SRVLENNY
the following morning. The
sweetly gentle song, providing the perfect showcase
for Stevie’s musical passion,
had the desired effect. “I’ve
never listened to that song
once without crying,” Lenora
recounts.
Some of the included accessories and memorabilia
picked up that day, with all proceeds going
to fund Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre
in Antigua. Among the other guitars up for
auction that day from such luminaries as
George Harrison, Pete Townsend and J.J.
Cale was Stevie’s Lenny, which was also
purchased by Guitar Center for the respectable sum of US $623,500.
Sometime after the purchase, Mike Eldred,
Sales and Marketing Director for the Fender
Custom Division, led a team of skilled builders through the meticulous reverse engineering of this iconic axe. Over the course
of a day, Mike and his team took detailed
notes and measurements of the entire
guitar, down to specific screw placements.
This procedure had its genesis with Jimi
Hendrix’s white Stratocaster, famously used
at Woodstock, and has been honed through
similar explorations of legendary instruments, like Jeff Beck’s Esquire and Rory
Gallagher’s Stratocaster. “There’s usually
one point guy, and we bring in video cameras and hi-res digital photography,” Eldred
recounts. It seemed there was a chance to
finally get the story straight.
Austinite who lusted after it wasn’t Jimmie
Vaughan’s kid brother. Already well known
in Austin circles, Stevie was little known
elsewhere at the time, one of a group of
musicians who had made the pilgrimage
from the Dallas scene years before, including his brother Jimmie, Doyle Bramhall and
Denny Freeman. His band, Double Trouble
was rocking the local Texas scene, but their
attention grabbing Montreux Jazz Festival
performance was still two years away.
And while Stevie’s Number
One, a ’ 63 sunburst Strat
first purchased in 1973,
would remain his weapon
of choice on stage, Stevie
would use his newest
pawnshop prize prominently
on two of his most eloquent songs; the epynony-mous “Lenny” and “Riviera
Paradise,” a sparkling
instrumental featured on
his 1989 release, In Step. According to an
interview with Guitar Player in Februrary
of 1990, Stevie voiced his love of the battered Strat, saying, “For some reason, that
guitar works for songs like that more than
anything else.”
Stevie first met the guitar that would
become Lenny in 1980, when anything
made by Fender after 1964 was considered a utility instrument. Since the Strat
had long ago been stripped of its original
sunburst finish and refinished natural, and
sported a “custom” ivoroid and tortoise-shell inlay behind the bridge, the asking
price was a reasonable $350. But because
Stevie had yet to break beyond the Austin
scene, he didn’t have the scratch to take it
home that day.
Stevie’s intimate connection to Lenny cannot be overestimated. After the release of
Texas Flood in 1983 – an album that revitalized a previously dormant genre, spending
half the year on the charts – Stevie held
onto the instrument, despite the fact that he
could clearly afford a better one. As proof
of the guitar’s place within Stevie’s life, he
offered it up to sporting legend Mickey
Mantle for an autograph in April 1985, as it
was the closest thing available.
THE BACKSTORY
Lenny could have easily become just another poorly refinished ’ 65 Strat if the young
Lenora rounded up a mess of Stevie’s
friends, who pooled their money together,
each chipping in $50 to buy the guitar,
offering it to Stevie as a birthday present.
Stevie was so moved that he stayed up that
night penning “Lenny,” and playing it for
Lenora for the first time when she woke up
THE GUITAR
In an effort to share this guitar and its
accompanying vibe with both guitarists and
Stevie Ray Vaughan fans, Guitar Center has
partnered with the Fender Custom Shop to
produce the newest addition to their Tribute
Series. The guitar will be produced in a
limited quantity, with 185 guitars offered for
sale in the U.S. (with an as yet unspecified
quantity of guitars produced for overseas
distribution, with a total production cap of
250), and will be available exclusively at
www.premierguitar.com
