NANCY WILSON
It’s a true but sorry state of affairs to say that there are still relatively few high-profile female guitarists. The Heart guitarist is one of those, helping to inspire others to fight for their right.
Interview: Bill DeMain
If someone had told the 12-year-old Nancy Wilson that one day she’d have her own signature model electric guitar in stores, she might have laughed. Then again, she might have taken it in stride. At that age, Wilson was already three years into pursuing what she calls her “life’s calling”. “I was possessed,” she says. “I would walk down to the local music store and look at the guitars, because I didn’t have a good one yet. One of the reasons I got really strong is because my first guitar was unplayable; learning how to bar an F-chord was really painful.
So I’d pick up a good guitar in the shop, sit down and play Anji by Paul Simon. People would stop and their jaws would drop and be like: “Whoa, look at that little gal go with that big guitar!”
Wilson relates that story with several hearty laughs. In conversation the younger Wilson sister has an appealing blend of self-effacing humour and serious-music-nerd scholarship. The humour has come in handy over the past year, when the nearly 50-year momentum of Heart’s classic-rock ride came to an unexpected pause, along with the rest of the world. Nancy took the time off to realise two longdeferred projects: the signature Epiphone Fanatic guitar that she designed; and her first-ever solo album, You And Me, featuring contributions from Sammy Hagar and Duff McKagan, covers of Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam songs along with original rockers and acoustic beauties. “I don’t know why it took me so long to do this,” she says. “Maybe I was stuck in the Heart vortex of it all.”