The Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time, O-Z
Issue #35
By Venus Zine Staff
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 12:26pm
ODETTA
Her music: The folk performer who inspired Janis Joplin sings with a deep, raw voice. Her method of guitar playing makes the strings seem to pop, producing a rich and warm tone.
The voice of civil rights: Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1930, Odetta wanted to sing classically but knew that being Black might hold her back in segregated America. Determined to pursue a career as a singer, Odetta had already released two major albums — Odetta at Carnegie Hall and Odetta at Town Hall — by the time the civil rights movement started to organize. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called Odetta “the Queen of American folk music” — she inspired activists including Rosa Parks by singing traditional black folk songs.
An unmistakable sound: “There’s that ‘Odetta strum’ on the guitar,” says Josh White Jr. — a guitarist and songwriter who has played with Odetta — of Odetta’s method of pumping her right fist across her guitar strings. “Nine times out of 10 if you run into anyone who’s ever seen Odetta they’ll know what you mean. She may not consider herself a great guitarist, but she certainly formed a way of playing that is unique to her and unforgettable.”
Accolades: In 1999, President Clinton presented Odetta with the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal for the Arts, a lifetime achievement award. Odetta’s album, Gonna Let It Shine, received a 2007 Grammy nomination, bringing her grand total to 11 nominations. We Shall Overcome: The March On Washington, to which Odetta contributed, won a Grammy.
A prolific artist: The 77-year-old has recorded 28 albums between the 1950s and mid-2000s. On 1965’s Odetta Sings Dylan, the influential guitarist plays covers of the iconic singer-songwriter who took inspiration from her. — Arianna Stern
"Water Boy" video clip
At Newport Festival
LIZ PHAIR
Art before sound: Liz Phair was born in 1967 in New Haven, Connecticut, and came of age in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka. After graduating from high school, Phair studied art at Oberlin College and then moved to San Francisco to become an artist.
A girly beginning: In the late ’80s, Phair moved back to the Windy City and started recording under the moniker Girlysound. She made 32 songs in her room, and six of them wound up on the demo that landed her a deal with Matador Records.
’90s indie queen: In 1993 Liz Phair released Exile in Guyville. The album was modeled after the Rolling Stones’ 1972 double album Exile on Main St. and referenced the experience of being a female in a male-dominated indie music scene. The LP debuted with great acclaim and inspired a slew of female singer-songwriters. By 1994, Guyville, with its provocative lyrics and strummed rhythms, sold more than 200,000 copies and was listed as one of 1993’s best works.
Lilith Fair Era: By her third album, Whitechocolatespaceegg, Phair had toned down her lyrics, opting to reflect on her new life as a wife and mother. With the release of the album, Phair joined the Lilith Fair tour.
Quietly playing: After the ’90s stardom, Phair recorded several albums still handling her guitar with finesse, even if for a smaller audience. — Niema Jordan
"Fuck & Run" live in 1995
"Why Can't I?" music video
PAT PLACE
New York noise: Starting off as a member of the late '70s jazz-punk vanguard James Chance and the Contortions, lead guitarist Pat Place became known within the No Wave scene for an uncompromised avant-garde style. However, when the Contortions began to appear in releases such as the 1978 compilation No New York, Chance was mostly credited for the legwork.
A celebrated contortion: When Place started Bush Tetras in the ’80s, the band’s blend of African and Caribbean beats paired with disjointed punk sounds rivaled even the most nonconformist musicians of the No Wave movement. Influenced by bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Place, Cynthia Sley (vocals), Laura Kennedy (bass), and Dee Pop (drums) banded together to produce a similar female-fronted presence. While Place left her guitar's idiosyncratic "slide" sound with the Contortions, Bush Tetras were credited for a muddled rhythm section, dance beats, and an uncultivated post-punk sound.
The No Wave sound: "It was almost like a reaction to punk, because No Wave was even more anarchistic. It was more musically anarchistic, it was more of a performance," Place says in an interview with Cynthia Sley on the Bush Tetras MySpace page. " Sley says Tetras’ lyrics differentiated them from other ultra feminine ‘80s girl groups like the Go-Go’s because their songs were more about being people, and less focused on being women.
The Tetras’ aesthetic is best exhibited in their catchiest, most celebrated song, "Too Many Creeps." Inspired by New York City dudes who hassled them about their street-punk looks, the song became the label 99 Record’s largest single to date.
