Stevie Ray Vaughan Statue

Even though Austin is a city with a rich music history, only two statues of musicians have ever been erected there. One depicts Willie Nelson—and the other, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was born in Texas and made a name for himself with a splash of recordings and performances through the 1970s and 1980s. He had a turbulent career with well-chronicled substance use disorder and personal demons. He seemed to have put those issues behind him and was, by most accounts, playing the best guitar of his life when he died in a helicopter crash at age 35.

Local sculptor Ralph Helmick designed the statue, taking inspiration from Michelangelo’s David. Instead of having an image of Vaughan in the throes of playing his guitar, it depicts him standing still, in a moment of contemplation. The shadow of the figure is laid out in bronze in two dimensions behind the guitarist and shows his spirit playing away. There is a myth that on Vaughan’s birthday, the morning sun lines up the real shadow of the statue with the created shadow and one can hear a guitar chord. 

The original location of the statue was planned to be up by the auditorium on a small hill facing the city, but that location would have resulted in the statue’s face being in shadow most of the time. The location was changed to be down by the water, facing south. The grand unveiling was in October of 1993, just six weeks after what would have been Vaughan’s 39th birthday. Its placement along the popular walking path at the lake ensures that hundreds of thousands visitors each year see the sculpture.