NANCY WILSON

If someone had told the 12-year-old Nancy Wilson that one day she’d have her own signature model electric guitar in stores, she might have laughed. Then again, she might have taken it in stride. At that age, Wilson was already three years into pursuing what she calls her “life’s calling”. “I was possessed,” she says. “I would walk down to the local music store and look at the guitars, because I didn’t have a good one yet. One of the reasons I got really strong is because my first guitar was unplayable; learning how to bar an F-chord was really painful. So I’d pick up a good guitar in the shop, sit down and play Anji by Paul Simon. People would stop and their jaws would drop and be like: “Whoa, look at that little gal go with that big guitar!”

Wilson relates that story with several hearty laughs. In conversation the younger Wilson sister has, featuring contributions from Sammy Hagar and Duff McKagan, covers of Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam songs along with original rockers and acoustic beauties. “I don’t know why it took me so long to do this,” she says. “Maybe I was stuck in the Heart vortex of it all.”