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"Number One"
Number One" (sometimes called "First Wife") is the most familiar of Stevie's guitars. It was a battered 1959 Stratocaster with a 1962 neck. Number One possessed a deep, growly tone that was instantly identifiable and Stevie used it for many songs.
Stevie acquired Number One in 1973 from Ray's Music Exchange in Austin, Texas. He liked the tobacco-sunburst finish and the thick, unusually-shaped rosewood D-neck (Stevie hands were large, so thin necks presented a problem for him). In an interview, Stevie said that he knew right away that it was the guitar for him:
"I didn't even have to play it - I just knew by the way it looked that it would sound great. I was carrying my '63 Strat and asked if [the shop owner] would like to trade. Thank God he did, and it's been my main axe even since."
Number One originally had a white pick-guard, a right-handed tremolo bar, and 1959 pickups. Stevie eventually replaced the white pick-guard with a black one and added the familiar "SRV" lettering. Rene Martinez, Stevie guitar technician, one remarked about how Stevie would sometimes resort to searching the ground around truck stops to find replacement letters when the old ones wore away. The tremolo unit was replaced with a gold left-handed unit in 1977. Stevie had always tried to emulate Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush, both of whom were left-handed and played right-handed guitars turned upside down. The guitar's pickups are a source of some debate. Many SRV fans believe that Stevie had the pickups rewound, resulting in an over-wind and giving the pickups a "hotter" sound. Others believe that the pickups were over-wound at the factory due to mechanical inaccuracies. Whatever the real story, they were definitely not regular Fender pickups.
Stevie and Rene also replaced Number One's stock frets with Dunlop 6100 bass-style frets. These bigger frets added sustain and and also helped during string bending. The second advantage was especially important, as Stevie always used massively thick strings. His string sizes varied over the years, but they were always fairly large. This choice of strings was very hard on Stevie's fingers and Rene eventually convinced him to switch to smaller strings to save wear and tear on his hands. A sample of his string gauges (from high E down) is .013, .016, .019, .028, .038, .056.
Number One was subjected to extreme wear and tear during its life with Stevie. Onstage, Stevie would kick it, pound it, rattle it on the floor, and even ride it like a surfboard. All this abuse stripped away what little finish remained on the body. Stevie's heavy strumming also wore down the surface of the guitar, particularly just above the strings. The gouge is clearly visible by Stevie's hand in the picture above. During his time with Triple Threat Revue, Stevie observed Jimmie bounce his guitar off a wall, catch it, and keep playing. He thought it was a neat trick and tried to duplicate it. The impact severely damaged Number One's headstock, nearly splitting it in two. The damage was repaired by Rene Martinez (the taped-up headstock can be seen in a picture on the inside of the CD jacket from In The Beginning).
By 1989, Stevie was considering retiring Number One. The neck had been repaired so many times that it would not take new frets and was very difficult to play. Rene replaced it with the neck from "Scotch", another of Stevie's Stratocasters. In 1990, that neck was broken at a show in Holmdell, New Jersey, when a piece of stage scenery fell on several of Stevie's guitars. Rene eventually ordered a replacement neck from Fender and received a copy of the 1963 neck.
Currently, Number One is thought to be in the possession of Jimmie Vaughan, although rumors persist that it is buried with Stevie in Dallas. After Stevie's death, Rene Martinez supposedly put the original neck back on Number One and presented it to the Vaughan family.
The SRV Signature Fender Stratocaster
First offered in 1992, the SRV Signature Strat is Fender's tribute to SRV and is a reproduction of "Number One", his favorite axe. These are the guitar's vital stats:
Body: Alder
Neck: Maple ("oval" shape)
Fingerboard: Pao Ferro rosewood
(12in/305mm radius)
Scale Length: 25.5in (648mm)
No. of Frets: 21 (Dunlop
6105 Jumbo Frets)
Width at the Nut: 1.650in (42mm)
Machine Heads: Gold
Plated Fender/Gotoh Vintage Tuning Machines
Pickups: 3 Texas Special Single
Coil
Pickup Switch: 5-position blade
Controls: Master Volume, Tone (Neck),
Tone (Middle)
Pickguard: 3-Ply Black (B/W/B)
Bridge: Gold-plated
Left-Handed "Original" Vintage Tremelo
Strings: Fender Super 250R
Nickel-Plated Steel (.010 to .046)
The SRV Signature Strat features gold-plated hardware and a "SRV"-engraved pickguard. The Texas Special pickups were developed specifically for the SRV Signature Strat and are "hotter" (have higher output) than most current Fender pickups. The wood of the body and neck and the bridge unit are supposedly identical to those in Number One. Also, the neck is both larger and more curved than most Fender necks. Most guitar players agree that the SRV Signature Strat comes quite close to reproducing the feel and tone of Number One.
However, there are a few differences between Number One and the SRV Signature. The Pao Ferro wood of the fingerboard is not the type of wood that was used in Number One - Fender chose Pao Ferro because that was what was available when designing the guitar. The frets are also not as large as those on Number One - most people believe Number One carried Dunlop 6100 frets, not 6150s. And the SRV Strat is modeled after the "pre-CBS" Stratocasters, which have fewer screw holes in the pickguard than later models do. This may make finding a replacement pickguard difficult if one wishes to preserve the original with the "SRV" engraving. The strings that ship with the SRV Strat are rather small (.010's) when you consider that big strings were an essential ingredient of Stevie'sound. You may want to replace them with bigger strings, which may mean making adjustments to the nut.