One of the most difficult hurdles for every guitar player to overcome in their musical journey is the fact that, in the beginning, almost everyone sounds, to put it bluntly, awful (natural-born savants, this isn’t about you). Between the plunky, half-rung chords to the pre-callous pain in the fingertips, playing guitar is certainly not an immediately gratifying process—something even rockstars like Heart’s Nancy Wilson had to learn the hard way in their early years.
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During a February 2026 appearance on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan, the Heart founder and guitarist talked about fostering her love for music at the young age of nine. Wilson was born in 1954, which meant this was right around the time that The Beatles were bursting onto the scene. And just like virtually every other young music lover of that time, Wilson saw the Fab Four and had one singular thought: “I want to be them.”
However, she would soon find that her first guitar sounded nothing like John and George’s, and not just because she was still a novice player. Calling her very first guitar “the worst guitar of all time,” Wilson described her $30 Lyle three-quarter acoustic that she rented from a nearby music shop. The body was made from plywood, the action was sky-high, and, naturally, none of these characteristics made it conducive to playing.
How Nancy Wilson Powered Through the Early Days With the Help of Her Sister and Grandmother
As lousy as that first guitar was, Nancy Wilson said she became obsessed with learning Beatles tracks and songs she heard on the Top 40 radio. She had naturally sharp ears, which helped her recreate sounds on the guitar without becoming fluent in tablature. The Heart guitarist laughed as she described how the strings were so far away from the fretboard that she resigned herself not to play any barre chords, including F major. (If you know, you know.) Luckily, she didn’t have to suffer for much longer, thanks to her sister, Heart co-founder and vocalist Ann Wilson, and their grandmother.
Much to Ann’s chagrin, anyway. “Ann got a good guitar from our grandma,” Nancy explained, “because we were all interested in being like—not like The Beatles. We wanted to be the actual Beatles. You know, have a band. Be like the guys. Not like the guys or the girlfriends of the guys, but be them. Her guitar was playable, so I would sneak off with her guitar. She’d get really p***ed off at me. ‘You took my guitar, give it back!’”
Eventually, both sisters settled into their respective instruments. Ann was the naturally stronger vocalist, and Nancy was the more proficient guitarist. With their powers combined, they formed one of the most compelling and influential female-fronted bands of the 1970s and beyond. The Wilsons came out swinging on their debut, Dreamboat Annie, with tracks like “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You”, proving that the right player can make any guitar sing—even if it’s a shoddy rental or one you have to steal from your older sister.
Photo by Richard Creamer/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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