Place on film: After a brief run with Tetras, Place took her performance on a more theatrical route. She starred in films including She Had Her Gun All Ready and Guerillere Talks, alongside fellow No Wavers Lydia Lunch, Adele Bertei (of the Contortions), and other artists from the scene. Vivienne Dick, a quintessential No Wave filmmaker, directed them.
Where is she now? Since the late '90s, Tetras have periodically reformed and disbanded. Place has appeared in a number of New York venues alongside spoken-word artist Maggie Estep as well as her own improvisational group, 4 Blind Mice. — Katie Heath
Bush Tetras' "Too Many Creeps" music video
James Chance and the Contortions' "I Can't Stand Myself"
Interview with Pat Place and Cynthia Sley
BONNIE RAITT
Music in her veins: Bonnie Raitt was born in 1949 to Broadway singer John Raitt and singer-pianist Marge Goddard in Burbank, California. By her teens, Raitt had taken up the guitar. As a college student at Harvard/Radcliffe in the ‘60s, with a major in social relations and African studies, she started making a name for herself playing coffee houses and left school during her third year to pursue music full time.
Lady plays the blues: Opening for blues greats like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, Raitt honed her craft, mastering the slide guitar. The style, also known as bottleneck, uses a slide to alter the pitch of the instrument instead of pressing against frets. Her blues guitar playing and soulful vocals would become her trademarks and would lead to her 1971 self-titled debut, one of six albums she recorded in her first seven years as a signed artist.
Accolades abound: In her nearly 40-year career, Raitt has recorded 18 full length albums, rendering hits like “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” She has also contributed to more than 100 musical projects, working with legends like Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. Raitt has earned nine Grammys, taking home three for her album Nick of Time in 1990 and one for a duet with John Lee Hooker. In 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2001.
Activist at heart: During her years in the music industry, Raitt has used her celebrity to create a number of projects and organizations including the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Project in 1995 with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The program encourages youth to play music despite the massive cuts in government funding that have happened around the nation in music education. — Niema Jordan
"I Can't Make You Love Me" live clip
"Something to Talk About" live clip
TOSHI REAGON
Parental advice worth listening to: Born in Atlanta in 1964 and raised in Washington, D.C., Reagon was brought up by unusually musically and politically hip parents. As the daughter of the Freedom Singers, a folk group that derived from the Civil Rights movement and taught civil rights across the country through song, Reagon acquired a left-leaning political consciousness and an ear for folk music. Her parents also influenced her love of ’70s rocknroll and most notably, R&B. Reagon’s mom even bought concert tickets to see KISS for a teenage Reagon.
Making a name for herself: After dropping out of college, Reagon’s hearty vocals and guitar play caught the attention of Lenny Kravitz, who invited Reagon to open for him on tour. Formed in 1996, Reagon and her band Big Lovely performed with an assortment of big talents in the ’90s, including Elvis Costello and Ani DiFranco. After signing to DiFranco's label, Righteous Babe, in 2004, Big Lovely released Have You Heard in 2006.
The post-modernist sound: Reagon’s interpretation of classic R&B transcends genres and reflects her own eclectic influences. Her multi-faceted style is known to provoke, leaving fans scratching their heads and trying to guess in which direction her songs will go next. — Katie Heath
Toshi Reagon Live
Toshi Reagon performs with Ani DiFranco
Queer Film Review featuring Toshi Reagon
MICHELLE SHOCKED
Humble beginnings: A Dallas native, Michelle Shocked (born Karen Michelle Johnson) in 1962, is a popular singer-songwriter influenced by her traditional folk and gospel roots. From a February 2008 phone interview, Shocked says her origins are “extremely humble.” Her mother was the original source of her musical creativity. An old nylon-string guitar sat in the corner of her mother’s house. “If you want to play guitar, you have to make sure you have a guitar in the house because, inevitably, at one point or another, you’re gonna get bored enough and you’re going to pick it up,” Shocked says. Shocked began to “doodle around” on the instrument on the advice of her mother as a preteen. “The way she liked to say it is, ‘I can only play three chords,’” Shocked says. “But I can play any song you want to hear.’”
