Alan Haynes is an American Texas Blues guitarist. Alan has been playing professionally since the 1970s and has performed with Blues legends that include Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Albert King, The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1980’s version with Jimmie Vaughan), Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, and Otis Rush among others. He resides in Austin, Texas.
Alan’s style is a soulful mix of Texas blues that includes musical ideas from different genres, essentially jazz and southern country. Alan has a heavy and masterful use of his fingers to play (instead of a pick, which he also uses) and several pickup switches while playing licks and chords that allows him to achieve different sounds.
His sound is characterized by a warm tone achieved by playing vintage Strats through vintage Fender amps. His main axe is a 1960 Fender Stratocaster with a C-Profile rosewood neck and Dakota Red body. It was previously owned by Stevie Ray Vaughan and prior to Stevie, it belonged to Eric Johnson. The guitar has also been played by Billy Gibbons, Carlos Santana and Johnny Winter. Pickups on this guitar are stock and therefore have a vintage sound. His favorite amp setup includes a Fender Vibroking which he cranks up to get natural overdrive from the amp as he uses no pedals or stompboxes at all. Previously a heavy strings user (11’s and 12’s), Haynes now employs any 10-46 set of strings and prefers standard tuning.
