SRV's Number One Is Just a Cheap Partscaster. So Why Is It the Most Iconic Blues Guitar Ever Made

By every objective measure, Stevie Ray Vaughan's Number One shouldn't be special. The body is a 1959 Stratocaster. The neck is from 1962. The pickups are from 1963. None of these parts were born together. It's essentially a secondhand jigsaw puzzle that SRV bought for $250 at a guitar shop in Austin in the early 1970s.

And yet there isn't a guitar player alive who wouldn't stop breathing for a second if that instrument walked into the room.

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What made Number One iconic had nothing to do with the wood or the hardware. SRV strung it with .013 gauge strings — almost impossibly heavy for a Stratocaster — tuned it down a half step to Eb, and played it with a ferocity that no guitar tech would have recommended. The tremolo arm was replaced with a left hand unit. The pickguard was worn completely through. By the time SRV was at his peak the guitar was held together as much by history as by hardware.

The lesson Number One teaches is the same lesson SRV taught every time he played it. The instrument is just wood and wire. What comes out of it is entirely the person holding it. There have been thousands of beat up Stratocasters. There was only one Stevie Ray Vaughan.