A reverse of isolation: At age 12, Shocked spent a memorable summer with her father. He also encouraged a young Shocked to continue with her musical pursuits. Big on reminding Shocked that music keeps the mind stimulated, her father bought her a guitar from a pawn shop for additional practice. By age 16, the self-described “socially awkward teenager” says the guitar became an outlet for her remoteness. “I had isolated time reading books and spending time with myself,” Shocked says. “Picking up the guitar was a natural extension of that.” She began to take lessons and quickly studied works of other musicians such as “Freight Train” by Elizabeth Cotten, another Venus Zine “Greatest Female Guitarist of All Time”
The guitar and songwriting: Shocked describes her style of finger picking as “Travis style,” a style of picking named after Merle Travis. In “Travis style,” the musician plays a steady bass pattern with his or her thumb, while filling out syncopated rhythms with the finger on the right hand. For many years, Shocked claims that she was boxed in by the “Travis style” and this inhibited her from taking those basic guitar tools and innovating from there. However, Shocked quickly learned that her limitations with the guitar only helped her overall songwriting process. “What was a weakness of my guitar playing became the foundation of what I would write,” Shocked says.
Activist roots: Shocked’s professional career began as sporadically as her first encounters with the guitar. “I went from being a political activist to a professional,” Shocked says. Her name was first derived during a protest at the 1984 Democratic National Convention and is a pun of the term “shell shocked.” This convention would play another large part in her professional career. A photograph of the singer in a chokehold by a San Francisco police officer would act as the cover of her album Short Sharp Shocked.
Head first: Shocked gained popularity, especially overseas, through the release of The Texas Campfire Tapes, a series of field recordings made on a Sony Walkmen without Shocked’s initial permission. Diving head first into the professional music industry was difficult for Shocked in the beginning. “That was probably the epic female balance of our century because I had no self-esteem, I had no self-confidence,” Shocked says. In 1988, Shocked released Short Sharp Shocked and the album became a hit among college radio stations. Her major-label debut, Captain Swing was released in 1989, though little promotion outside of MTV was given to the singer because her record deal gave her sole ownership of her recordings. After the release of 1992’s Arkansas Traveler, Shocked removed herself from her record deal citing a violation of the 13th Amendment.
Breaking out: In 2002, Shocked created her own label, Mighty Sound, to release the album Deep Natural. Shocked reclaimed the rights to her songs and began to re-release her previous material. “Now I can be as bossy as the rest of them,” Shocked jokes.
Spreading the gospel: Shocked’s latest album, ToHeavenURide, was released in September 2007. The gospel album is a departure from Shocked’s original sound, though Shocked says the album has been in the works for a while. She originally planned to release a gospel album while still on Mercury Records but was unable to. The album features covers from greats such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe as well as four originals.
Women and the industry: When she found out about her title as a top female guitarist, Shocked was initially surprised by her inclusion but had strong feelings as a whole. “What you notice is that [the music industry] never market guys as being guys,” she says. “That’s the status quo. Somehow, by marketing women as women, you become a demographic.” Although she was surprised with her own conclusion, Shocked feels that the list as a whole is important. “The status quo is white guys. To have a list of greatest guitar players of all time basically tells you the answer. There wouldn’t be very many women on the list,” Shocked says. “In the old-school feminist sense, we had to create our own list.” — Brittany Julious
Shocked's “How You Play the Game”
Free downloadable Michelle Shocked demos
Michelle Shocked's "Anchorage"
DONITA SPARKS
Bar chords: When she started playing guitar at age 16, Donita Sparks learned from her Ramones records rather than a professional instructor and advises others to do the same. “With a bar chord, basically you just have this one finger formation and you just slide it up and down the neck,” Sparks says. “And you can play almost all the Ramones songs just by one formation on your hand. It was very liberating too, because if you’re intimidated by playing guitar, you know, if you can learn [a bar chord] then you feel instantly empowered. ‘Cause it’s like, ‘Wow I can play this whole Ramones record!’”
