Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to an accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" procedure caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.
[2] Robbie Basho's finger-picked guitar technique was influenced heavily by sarod playing, and his studies with the Indian virtuoso Ali Akbar Khan.
Basho used unusual open tunings, including a number of variants on "open-C" (CGCGCE), and played a 12-string guitar to recreate the drone that is characteristic of Indian classical music.
Buck Curran of psychedelic folk band Arborea has curated two Robbie Basho tribute albums, We Are All One in the Sun (2010) and Basket Full of Dragons (2016).
The documentary traces the troubled life of Basho with previously uncovered archive material and interviews with Pete Townshend, William Ackerman, Alex de Grassi, Henry Kaiser, Glenn Jones, Country Joe McDonald, Steffen Basho-Junghans and Max Ochs.