The family tree of Tyrone Vaughan is absolutely steeped in the blues, and as someone who shares a lineage with two of the finest Texan blues greats of all time – Jimmie is his father, Stevie Ray was his uncle – it will come as no surprise to learn that Tyrone himself started his own musical journey at a very young age.
In fact, he received his first electric guitar for his fifth birthday – and it was gifted to him by the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose haphazard wrapping skills left a lot to be desired.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Tyrone Vaughan reflects on his own blues journey, from the pressures of inheriting the Vaughan surname and touring with his father, to following in the footsteps of his illustrious relatives.
He also takes a look back at one of his earliest guitar memories, when Uncle Stevie turned up with a rather on-the-nose gift.
“Stevie came to my fifth birthday and gave me a pawn shop Harmony guitar,” Tyrone recalls. “He saved up money for it, and it didn’t have a gig bag; it was like two paper grocery bags on either end.
“He was like, ‘Here you go.’ [laughs]. And then he bought me another guitar, a [Fender] Musicmaster, which was another pawnshop guitar.”
A guitar from SRV may have seemed like a token gift, but the gesture went far beyond keeping young Tyrone’s present within the theme of the family. Indeed, both Jimmie and Stevie supported the aspiring guitar player when he showed interest in following the family trade.
In fact, Stevie even once approached Tyrone’s mother to voice his support and enthusiasm for the fact there was another Vaughan guitar player in the pipeline.
“He [Stevie] basically came over one night and told my mom, ‘Hey, Jimmie’s boy is going to be a player,’” he continues. “He was excited. Stevie’s favorite guitar player was his brother Jimmie, and the fact that Jimmie had a kid who was going to be playing, you know, he just thought the world of it.
“Stevie was a kid at heart, and he was excited that I was in play. That stuck with me – that’s always stuck with me.”
The full interview with Tyrone Vaughan will be published on GuitarWorld.com in the coming weeks.
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