John Lee Hooker’s prophecy when he met Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan was a once-in-a-generation guitar talent, and it is a tragedy that he left the world all too soon.

John Lee Hooker was among the first stars to have laid eyes – and ears – on the young guitarist, years before SRV weaved magic with a Dumble amp and a Fender Stratocaster on Texas Flood. What he saw left him convinced of his impending greatness.

“I loved him so much, it’s such a great loss,” Hooker told Total Guitar in March 1997, seven years after his death. “He was so good and such a nice person, too.”

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Hooker has played with a who’s who of prolific players over the years, and so he knows a top tier guitarist when he sees one. Him dedicating his 1991 album, Mr. Lucky, to SRV, tells you everything about how highly he rated the Texan. He knew Vaughan was destined to become a legend.

“I remember before he got famous, he got on stage and jammed with me at Antone’s club in Austin, Texas,” Hooker recalled. “I told him then, I said: ‘One day you’re gonna be really famous’. He just looked down real modest and said ‘Yeah?’”

It’s not clear what year this was, but what is clear is that 1983 was a life-changing time for SRV. Bowie, having witnessed a “devastating” performance somewhere in Europe, enlisted him for his album Let’s Dance, which released in the April. His instant classic debut album followed in its footsteps just one month later.

Hooker said it was “without any doubt” his favourite record of all time. Fast-forward 14 years, and he felt the modern blues scene was at a loss without him.

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“There’s a lot of good blues around but nobody that unique,” Hooker claimed at the time. “I’m listening but I ain’t hearing anything. I said to Jimmie [Vaughan, his brother], ‘There’ll never be another Stevie.’”

The Texas Flood amp, a Dumbleland Special with the serial number 005, was later used by John Mayer during SRV’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2015. Two of his guitars, meanwhile, have ended up in the extensive collection of filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

Notably, the success of Texas Flood flew in the face of the blues diminishing public reputation as grunge took hold. He helped make blues guitar cool again, dragging it from small clubs onto MTV. Ideas were said to be “pouring out of him” before a helicopter crash took his life.