Metal maven: In 1985, Sparks partnered with fellow guitarist Suzi Gardner to create the metal band L7. The name “L7,” whose physical form resembles a square, acted as a slang synonym for “square” or “uncool” in the 1950s. The band combined the hard, driving guitar of heavy metal with pop hooks and feminist politics — they formed the pro-choice organization Rock for Choice in 1991. After debuting with their self-titled album in 1988 on Epitaph Records, the band’s sound caught on. In 1990, L7 released Smell the Magic on Sub Pop and moved to Warner Brothers for Bricks Are Heavy in 1992, which peaked at 160 on the Billboard 200 charts. By 1994, L7 toured as a part of Lollapalooza and hosted an episode of MTV’s 120 Minutes. The band remained active until it released a greatest hits album, The Slash Years, in 2000.
Going solo: With backing band the Stellar Moments, former L7 guitarist Donita Sparks releases her solo debut, Transmiticate, in spring 2008. The album features throwbacks to L7’s metal stylings, as in “Dare Dare,” and poppier domain, as in “Creampuff.” Sparks documents her maturation not only in her songwriting styles but also in her semi-autobiographical lyrics — “Sometimes it’s hard turning 30,” the 44-year-old sings in “Curtains for Cathy.” “I’m much more into backing vocals and expressing my melodic side than I used to,” explains Sparks on her evolution as a songwriter. “[W]ith L7, we suppressed that a bit because we really wanted to show our rock side. With this new stuff, I want all the bells and whistles. I want all the fun stuff. It can be dark thematically but I don’t want it to get too heavy.”
CASH rules everything around me: “I think the biggest challenge facing artists today is figuring out how to make a sustainable living off of their music,” says Sparks of the origins of CASHmusic.org (CASH stands for Coalition of Artists and Stake Holders), a Web site on which she collaborated with Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh. On the site, fans can select one of the listed artists — Sparks hopes to expand the list in the future — and pay for things like seeing the artist record music, or having their name appear on the artist’s T-shirt. “It’s kind of like fun opportunities for people,” Sparks says. “I mean, who wouldn’t wand their name on their favorite band’s shirt? It’s supporting the bands through more participation and more perks.”
Read/write culture: Increasingly, Sparks finds herself involved in the acts of remixing, premixing, and mashing up, collectively known as “read/write culture.” After hearing that CSS covered L7’s “Pretend We’re Dead,” she responded by making a mash-up called “Pretend We’re Alala,” which music fans can hear on Sparks’ MySpace or CSS’s MySpace. “[CSS] liked it a lot,” says Sparks. “So now we’re friends and I sang with them onstage when they came to L.A.” She also says she wants to integrate “read/write culture” into CASHmusic.org by offering up her music for free as well as mix stems.
On women in music: Some music journalists mislabeled L7 as part of the riot grrrl movement, which doesn’t fairly represent the band’s politics. “Our political agenda was to be a great fuckin’ rock band,” Sparks says. “We didn’t want to be gender-specific at all.” She attributes the sudden rise in prominence of women bands in the ‘90s to changes within the music industry at the time. “Nirvana started to do so well that [the record labels] just started signing, signing, signing. I mean the Melvins were on a major label at one time, which just shows you how anybody could get signed, because the Melvins are great but they’re not commercial in the slightest. So a lot of the women bands from the underground all of a sudden got signed to major labels.” Though she sees the lack of women in mainstream music as a problem, Sparks notes that the music industry’s problem might not apply solely to women. “Look at the guys, too. How many cool guy bands are there now in the mainstream. Are there any?” — Arianna Stern
Donita Sparks' "Dare Dare," "Curtains for Cathy," and "Pretend We’re Alala"
L7's "Loretta" video
MARNIE STERN
A strong start: Alongside drummer Zach Hill from Hella and bassist John-Reed Thompson, Stern’s dizzying technical work on her first album, In Advance of the Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars) garnered critical praise from a slew of publications, including the New York Times, which deemed it 2007’s “most exciting rock’n’roll album.”
A technique of her own: Departing from the typical method of strumming the electric guitar, Stern plays by finger-tapping, or producing the notes from the neck of the guitar rather than the body. “I noticed a nice ease and fluidity to it, and you can hit a lot of notes that way,” Stern says. “And I just really like the sound of it. I noticed that it really helped a lot with the movement of songs.”
Mad skillz: Stern’s awe-inspiring technical precision comes as a result of her commitment to practicing her instrument for at least three hours a day while she was learning guitar at age 21. The New Yorker didn’t start listening to the type of music she listens to now — bands like Sleater-Kinney and Hella — until age 23, but her relatively late start hasn’t hindered her ability to write innovative, experimental songs.
