1997 Fender SRV Stratocaster, as made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughan

A truly iconic Stratocaster.  It doesn't take much to guess whose signature model this is.  That bold "SRV" print on the pickguard gives it all away.  A standard production model, but everything about this guitar is tribute to one of the greatest guitarists there's ever been.

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When did you first hear Stevie Ray Vaughan?  If you were growing up in the 1980s, you'd have heard him, but chances are you might not have known it was him.  In March 1983, David Bowie released a new single, Let's Dance.  It went on to be David Bowie's biggest selling single ever.  Which is saying something.  This is David Bowie we're talking about.  But if you'd heard Let's Dance, then you'd have heard Stevie Ray Vaughan.  And if you didn't hear, or haven't ever heard Let's Dance, then where have you been?  Really.

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The story goes that David Bowie had heard Stevie Ray at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982, and was so blown away by his playing, he asked him to join the studio sessions for Let’s Dance.  Stevie Ray didn’t just bring his blues edge to the solo on Let’s Dance, the single, but also China Girl and the album version of Cat People (Putting Out The Fire).  Nile Rodgers may have provided the funk, but it was Stevie Ray that brought the crunch.  There’s a lot of claims that his appearances on Let’s Dance launched his career.  The Bowie association probably helped, but let’s face it, Stevie Ray Vaughan was going to be big, whatever.  At the time of recording with Bowie, he was also in the midst of the recording sessions for his own debut album, Texas Flood, which came out 3 months after Let’s Dance.  Only seven years later, a helicopter crash took him from us.  He was only 35.  But his talent, showmanship and tone have never left us, and it's hard to believe they ever will.

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So much so that Fender’s SRV Signature model, launched in 1992, is still in production today, more than 40 years on – added to only by rare short Custom Shop runs of his Number One and Lenny Stratocasters.  Only 100 and 185 of those were made.  And I'm sure you’ll get more accuracy from those special runs.  But the standard SRV is just a wonderful guitar.  A lovely early-60s thick oval neck, narrow tall frets and, unusually, a flatter 12” radius fretboard.  A matching set of fixed pole Texas Special single coils, that really bring out the mids of Stevie Ray’s tone.  Finished off with all that gold hardware – including the almost-as-signature left-handed tremolo (which, big surprise, feels just right, immediately!).

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Everything you need to make you think you’re sounding like, even playing like Stevie Ray Vaughan himself . . . just so long as you’re not playing through one of his songs in a guitar shop.  He’s the only guitarist I know to have not one, but two mentions on a “No Stairway” list of forbidden songs (see below).  So good, he's banned twice.  He'd probably be proud of that: "I don't play with a lot of finesse. I usually play like I'm breaking out of jail!"  Rebel heart or not, here's your chance to get around the bans.  Hire this one now, and play whatever you damn well like!