Women with Mandolins

[Ed Goist]

People this beautiful should not be so talented.
It's just not fair.
Some nice shots of Rebecca's Duff F5...With the newly repaired headstock.

[Verne Andru]

93 pages and counting!!! Didn't go through them all - has Nancy Wilson made an appearance yet?

[disguiseglasses]

People this beautiful should not be so talented.
It's just not fair.

You said it! I suppose now is as good a time as any to admit that I've had not a small crush on Rebecca since seeing her play. That she was covering a favorite song of mine, Massive Attack's "Teardrop", only served to make the crush all the worse.

[journeybear]

People this beautiful should not be so talented. It's just not fair.

Ah ... If only talented people were also beautiful. For instance, there are reasons people like me don't get on camera very often ... But then, this isn't about that. While some of these are indeed nice shots, some are also quite daft. And there are only three out of the sixteen total which feature mandolin. Sometimes I find myself wondering about Ed's motivation ... then I remember, I think I understand perfectly. BTW, I find myself unable to decide who is prettier, Larkin or Poe.

93 pages and counting!!! Didn't go through them all - has Nancy Wilson made an appearance yet?

Well, what do you think? Are we all slackers? If you use the Search Thread function, you'll find "Nancy Wilson" shows up six times now, including your post. This may be a minority opinion (though I hope not): I think it's a good idea to take the time to go through long threads before posting. Even if it takes hours spread over days, it's worth it - not only to avoid duplication, but for one's own enjoyment. Some of the contributions to these threads are by turns, enlightening, informative, hilarious, and inspiring. There are good reasons they have lasted so long and attracted so much attention. Why miss out?

[Mandolin Mick]

How about that bass balalaika in Katzenjammer? I used to have a standard balalaika, bought it thinking that it would be like the mandolin ... but it's not.

[Mandolin Mick]

Steve,

I understood a long time ago ...

I'm not going to go through the whole thread, so is the clip of Nancy & Ann doing "The Battle of Evermore" by Zeppelin on here? It's really impressive.

[journeybear]

This HAS to be a joke, after what I just said! I dunno, why don't you take a quick look? And if one of those vidclips hasn't been posted, feel free to preview a few and do so. I yi yi!

[Mandolin Mick]

I guess we're on a different wavelength on this one ... my question was for the benefit of others, hoping they would go to YouTube and see it, if it wasn't here. I just don't have the patience to peruse an entire 93 page thread looking for a clip.

[journeybear]

Oh ... you weren't kidding. OK, since it's you, good buddy, I'll try and clarify ... and also for the benefit of all. What the hey!

If you use the Search Thread function, using "Nancy Wilson" as your parameter, the program does the work, and will pop out the six results I mentioned out of the over 2300 posts. Then you can look through those one by one - hitting the return button after each one to go back to your results list. It is much less daunting a task than one might think.

Note your post won't show up this way, unless you don't use the quotes. Considerations such as this are one reason sometimes I post the way I do, including artists' or bands' full names and such, so they will be searchable. Or don't, so they won't.

But I agree - few have the time to read through entire enormous threads before firing off a post while one is caught up in the moment. I did take the time to read through this thread when I first encountered it a couple of years ago - it took hours spread over days - because I didn't want to duplicate (did anyway; sloppy work) and also didn't want to miss anything. And you are also right that there should be a clip of Heart doing that song on this thread - but since there are several of them and I don't want to spend the time to check them all out and pick one to post here, I'm OK with suggesting that someone who feels motivated to do so, do so.

[Mandolin Mick]

Believe it or not , I actually did do a search on "Nancy Wilson" ... but I only had the patience to look at the first page ...

[journeybear]

[Soundfarmer Pete]

Just found a clip of Bluehorses with Lizzie playing mandolin!!!

[Verne Andru]

Nancy Wilson only shows up 6 times!! Shame on all of you. She should appear at least once a page!

Nice thread. I do intend to go through it all, it's just going to take a few months.

[dustyamps]

I find this comment disrespectful, not humorous, and inappropriate for this mandolin topic forum.

[journeybear]

Nancy Wilson...

Thanks for reminding us of Nancy Wilson. Not that she's well-known for playing mandolin, but she does a good job with it on Zep's "Battle Of Evermore," as seen above. Not too many pictures of her with it on the interweb, and the best one has already been posted here by the inimitable Django Fret, and over at emando, but here are a couple more, plus a portrait.

