Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute band a vehicle for its leader's devotion

Age: 36.

Plays: His Fender Stratocaster guitar, "Kid Leche."

Back story: When Rey Vasquez isn't teaching special education at Eastpointe High School, an East Side charter school, he is educating Tucson bargoers on the life, times and music of late Texas bluesmaster Vaughan.

Vasquez is a longtime fan of Vaughan — who died in a helicopter accident in 1990 — and has been performing his music for years. You can find him most nights playing full Double Trouble sets at bars around Tucson.

When did you first fall in love with Stevie Ray Vaughan's music? "My uncle played guitar when I was a kid. I picked it up from him and started playing acoustic stuff. I got my first electric when I was 8 or 9.

"One night my parents were watching 'Saturday Night Live.' I was asleep already. My dad came in and said, 'Mijo, you need to see this guy.'

"I got up and saw Stevie and immediately thought, 'I want to play like that guy.' From then on, I had to have a Stratocaster. I started playing and picking up his tunes. His stuff came really natural to me, the Stevie stuff and the Buddy Guy stuff.

You actually met Buddy Guy while living in Chicago in the '90s . . . "Yeah. Every Monday night my friends and I would go to Buddy Guy's Legends for the weekly jam. I saw some incredible guitarists there. One time I went up there to play. Here is this little Mexican guy trying to play the blues. I came down off the stage and someone said, 'Hey, somebody wants to talk to you.' There was Buddy Guy sitting in the corner. I couldn't say a lot of stuff to him. He looked at my guitar and said, 'I've seen a guitar like this before.' He signed it and everything."

You were in your late teens when Vaughan died. Did you ever get the chance to see him in concert? "No. I never got the chance, and that is actually one of my heartbreaks. I got to see Buddy Guy, B.B. King and Eric Clapton, but he was like the guy who basically put everything together for me. I have videos of him. My son will be sitting there and say, 'Daddy, can you put on Stevie Ray Vaughan?' We'll sit there and watch it together."

Favorite songs of his to cover? "In terms of icepick-to- the-forehead-type songs, I love our show opener, "Testify," an old Isley Brothers tune that Stevie did. When Stevie did it, he quickened it up. We got it and made it even quicker. It is pretty intense."

If Stevie Ray were alive and ready to jam with you, what song would you choose? "I would probably pick "Machine Gun" by Jimi Hendrix. Stevie never did it live, but I would love to do that song with him. The original still brings tears to my eyes. "

Do you have any pride and joys in your life right now? "I actually have three: a wife and two little boys who are amazing. "

– Gerald M. Gay

Who: Rey "StingRey" Vasquez and Tightrope.

Where: The Hut, 305 N. Fourth Ave.

When: 9 p.m. Friday.

Cost: $3.

For more information, call 623-3200 or visit www.thehuttucson.com.