Don Ross with his Oscar Graf seven-string guitar.
Photograph by Greg Holman.
From Acoustic Guitar Magazine, September 1999, No. 81
NANCY WILSON | DON ROSS
NANCY WILSON

Nancy Wilson depended on six- and 12-string Ovations to get her through the early years of melding acoustic playing with hard rock, and she still uses a 1992 Ovation she calls Burley. "I had to have an Ovation for big, live shows," she says. "There was no feedback; I was able to turn up the volume all the way and let the soundman tweak it."

Takamine guitars became another staple while Wilson was on the road with Heart. "I saw Pete Townsend using one and loved the sound of it," Wilson recalls. "I was looking for something other than an Ovation, because I craved that more acoustic sound. The Ovation is great for a more percussive sound, but it has its own distinctive place. The Takamine is really an all-around stage guitar. I just run it flat and all the way up." She currently uses an NP18C and an NP15C, both cutaways built of Indian rosewood with Sitka spruce tops.

When she recorded her premiere instrumental, "Silver Wheels" (Dog and Butterfly), Wilson played a "big, fat-bodied" Guild owned by Heart's then-producer Mike Flicker. In 1976, Vancouver-based luthier Ed Myronyk built Wilson a steel-string called the Libra Sunrise, on which she recorded "Mistral Wind." Reminiscent of a Martin D-28, the Sunrise guitar is made of Brazilian rosewood with a bear-claw spruce top. It's equipped with a Fishman pickup, and Wilson still takes it on the road (though reluctantly). "My Sunrise just gets better and better," she said.

Wilson also has a 12-fret Martin 12-string, model D12-45, made in 1974. Sometimes she strings the top E and B strings with double courses and leaves the rest of the strings as singles—a trick she picked up from Nashville. Her extensive guitar collection also includes the Lady, a small-bodied classical made in 1975 by German luthier Hermann Hauser; a small-bodied acoustic-electric built by Danny Ferrington; a wood and a steel National; and vintage Fender and Gibson lap steels.

Wilson runs her acoustic guitars into a Juice Box (a tube direct box made by Retrospec) and then straight into the mixer. She uses a Trace Elliot amplifier at home and on stage as an acoustic guitar monitor. She plays with heavy Dunlop Tortex picks and medium-gauge D'Addario phosphor-bronze acoustic strings.

Her well-worn collection of vintage electrics includes a Gibson ES-330 hollow-body, an original Flying V, a 1965 Fender Strat, and a late model Fender Thinline Telecaster. "The electric guitar is a totally different instrument to play, but you can get away with a somewhat similar feel to an acoustic if you play a Tele with heavier strings," she says. Her favorite electric is a vintage Les Paul Jr. modeled after an instrument built for Les Paul's wife. "It's a lady's size and has a lot of personality," Wilson says. Her preferred electric amps are a Marshall stack and a Mesa Boogie. "In the studio I like to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Marshall combination," she says, "because you can get all of that drama and the fattest of sounds without playing so hard."

On the 1999 Ann and Nancy Wilson tour, Nancy is playing Takamines equipped with Fishman Matrix II under-saddle pickups as well as a 1979 Japanese-built mandolin, a close copy of her vintage Gibson mandolin, which stays at home. On some songs she used a flanger effects pedal on her guitars. A new addition to her touring rig is an Atomic Boot Box (built by her nephews Tohn and Reed Keagle) similar to the stomp board used by Chris Whitley, which provides a bass drum sound.

—Julie Bergman

Read an excerpt from the cover story about Nancy Wilson in Acoustic Guitar (September '99, #81).

DON ROSS

Don Ross has used a number of guitars since he began playing, including his initial "plastic reject" and a Harmony Sovereign with "Mount Everest action." He has played Lowden guitars since 1981, and his current model is an 0-10, Lowden's original jumbo, with a cedar top and mahogany back and sides. Ross' seven-string is a custom Oscar Graf with an Engelmann spruce top and koa back and sides (Oscar Graf Guitars, PO Box 2502, Clarendon, ON K0H 1JO, Canada; [613] 279-2610; www.neteyes.com/graf). His latest acquisition is a Marc Beneteau baritone guitar (tuned down a fifth below standard), which has an Engelmann spruce top and padouk back and sides (Marc Beneteau, 109 Forest Ave., St. Thomas, ON N5R 2J8, Canada; [519] 633-6994).

Ross uses John Pearse medium-gauge strings and sets the action on his guitars on the low side. The Lowden and the Graf both use a combination of Bartolini soundhole humbucking pickups (Bartolini Pickups and Electronics, 2133 Research Drive #16, Livermore, CA 94550; [925] 4443-1037; www.bartolini.net) and Ring Music piezo transducers (www.ringmusic.com) wired together into a stereo endpin jack. The signals are split into mono for separate processing and run through either a Fishman or a T.C. Electronic preamp and then through individual channels on a Mackie 1202 mixer. From there they go through a Danelectro stereo chorus and a Lexicon LXP-1 and into a Fishman Acoustic Monitor amplifier. With this setup, Ross says, "The sound person just has to run two XLR cables out of the back of the amp and pan them hard left and right in the front of the house. Sounds yummy!"

—Ron Forbes-Roberts