an all-too-brief, yet altogether stunning, display of guitar wizardry. The 14-song set included an extended sit in from his brother Jimmie, along with covers of Freddie King (“In the Open”), Guitar Slim (“The Things That I Used to Do”), Buddy Guy (“Mary Had a Little Lamb”), Stevie Wonder (“Superstition”), Jimi Hendrix (“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”) and more. All of it is captured with quality audio in the video below, which was posted to YouTube in 2014.

Happy Birthday, SRV!