OK, against my better judgment, I took a look through what we have turned up on Nancy Wilson. Most of what there is showed up in a brief flurry of activity around the Aries-Taurus cusp in 2009, posts 1566, 1572, and 1573 (page 63, I think, or 30, counting backwards, as I do). Reviewing these jogged my memory - I had done a good bit of websearching and turned up very little. I was somewhat surprised and disappointed by this. I assume the pic Verne shared is more recent than those.

There are many women who have done a lot more with, on, and for the instrument than Nancy Wilson. The rarity of photos of her with it attests to this, especially when compared with the wealth of contributions to the canon offered by posters here of female mandolinists, which is just a fraction of all they have done. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her, personally, but I prefer learning of more accomplished players like Olga.

[Ed Goist]

I am very sorry to have offended you Dustyamps.
My sincerest apologies to you and anyone else this may have offended.
I certainly meant no disrespect. My intention was actually the opposite - To point out that those wonderful young ladies 'have it all'.
If I failed in that regard I am sorry.
Rebecca Lovell is a remarkably gifted, gracious, generous and classy person. The last thing in the world I meant to do was show disrespect toward her or her equally classy sister Megan.
Again, sorry.

[Verne Andru]

Tough crowd...

[John Hill]

I wouldn't apologize Ed, dustyamps doesn't even specify the comment to which he refers.

Maybe he means someone trying to infer that Nancy Wilson is a mandolin player...now THAT is inappropriate and non humorous for this mandolin topic forum (?).

[journeybear]

I know what you mean. I was stumped too for the longest time, and thought he was referring to Verne liking Nancy Wilson so much ... but then why would he be taking Ed to task for something someone else had said ... ... until I noticed dustyamps had changed the subject header of his post to Ed's one-liner.

I dunno. I think Ed was being light-hearted, and indeed expressing admiration for Rebecca Lovell. She does play beautifully and is also a beautiful player. I don't see anything disrespectful in what Ed said, and he has gone on record in this regard before, and always with respect and consideration. I may tease him about this, but only about the frequency of such posts, not their content.

Again, this is a good reason to read through long threads. One gets a sense of what has gone on before, the path the thread has taken, and where contributors stand regarding aspects of it. It helps to understand. I don't think we're a tough crowd, but a discerning one, and a lot of us have devoted a lot to this.

All right, climbing off the soap box (for now). Next!

[Mandolin Mick]

You know ... I noticed some time ago that my favorite movies have no women in them, i.e., 12 Angry Men, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Moby Dick ...

Oh, by the way, I'm happily married ...

[journeybear]

Not meaning to change the subject - Ok, so I am, what of it? - I reconnected with Annie Raines, this time via facebook. It's been a while, and a few more pics have shown up since the last two years.

Drat! Hold on ... Criminy - whoever said macs are better than PCs either doesn't know what (s)he's talking about or knows something I don't!

Anyway ... the first one has shown up before, but with the photographer's credits over the image. This clean version is from Paul & Annie's facebook page. Annie is mostly a harmonica player, but she is solid on mandolin too. And being a member of John Sebastian's J Band is good enough for me.

[shirin]

Thank you kindly! It took a while for me to realize there was some mandolin in that picture : )

[JeffD]

obviously due to the limitation of mandolin--.

Ahhh.

Unless you mean it in a benign way - i.e. acknowledging that something written for mandolin might have to be modified to play on guitar, due to the limitations of the guitar.

I'm just sayin...


Whenever anyone says "not to poo poo the...." its exactly what they are doing. Just like the phrase "don't take this the wrong way but.." which means don't take this as intended. I never trust what someone says after the phrase "to be honest with you..."

[Jim Hilburn]

Nancy Wilson is featured in the Oct. Vintage Guitar mag. They have a photo of her Japanese F-5 copy with flowerpot but no name. Says she got it new in '74.

[journeybear]

It occurred to me that maybe, just m-a-y-b-e, Nancy Wilson playing mandolin on "Battle Of Evermore" has more to do with her (and Anne's) affection for Led Zeppelin than the instrument. It wouldn't be the first time someone has veered into mandolin territory just for one song, nor will it (nor should it) be the last. Regardless, I will be sure to ask her about this next time I see her, and let you all know. Count on it.