Tried and true: “I really like my old, beat-up Jazzmaster — it’s a Fender,” Stern says of her favorite instrument. “But I think it might be on its way out. I just used it to the bone. It’s bowed, so a lot of the notes don’t hit, and I’ve been playing with it, but I’ve got a bunch of others. I really have always wanted to play on the Telecaster, just because I like the shape of the neck, and I like how long it is, and I love the sound.” — Arianna Stern
"Every Single Line Means Something" video clip
At SXSW in 2007
RUYTER SUYS
Double guitar attack: Though Nashville Pussy’s lead guitarist Ruyter Suys is married to guitarist-vocalist Blaine Cartwright, the two insist that they only become husband and wife after they’re finished recording. In the studio, the duo says in an interview with ManiaTV, they take an all-business approach to their party-time rocknroll.
Formed in 1996, the Atlanta-based band adopts a reckless, macho attitude and includes two women in its lineup: Along with Suys, Karen Cuda plays bass. The song “Fried Chicken and Coffee” from their 1998 release, Let Them Eat Pussy, scored a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. Suys’ guitar solos demonstrate the technical dexterity necessary for rowdy metal and show her acting as macho and tough as the boys.
Questionable content: Some viewers might wonder what all the Confederate flags on the band’s Web site and in their music videos has to do with their music. The band emphasizes its Southern pride in its appearance and music. On the band’s biography, printed on the Web site, Cartwright says, “You’ve got all sorts of music that came from the Deep South, from James Brown to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and it’s all whoop-it-up music. It’s gotta be — it’s too hot to hate.” — Carol Morrison
Nashville Pussy interview on ManiaTV
Nashville Pussy’s “Go Motherfucker Go! video
SISTER ROSETTA THARPE
The calling came early: Born in 1915, Sister Rosetta Tharpe began performing at age four. She accompanied her mother, evangelist Katie Bell Nubin at tent revivals, where groups of churchgoers met in large tents to hear traveling pastors. Tharpe was introduced as the “Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar-playing miracle.”
Electric gospel: At age 23, Tharpe signed to Decca Records and introduced the music industry to a type of Christian music it hadn’t seen before. There was a bit of controversy since she played in churches and bars, readily mixing sacred songs with secular stylings. Throughout Tharpe’s career she often performed with choirs, she at the forefront, singing and strumming her electric guitar with the showmanship of a blues artist. Tharpe was not a traditional gospel artist.
Always the pioneer: In 1944, she recorded “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” the first gospel song to top Billboard’s “race-records” chart. She was also one of two gospel artists allowed to make V-discs (recordings for U.S. military personnel often with special messages of encouragement and unheard sessions) during World War II and the first gospel artist to tour Europe.
Sometimes change is hard: In the 1950s Tharpe’s fan support dissipated. When she made the complete leap from gospel to blues, much of her churchgoing audience did not agree with her embracing music that was seen as ungodly. During this controversial period, Tharpe retreated to Europe but eventually eased her way back into the gospel circuit during the ’60s.
Inspiring the greats: Tharpe’s career inspired artists like Little Richard, and several groups have made songs in her memory including “Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit)” by U.K. rock band Noisettes. — Niema Jordan
"Up Above My Head" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe on TV Gospel Time
"Down by the Riverside" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
MARY TIMONY
An early start: Mary Timony attended the Washington, D.C.–based high school Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where she studied viola and played guitar in the jazz band, learning how to play chords and jazz scales.
Her own style: The 38-year-old uses non-standard tunings that sometimes make her instrument sound like a guitar and a bass in one. Timony’s guitar style in the ‘90s bands Audioclave and Helium showcased her epic song structures with a seemingly incompatible punk rock style. She helped pioneer the distorted guitar sound of the 1990s that dominated alternative radio. Of her choice to use nonstandard tunings, Timony says it completely frees her. “I’m not tied down to what I’m doing at all, ’cause I don’t actually know what [the name of the chord] is. I just listen to it.”
Getting high: As a reference to the joke that “a woman is just a man who’s inhaled helium,” Helium’s name took on an ironic meaning when juxtaposed with Timony’s sometimes deadpan vocals and her feminist lyrics. Like the Pixies and other popular alternative bands from the ‘90s, Helium’s songs often shifted from quiet to loud and vice versa. Unlike most other popular bands — two of Helium’s singles appeared on MTV’s Beavis and Butthead — Helium worked its pop hooks into broken up, mosaic-like structures and released all its LPs on an indie label, Matador Records.
