Advanced Guitar Player

To fans and admirers Stevie Ray Vaughan (Austin, Texas October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990) is simply SRV.

He was a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, who released eighteen albums of redhot rocking Texas blues shuffle.

Stevie Ray was inspired to play guitar by his older brother, Jimmie, and was also heavily influenced by such guitar players as Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy.

With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s.

Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre.

Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late '60s.

After a few years as a sideman in and around Austin, Vaughan formed the band Double Trouble, with whom he made four successful studio albums and established a reputation as one of the foremost blues guitarists in the world.

He was noted for using the Fender Stratocaster, with several guitars being made in tribute to Vaughan, including a Signature Strat and a replica of his famous Strat named "Lenny".

In 1986, after years of substance abuse from alcohol and cocaine, he spent a month in drug rehabilitation, and remained clean and sober for the final four years of his life, until his death in 1990 in a helicopter crash.

On February 22, 2000, Vaughan was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Washington D.C., being one of only 79 performers to be inducted.

He also won several W.C. Handy Awards, during his lifetime and posthumously, including Entertainer of the Year and Instrumentalist of the Year in 1984.

In 2003, he was ranked #7 in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Classic Rock Magazine ranked him #3 in their list of the 100 Wildest Guitar Heroes in 2007.