“The neighbors said, ‘Don’t let Nancy play guitar, it’ll ruin her fingernails.’ They were right, but I didn’t care about fingernails”: Nancy Wilson on ignoring the people that tried to stop her becoming a guitarist

Nancy Wilson's guitar work shaped the fabric of Heart's music and influenced the trajectory of the band's career and staying power. However, her career wasn't a given, as Wilson had to work hard to ignore the outside noise that tried to deter her from playing guitar in the first place.

“Our parents saw how consumed we were, so they were very encouraging. It was the neighbors, the Joneses, that said: ‘Don’t let Nancy play guitar, it’ll ruin her fingernails,’” Wilson recently told Louder.

Nancy Wilson electric guitar solos - YouTube

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“Well, they were right, but I didn’t really care about fingernails. Our parents cheered us on. They helped us make payments on cheap guitars. Ann had the voice of doom. I was really consumed with being her accompanist.

“There really weren’t any women to inspire me. I was inspired by Jimmy Page, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon, Elton John’s piano playing. They were my muses.”

As for her sister Ann, she also admits there weren't many women they could look up to back then. “They were all men back then,” she explains.

“There were a few female singers I really loved, like Judy Garland, but in those days there wasn’t yet a female rock’n’roll icon. My inspirations were Robert Plant, Lennon and McCartney, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Harry Belafonte.”

Wilson had previously talked about writing Silver Wheels – the guitar intro to the 1975 hit Crazy on You – as a way to push the boundaries and defy expectations.

Silver Wheels - YouTube

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“I was just going for something like Yes, who used to have acoustic guitar intros to epic songs,” Wilson said in an interview with Total Guitar.

“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll prove myself. I’m not a guy, so if I prove myself a little bit harder, then I might be noticed and taken seriously as a player’. Stuff like that actually brings respect when you can show that you’re an accomplished musician, and not just an ornament on a stage.”

In early July, Heart announced they're canceling the rest of their 2024 Royal Flush tour following Ann Wilson’s cancer diagnosis.