Any music fan that is my age probably remembers the movie Crossroads. The movie was largely forgettable except for the climatic guitar battle between Ralph Macchio’s character and the devil’s guitar player played by Steve Vai (see below).

Last summer I read a copy of a guitar magazine that tracked down info on Steve Vai’s red guitar. Here is a link to the article. This is a neat read. Fans of guitars will recognize the headstock shape as a Jackson and apparently it was made by Grover Jackson himself. The guitar was one of Steve Vai’s actual guitars (before the invention of the Ibanez Jem)

I came across the scene today again and looked on the internet for some info on the guitar battle. Apparently the guy who did the music for the movie (Arlen Roth) is a bad ass blues player. The guy who played Ralph Macchio’s part of the guitar battle (Ry Cooder) was originally supposed to be the “bad guy” instead of Steve Vai. The original battle was supposed to be a blue on blues battle. Arlen Roth actually released a recording of the original guitar battle recording on Soundcloud and it’s cool.

Here is the guitar battle scene