Guitarist Colonel Bruce Hampton, aged 70

Colonel Bruce Hampton, guitarist and elder statesman of the jam-band community, died after collapsing on stage during the encore of his own 70th birthday celebration.

Hampton was close to wrapping up Hampton 70 – a concert featuring members of Phish, Widespread Panic and Leftover Salmon – when he collapsed at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia.

His death was confirmed in a statement from his family.

Former bandmate Jeff Mosier wrote on Facebook that he “could have never imagined a more joyful departure”.

Hampton, born Gustav Berglund III, began his music career in the late 1960s with the Hampton Grease Band, which toured with the Grateful Dead.

In the early 1990s, while leading the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Hampton was widely credited with helping inspire and foster a new wave of improvisational “jam band” artists – including Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews and Phish.

Most recently, Hampton was leading a weekly residency at the Vista Room in Atlanta.

“A Col Bruce show brings a lot of joy and excitement, especially in the world we live in right now,” Vista Room co-owner Mike Rizzi told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“You forget about things when you walk through the door.”

In Basically Frightened: The Musical Madness Of Colonel Bruce Hampton, a documentary on Hampton, actor Billy Bob Thornton referred to Hampton as “the eighth wonder of the world”.

Colonel Bruce Hampton.