| On December 12, The Fender Custom Shop in collaboration with Guitar Center, will be releasing 250 replicas of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s famous guitar, which he affectionately called “Lenny”. This 1965 Fender Stratocaster had tremendous sentimental value to Stevie. |  |
The original guitar was purchased from a pawn shop by Stevie’s wife Lenora “Lenny” Vaughan. As the story goes, the guitar caught Stevie’s eye during a visit to the pawn shop, but at $350, it was too expensive at the time. Lenora managed to get some friends to pool their money together, and they bought the guitar for Stevie as a gift for his 26th birthday on October 3rd, 1980. That night, Stevie stayed up with the guitar, and wrote his famous song ‘Lenny’; a dedication to his wife.
Later, the neck of the guitar was replaced with a custom Charvel neck; a gift from friend Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The guitar was also autographed by New York Yankee Mickey Mantel. There are many other quirky details about the guitar, all of which will be recreated on the replica, just like the EVH Frankenstein replica that Fender released earlier this year.
Guitar Center bought the original guitar for $623,500 at auction in 2004. They provided the guitar to the Fender Custom Shop for the creation of the replica. The 250 replicas will be available for purchase through Guitar Center. The expected cost is $17,000.
Here is a video of Stevie Ray Vaughan playing Lenny (the song and the guitar).
You can read more about this guitar at the Fender web site, as well the Guitar Center web site.
Nice microsite from Fender!! Damn, I would love an SRV guitar although I prefer his number 1 guitar this comes in a close 2nd!
oh man, I just watched that whole video of Stevie playing Lenny, amazing, really inspiring.
I guess they need to battle the new Eddie Van Halen replica huh?
…that and the Eric Clapton replica, the Andy Summers replica, etc. Since they sell these replicas for about $20,000 each, I guess I can understand why Fender has been doing so many of these lately.
Correction: I just checked the Guitar Center site, and the Andy Summers replica is only selling for a measly $10,500.
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Stevie Ray Vaughn kicks some serious butt no doubt. It’s crazy that he found this guitar in a pawnshop. Just shows some of the gems you can find in those places. I watched this video 2 times just to watch his playing.