Jimmie Vaughan on the White Strat That Fueled His Pioneering Blues Journey

When Jimmie Vaughan talks about his relationship with certain guitars, he uses the phrase "duende."

A Spanish term for a heightened sense of emotion generally associated with flamenco music, it is that mystical power of expression that can seemingly draw a spiritual performance out of a particular instrument.

While challenging to fully describe, the Texas blues pioneer knows it when he feels it, and he certainly felt it with the first white Stratocaster he ever owned.

Bought in the late 1970s from a friend for the tidy sum of $245, Vaughan further customized it to his specific needs, adding a late-'50s neck with a thin profile constructed from a lighter maple and larger frets that better catered to his raw and direct style.

But even before those modifications happened, Vaughan knew this guitar had duende.

"Maybe there's some force out there that guides you around, whether you want to or not, he told Fender.com. "But I know that if you had 20 guitars lined up, there's going to be one of them that speaks to you more than the other ones. I don't know why that is. My old guitar was one of those, and all the ones that I played for 10 or 15 years were that way."

Over the years, Vaughan made a cosmetic alteration that would make it one of the most recognized Strats of the time - an upside-down photo of a pin-up girl that emerged right-side-up when he played it behind his head at his fiery live shows.

"I used to play behind my neck a lot, and people loved it," he said with a laugh. "So I found these pictures of these pretty girls in Denmark, and I thought when I flipped my guitar behind my head, there could be a girl there. It was just something to do."

According to Vaughan, it took him two tries to get the pin-up photo on the guitar that now graces the current limited-edition Jimmy Vaughan Strat created by Fender Custom Shop Master Builder John Cruz.

"The first one, Customs took it off when we were coming back from Europe," said Vaughan. "When we landed in Houston, the Customs guys could see us coming and they were like, 'Oh boy,' just waiting to search us. They saw the picture, and they peeled it off, maybe because it was too offensive to them or something. It just made you want to put another one on again."

That outlaw attitude helped shape Vaughan's career from the start, even when he was a boy growing up in the Dallas area, from the music he gravitated towards to the decision to leave home and join a band in his teens to a career that continually redefined "cool."

"My uncles on both sides of the family played country and western, like Merle Travis, Bob Wills, that kind of stuff," he said. "It was pretty popular then, but then you had blues and R&B. I didn't know genres of music back then. To me as a kid, it was just cool music, and it was all 12 bars anyway. You had guys like Ray Price doing 'The Nightlife,' but B.B. King was doing that song, too.

"So, in the '50s and '60s, nobody told me, 'Look kid, you're supposed to be on this aisle down here.' The first time I heard Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, I wanted to be them when I grew up."

Vaughan's interest in the blues furthered when he actually got his first guitar at 12, something that might never have occurred if not for a childhood football injury.

"When I turned 12, a friend in school told me that if I wanted a girlfriend, I would have to play football," he recalled. "I thought, 'Oh no, that's terrible!' I didn't even like football. I was told to go with the halfbacks. They threw me a pass, and I mysteriously caught it and got tackled by like five guys. I broke my collarbone and got sent home for three months.

"Now, my parents both worked and didn't know what to do with me. I'd been thinking about playing guitar, and I got one from them with three strings on it. I've been playing ever since. I don't really know why, but I haven't put it down."

A few years later, Vaughan's guitar stylings interested his little brother, the great Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Jimmie Vaughan would bring home albums to listen to and learn from, and considering the siblings shared a bedroom and record player, there was a good amount of guitar education exchanged.

"When I would put my guitar down, Stevie would pick it up," said Jimmie. "He watched me trying to learn how to play off these records, and then he'd do the same thing."

By the time Jimmie left home in the late '60s to play with the likes of blues legends Paul Ray and W.C. Clark, in addition to becoming a full-fledged member of Texas rockers the Chessmen at 15 (who opened for the likes of the Mamas and the Papas and Jimi Hendrix), Stevie kept honing his chops and eventually embarked on his own musical path.

The brothers got a chance to play together briefly in the band Texas Storm and gigged with countless musicians around Texas before Jimmie gained critical acclaim with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, while Stevie did the same with Double Trouble and a supporting role on David Bowie's 1983 hit album, Let's Dance.

"When I ran away from home to be in a band, I left him a guitar," said Vaughan. "When he got out of high school, he went to Austin and started playing. He just got better and better, and next thing you know, he was playing with David Bowie. That was a No. 1 record for like 20 weeks! That kind of launched him."

Jimmie and Stevie continued to redefine blues music around the world and even reconvened to record the album Family Style, which was released in 1990, the same year Stevie tragically passed away in a helicopter accident in Wisconsin.

Their bond over the guitar was strong. Not only did Jimmie and Stevie share a deep love for the endless possibilities of their six-stringed muses, they also staunchly preferred Strats.

And to celebrate that relationship, the Jimmie Vaughan Strat is offered in a set alongside a painstakingly recreated version of Stevie's No. 1 Strat, one that he affectionately called his "first wife."

The legacy of both guitars in the limited-edition Vaughan Brothers Custom Shop package is not lost on Jimmie. And when asked to describe them, he goes back to one word: duende.

"They do something special," he said. "They have a fabulous tone, or they feel good or all of the above. It's a day-to-day thing. You keep working on it, if feels like there's a lot of magic.

"It's a visitation. I don't know what visits you, but something does."

View the limited-edition 30th Anniversary Vaughan Brothers set here.