Mastering guitar: Timony says her favorite guitar is a Fender Jazzmaster from ’65 or ’66. “I really love Fender necks. They always feel good to me. I like the Jazzmasters [because] they sound a little bit bassier than Stratocasters.”
The personal is political: In her solo releases, Timony wears her politics on her sleeve, defying those who tried to dismiss her with the “angry girl” label. “Get your laws off my body,” she sings in “Pause/Off,” a song about pro-life protesters, while “Pink Clouds” deals with global warming.
Yo, teach: In addition to working on her solo recording career, over the past four years Timony has taught private guitar lessons in the D.C. area. — Arianna Stern
Helium's "Superball"
Helium's "Pat's Trick" video
Mary Timony's "Sharpshooter"
Streaming ‘Pause/Off’ by Mary Timony
SARAH UTTER
17 candles: For her 17th birthday, Utter received her first guitar as a gift. Two years later, underground punk bands as well as established bands such as the Stooges and MC5, awakened her interest in electric guitar.
The Olympia, Washington native became active in the all-ages punk rock scene during high school. “It was kind of during Olympia’s heyday of great bands,” she says. “It was really liberating to me, to hear guitars cranked up and see people who weren’t by any means professional musicians taking the stage and just playing loud.” At 22, in 1997, Utter formed the punk-inflected rock band Bangs with two of her friends, drummer Jesse Fox and bassist Maggie Vail. Bangs’ sound wears its Go-Go’s, Clash, and Ramones influences proudly. In turn, Bangs seem to have inspired the Donnas, with whom they once shared a stage. The band released two full-lengths on Kill Rock Stars: Tiger Beat in 1998 and Sweet Revenge in 2000.
Advice for aspiring guitarists: When she learned guitar, Utter preferred experimenting on her own rather than playing along to records, but she’s advised girls in guitar workshops to begin by learning power chords from visceral rock records. “If [you] are really wanting to play some straight-ahead, good rocknroll riffs, pick up a Joan Jett record like Bad Reputation or pick up any Ramones record,” she says. “You learn how to play a power chord, which is really easy. You can play along to either of those records and you’ll get better really quick.”
Reading is sexy: The single-sentence proclamation “reading is sexy” might seem like a slogan destined for a cult audience of hip librarians and English majors, but its fate changed when the powers that be decided that Rory Gilmore should wear it too.
The T-shirt design that has become a national phenomenon started when Utter’s friends at buyolympia.com asked her to design some T-shirts for the site. “I went to Kinko’s and just off the top of my head thought of some things that I thought were funny or cute,” she says. “That design came out in just an afternoon at a copy shop.” After the T-shirt’s appearance on Gilmore Girls, Utter estimates that buyolympia.com sold about 10 to 20 times as many shirts as before the show appearance. The design has expanded to stickers and refrigerator magnets, and in spring 2008 it will extend to mugs made from biodegradable plastic derived from corn.
Guitar basics: As another contribution to buyolympia.com, Utter created a 12-page fanzine called Guitar Basics. “It’s just something that I wish I had had, ’cause I was so clueless when I started playing electric guitar,” says Utter. I didn’t know anything like a power chord or a scale or anything, so it’s just a handy, really straightforward guide. I wrote it with my young self in mind, what I would have wanted to know.” — Arianna Stern
Bangs' "New Scars" video
Bangs' "Sweet Revenge" video
TAL WILKENFELD
From six strings to four: Though Tal Wilkenfeld plays multiple instruments, including the guitar, she first started to play bass seriously in 2003. At age 16, the 1986-born musician dropped out of high school in her hometown of Sydney, Australia. She moved to the United States in order to pursue her dream of playing rocknroll. After a year in the States, Wilkenfeld permanently switched her focus from guitar to bass. “[A]s soon as I started playing bass I knew it was my instrument,” Wilkenfeld tells the Sydney Morning Herald. “It was like, 'Yes this is it. I don't even want to play guitar anymore. This is amazing.’”
