Sonic Nirvana: The Greatest Guitar Tones In Music (part 1)

(Despite the title of this post, Kurt Cobain is not on this list....)

It's my theory that most people who decide they want to learn the guitar do so for one or two reasons.

1) They thought it looked cool when they saw someone play it.
2) They thought it sounded cool when they heard someone play it.

I have no problem admitting that it was for both of these reasons why I decided to try and unlock the secrets of six steel strings and 22 or 24 frets. I was never really all that good at athletics in school, and I think many who were in my class will tell you I craved attention. No one else was really pursuing guitar, and it came somewhat naturally to me.

When I started taking the guitar seriously around age 15, I gradually began appreciating all the nuances of certain players and their unique sounds. A great guitarist not only knows the right notes to play, but also how to create their identity with a tone they can call their own. This series focuses on what I believe are the most memorable and influential guitar sounds in popular music. This will be in multiple posts, as many are worth their own installment.

I'm going to start with the man who I believe had the greatest guitar tone in history.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - When I bought my first Stevie Ray Vaughan album ("Texas Flood") on cassette in 1990, his name was not new to me. I knew he played for David Bowie a few years before, but I knew nothing of his solo work. That was because he wasn't a Rock guitarist and for a few years, I had no interest in anything outside of Rock.

Why I bought his album was because I had just picked up a special issue of Guitar For The Practicing Musician. It was their 'Blues issue' and I got it because Led Zeppelin's "I Can't Quit You Baby" was transcribed. Also in the magazine was SRV's "Pride And Joy". I looked at all the song tablatures, and "Pride And Joy" really had me stumped. According to the notation, you had to play muted bass strings in between fretted notes. There was no other transcription like this before, so I opted to go pick up the album.

Lucky for me on two counts, I had a friend who ran a used records store, and someone turned in "Texas Flood". I took it home, put it in my Soundesign cassette deck, and waited for the mystery to be solved. The first track was "Love Struck Baby". Not the song I was looking for, but I picked up quickly that this Stevie Ray guy knew how to swing. The guitar playing was busy, and I could tell this was someone who lived, breathed, ate, and slept guitar. The track finished just after two minutes and I thought to myself, Not bad.... The next track was "Pride And Joy". It was time for the mystery to be solved.

And then.... that intro. My God, that intro! (Pride And Joy)

It was like someone revving up a muscle car. After that, I finally heard what the tablature was trying to tell me. I had never, ever, heard a guitar played like that before. This man was a one-man guitar army; he just happened to have a very able bass player and highly competent drummer backing him up.

I had been accustomed to hearing guitarists playing steady rhythm figures for the longest time, but here was a guy adding single-note fills, string bends, and blues phrases in between the main guitar line and while he was singing. It was unreal! I had ambitions to play along with the album (and I actually tried) but this was the only time that I was in so much awe that I just put my guitar down and listened.

If your teen years were in the mid-to-late '80s / early '90s and you wanted to play guitar, you probably wanted to play like the guitarists in hair metal bands. I know I did (although Jimmy Page was my main guitar idol). For someone to knock me off my center had to be someone truly extraordinary. And he was.

I was spellbound for the rest of the album. However, the best was yet to come. The track "Lenny" capped off what was a life-changing experience for me. This instrumental ballad was composed of jazz chords and a heavenly guitar tone. To this day, it is in my Top Five favorite guitar solos of all time. After discovering SRV, I was now open to exploring other styles of music.

Now, about that tone.

With almost the same guitar and amplifier setup song-to-song, album-to-album, Stevie Ray could change the way his guitar sounded just by the way he felt. Only those who are truly 'one' with their instrument can do that. This was impressive because it seemed every guitar player I listened to back then had a rack of guitar effects a half-mile long. As for SRV, he used minimal effects. He used an Ibanez Tube Screamer for overdrive and then occasionally would resort to other effects pedals for 'color'.

His main guitar was his "Number One" Fender Stratocaster -- the same make and model made famous by his idol, Jimi Hendrix. He outfitted the neck with frets from a bass guitar and used .013 gauge electric strings. Why is that significant? Let me put this in perspective. Go to your nearest music store and pick up an electric guitar. Go ahead and press the lightest string down to the fretboard. Now push it towards the heaviest string (this is called 'string bending'). Does that hurt a little bit? Well, with almost absolute certainty, that's a .009 gauge string -- a third lighter than what Stevie Ray used. Most guitarists in popular music, practicing or professional, play with .009 or .010 gauge strings; playing .013 gauge strings is usually out of the question for them.

I have stated time and time again that I have four main guitar influences -- and Stevie Ray Vaughan is among those four. I don't really sound like him all that much when I play, but occasionally I think I can cop the same vibe and feel he had in his playing. I really don't have the desire to try and sound like him because he created his own identity, and I think he's entitled to have that with him for eternity.

Losing SRV is absolutely one of music's biggest tragedies. He had a years long addiction to drugs and alcohol which culminated in him collapsing while on tour in Germany. After his father passed from Parkinson's Disease, he committed himself to recovery. He emerged rejuvenated, recorded the best album of his career ("In Step"), and appeared on MTV Unplugged with a Guild 12-string acoustic. On this particular episode, guitar virtuoso and technician Joe Satriani -- no slouch himself -- also appeared. However, in my opinion (and many others) it was no question that Stevie Ray gave the most mesmerizing performance that night.

(Legend has it Stevie Ray cracked the neck of his guitar during this performance from the intensity of his playing.)

He joined a stellar tour that I would have given anything to see. Alongside him were Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and his brother Jimmie Vaughan -- a guitar enthusiast's dream come true. After a performance in East Troy, WI., he boarded a helicopter for a flight to the next venue. Dense fog imparied the pilot's vision and the aircraft crashed into a hill. The world lost one of its most extraordinary guitarists at a time when he just became clean and sober and with the promise of more amazing recordings and performances to come.

He was only 35 and I heard the news when I got home after the first day of my Senior year of high school. I was devastated.

Although sorely missed, his legend lives on and thrives. After his passing, we received the albums "Family Style", an excellent studio recording with his brother Jimmie Vaughan, and "The Sky Is Crying", a collection of outtakes and unrelased material which included the highlight "Life By The Drop" -- an incredible song about gratitude for being alive after overcoming addiction.

Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my guitar idols. And he possessed what I consider to be the greatest guitar tone in history.