Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 in Dallas, Texas – August 27, 1990) was an American blues guitar legend, known as one of the most influential electric blues musicians in history.

Equipment

There are many falsities reported about Stevie's stage equipment, but here are the facts, as reported by his guitar technician Rene Martinez, who worked with Stevie's equipment for many years. Any discrepencies are false.

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For guitars, Stevie used some acoustics and a Hamiltone Custom, but he mainly used Fender Stratocasters. His most famous was a Brazilian rosewood Strat that had "1962" stamped on the neck and body, but "1959" written on the pickups. It was not a 1963 in any way. He never used bass frets, but did use "jumbo" Dunlop 6105's. It also had a lefty tremolo installed and was known as "Number One" or "First Wife", at least once being called "Number One Wife" in an interview with Stevie. It had a "D-Size", oddly shaped thick neck that was perfect for his large hands and thick fingers. It was taken apart by Fender employees to make 100 exact copies, and these facts were varified as can be read in a Guitar World magazine. The pickups were never overwound, but were raised very high. This also puts to bed the rumor that it was burried with Stevie, when in actuality all of Stevie's guitars are in possession of Jimmy Vaughan, his older brother.

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"Lenny" was a 1963 maple-neck that was named after his wife, Leonore. It had a very bright, thin sound. Supposedly, Stevie found this guitar in a pawnshop, but couldn't afford to buy it. One of Stevie's roadies, Byron Barr, bought it and he and Lenora presented it to Stevie for his birthday in 1976. According to the story, Lenora was supposed to pay Byron for the guitar; she started a pool with her friends to collect the money, but it was Stevie who eventually settled the debt, with cash and a leather jacket. Its neck was originally a thin rosewood, but Stevie replaced it with a thicker non-Fender maple neck.

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"Charley" was a Stratocaster built for him by Charley Wirz, a friend. Three Danelectro "lipstick tubes" are the pickups, and it had a hardtail bridge.

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"Red" was a 1964 with a lefty neck that let him emulate the sounds of Otish Rush and Jimi Hendrix.

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He used a Dallas Arbitor Fuzz Face, many different Ibanez Tube Screamers, Vox or Dunlop Wah's, and at one point a Univibe, though he usually used his rotating speaker cab.

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Amps were a blonde '64 Fender Twin, a 100-watt Marshall JCM 800 half stack, a 150-watt Dumble Steel String Singer, two '64 Fender Vibroverbs (they are consecutively numbered: 5 and 6; Stevie was very proud of having obtained such low serial numbers). He also had a pair of 4x10 Fender Super Reverbs. At some venues he also had several Marshall full stacks for volume.

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