Number One is quite possibly the most iconic guitar in the blues, belonging to the most iconic blues player, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Stevie played many guitars over the years, but there was just something special about the Fender Stratocaster that he played in every show and on every album from the moment he acquired it. His relationship with Number One was almost romantic in nature — he even called the guitar his “first wife.”
He received the guitar in 1973 from Ray Henning, the owner of the Heart of Texas music shop in Austin. The story goes that SRV saw the sunburst Fender in Ray’s shop and immediately knew it was special, without even playing it. He arranged a trade with the owner, switching it out for a 1963 Stratocaster. Henning happily traded guitars, since the ’63 was in much better condition than the soon-to-be Number One.
In an interesting twist, the previous owner of SRV’s new Strat was a big name in music at the time, Christopher Cross. He supposedly traded the instrument for a Les Paul because he was looking for a thicker sound. (Stevie, by contrast, had no problem finding a thick sound with it!)
The guitar itself was a mix-and-match affair. It comprised a 1962 body, a 1963 neck, and pickups from 1959. The instrument was also well used by the time Stevie put his hands on it in ’73, notwithstanding the nightly abuse he put it through over the next 27 years.
Stevie Ray and his guitar tech, Rene Martinez, modified the guitar quite a bit over the years, usually because of necessary repairs. SRV was quoted as saying, “[Number One] was rebuilt more times than a custom Chevy.”
The neck took the brunt of the abuse. SRV was not a tall man, standing only 5’5”, but he had large, strong hands. The chunky, D-shaped neck was a perfect fit for him, but his heavy playing and finger strength, combined with the ridiculously heavy-gauge strings he used (generally 13s or even thicker!), were no match for the fretboard. The neck was refretted so many times, in fact, that the fretboard had to be re-profiled just to continue using the guitar.
Eventually, the neck was damaged beyond repair. (The time that SRV threw it against a wall, breaking the headstock, did not help.) Martinez replaced the neck with one from another of Stevie’s Strats, but that neck broke a month before Stevie’s death when a piece of stage rigging fell on it!
Another mass casualty of Stevie’s guitar playing were tremolo arms, which he would break constantly. From the heavy strings and extra springs in the tremolo, it took so much force to use the bars that they would just break.
Stevie also replaced the stock tremolo unit for a left-handed one at some point early on, with the result that the arm’s pivot point was above the strings and not below them. He did this to emulate Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush, both of whom were lefties who played right-handed guitars upside down.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature on Number One, and many of his other guitars, were the “SRV” decals he stuck to the pickguard. These, too, had to be replaced often due to wear and tear, and changed in appearance over the years. Rene stated that he often had to scour truck stops to find just the right kind of stickers.
Stevie used and abused Number One until his death in 1990. The guitar was responsible for many of the most memorable blues songs of all time, and for many of us, it still only takes hearing one note to know it’s SRV playing his beloved “first wife.”
After his death, Rene reinstalled the original 1963 neck and gave the guitar to SRV’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, who still has the iconic instrument. According to Jimmie, it’s locked away in a bank vault with Stevie Ray’s other equipment, because “every time I go back to that stuff, it kicks my ass, because I have to go through it all again.” I feel for you, Jimmie.
While SRV’s Number One is securely locked away, Fender did work with Jimmie to authorize 100 replicas to be made in the early 1990s. Originally sold for $10,000, their selling price now reaches upward of $50,000.
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