Vaughan, in white shirt, with the guitar at Candy’s Flare. Photo via Heritage Auctions
A piece of Oak Cliff rock ‘n’ roll history goes to auction this spring.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s first electric guitar appears in an April 2021 catalog from Heritage Auctions.
The listing says that a first cousin of Vaughan owned the guitar for many years. It’s described as a 1957 Gibson ES-125T 3/4 sunburst arch-top guitar with nicks and indentations from heavy use. The listing states, “it should not come as a surprise this has signs of much love and usage. Playing any instrument is an expression of sentiments no words can provide. For SRV, he channeled all his feelings and thoughts into his playing his entire life.”
The Oak Cliff native attended Kimball High School with his brother, Jimmie, and went onto international stardom as a blues musician before his death in a helicopter crash in 1990.
The catalog has two other Dallas-related guitars:
Dallas-born Rocky Erickson’s 1967 Gibson ES-335TD sunburst semi hollow-body guitar, which he once smashed into a wall and was restored in the 1970s. And the 1965 Fender Jazzmaster sunburst solid-body electric guitar that Jim Heath is holding, as well as the suit he is wearing, on the cover of the Reverend Horton Heat’s 1990 debut album, “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em.”
