Hole Notes: Monitoring the Pulse of Nancy Wilson’s Awe-Inspiring Acoustic Work

These videos are bonus content related to the December 2013 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store.

Seattle-based rockers Heart had been through numerous name and personnel changes by 1974, when Nancy Wilson joined her older sister, lead singer Ann, in the lineup.

Nancy was enlisted to help expand the act’s sonic palette with her acoustic guitar playing. A fan of Paul Simon, the Beatles, Jimmy Page and Steve Howe, among others, Nancy brought to the band her mastery of fingerpicking, thumb-/hybrid-picked styles and colorful open chords, which added a Led Zeppelin–like folk edge to Heart’s sound, as heard on early Wilson-sister songs like “Crazy on You,” from the band’s debut album, Dreamboat Annie.

The record, which also featured the smash hit “Magic Man,” gave the band its first taste of success and was soon followed by a string of now-classic albums, like Little Queen (featuring “Barracuda”), Magazine (“Heartless”), Dog and Butterfly (title track) and Bebe Le Strange (“Even It Up”).