Transformation: Wilkenfeld’s eight-song debut, Transformation, was released in 2007 on Waterfront Records. Collaborating with improvisational keyboardist Geoff Keezer and fusion jazz guitarist Wayne Krantz, Wilkenfeld penned intricate, winding melodies that sound natural despite their complexity. The songs, whose tones range from calm to rollicking and exuberant, display Wilkenfeld’s mind-blowing talent at fretting.
The big break: At the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago, Wilkenfeld joined the stage with Jeff Beck, whom many consider one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Their rendition of the song “Cause We Ended As Lovers” has received more than 15,000 hits on YouTube. In the performance, Wilkenfeld showcases her talents for fretting quickly and finger-picking to release a warm, deep tone. In addition to Beck, Wilkenfeld has played with jazz pianist-keyboardist Chick Corea, the Allman Brothers Band, and the Grammy-winning drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. — Arianna Stern
Jeff Beck and Tal Wilkenfeld perform "Cause We Ended As Lovers"
NANCY WILSON
A born guitarist: Nancy Wilson, most famous for her guitar prowess in the band Heart, started playing at age 8. Born in 1954, she grew up in Southern California and Taiwan before her Marine Corps father retired to the Seattle suburbs. “I fell in love with the guitar immediately,” she says from her Los Angeles home in February 2008. In the same way that her sister Ann Wilson was born to sing, Nancy Wilson says she’s definitely a born guitar player.
The self-taught guitarist says she has a good ear for picking things up and imitating what she’d heard on vinyl records. She mastered guitar by playing songs by Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Page, and Pete Townsend. “Before Heart, I played nonstop and way into the night, and I just couldn’t put the guitar down,” Wilson says. “I didn’t mind that my fingers hurt. I had to know every song that I loved.”
Favorite guitars: Wilson has a soft spot for classic guitars because they have the most character and soul. She has a Gibson Les Paul Special that she’s played since the ‘70s and continues to play now. She also loves the Martin guitar and has worked with the company on a new design. “I designed it in the style of the Martins that Crosby Stills Nash and Young used to play because that’s the sound I grew up with and learned,” she says.
Expert advice: Wilson’s primary advice for aspiring guitarists is to have fun. She recommends learning to play by ear instead of concentrating on reading music. “Learn every three-chord song first,” she says. “You know, ‘Gloria’ or ‘Wild Thing,’ and ‘Louie Louie.’ Play with other musicians and bang on the piano and have a party.” She thinks it’s best for aspiring musicians to make stuff up and not take themselves so seriously. “Sometimes they think, ‘I must educate myself in the ways of music.’ But if you’re going to play rock in particular, it’s really about having a good time and getting off.”
A different kind of sexy back: Wilson says she has mixed feelings about the music industry right now. On the one hand, she feels that MTV has created a manufacturing process for sexualizing popular music. She feels that the late ’60s and ’70s was a time of cultural exploration, expression, and groove; whereas today, mainstream music tends to involve image perfection and being sexy. “The ’70s was definitely a sexy time in music,” Wilson says. “It just wasn’t sexy in the way that sexy is today. Today’s sexy is pre-fab, and there’s a very narrow definition about what’s supposed to be sexy, which to me is largely unsexy compared to the more natural look of sexiness. I think [Heart] always had a lot of sexual prowess with our music and on stage and in our early videos before MTV but it was way more of a natural idea.”
On the other hand, Wilson is excited about music that’s coming from underground sources. She says she’s glad there are sites such as YouTube that allow people to access music on their own. “When you create a groundswell inside culture that’s outside of the box, you have something great happening in music,” Wilson says. “It feels much more like the ’70s again to me — before everything got so corporatized. I’m really hopeful for music right now. The business itself is dying on the vine because a lot of the corporate mentality has choked itself to death. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s gonna be more about what people love and what people want now.”
Keeping score: Wilson composes music for a number of her husband, director Cameron Crowe’s films, including Elizabethtown and Vanilla Sky. She most recently scored music for a CNN program called Heroes. “I’ve got a lot of crazy instruments like the Japanese koto and mandocello that I use for scoring — I have no idea how to play them, but I just play them anyway,” Wilson says. “There’s all kinds of fun to be had.” — Amy Schroeder
Video of Nancy Wilson's acoustic version of “Magic Man” on The Howard Stern show
Video of Heart's "Barracuda" live at Women Rock! 2000
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