| "Scotch" is not the actual name of this guitar. In fact, there is some doubt as to whether or not it ever had a name. But it had a very distinctive look and tone, and so fans of Stevie Ray have taken to calling it Scotch. Scotch was a yellow 1959 Stratocaster that was given to Stevie by Vanilla Fudge's lead guitarist. It was in poor shape, but was restored by Charley Wirz. The previous owner had hollowed out the body to accept four humbucker pickups. Wirz removed these and made a new pickguard in which he placed a single Fender pickup just below the neck. Stevie put the requisite "SRV" initials under the strings where the other two pickups were normally placed. The hollow body gave Scotch a unique ringing sound that Stevie liked to use for songs like "Honey Bee" and "Tell Me". Scotch was stolen in 1985, but was later recovered and is now on display in the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe. |