| Number One (also known as Vaughan's 'First Wife') was originally claimed to be a 1959 Fender Stratocaster used by Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan for most of his career. However, when making the Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Number One Tribute Stratocaster, the Fender Custom Shop discovered the body dated to be 1963. Therefore, it can rightly be called a 1963 Stratocaster.[1] After purchasing the instrument in 1973 from Ray Henning's Heart of Texas music shop in Austin, Texas, it was his main performing instrument and companion. Vaughan made heavy use of the guitar on all five of his studio albums and on 'Family Style' - an album recorded with his brother Jimmie shortly before his death in 1990. Stevie Ray said that he knew straightaway that there was something special about First Wife. He liked the sunburst finish and the thick, oddly shaped D-neck. Stevie Ray had large hands and the unusually thick neck felt comfortable. Soon after he got the guitar, Vaughan tried to change the guitar over to a 'left-handed' tremolo to imitate one of his idols, Jimi Hendrix. Because the quality of his 'transformation' was so poor, he went to a truckstop to find something to cover the giant hole he chopped in the body, hence the "CUSTOM" sticker across the bottom of the bridge. He also found some large, prismatic stickers to spell his initials "SRV" on and applied those to the guitar for a little extra flash. His use of the stickers make Number One one of the most recognizable guitars in the history of modern music. |
