THE EXPERT VIEW
“I was about 11 or 12. My dad had a greatest-hits-of-the-blues album, and it had Stevie’s version of Commit A Crime on it. That was the thing that first made me sit up and listen to all of the different aspects of his playing and tone.”
John Priest is thinking back to the moment that he first encountered Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar playing. But, for a man who has subsequently devoted a lot of time, effort and hard-earned cash to the pursuit of nailing that most sought-after tone, he wasn’t as hooked as you might expect. A paid-up Hendrix obsessive at that point, he was intrigued for sure, but it wouldn’t be until his dad came home with a copy of Couldn’t Stand The Weather and he experienced Stevie’s take on Voodoo Child (Slight Return) that he truly started paying attention..
“It was the fact that it wasn’t a direct rip-off of Jimi’s version,” says John. “It really was a Stevie version of it. I think when other guys try to sound like other guitarists, they can get really close.
They can nail the sound and the vibe and all that. But when Stevie did it – when he was taking off Albert King and
