Greatest Female Electric Guitarists

“You can caress [a guitar] like a woman,” says Jimmy Page in the opening of It Might Get Loud, a new documentary by Davis Guggenheim that invites electric-guitar virtuosos Page, U2’s The Edge, and Jack White to meet on an L.A. soundstage, tell their guitar stories, and do a little impromptu jamming. In theaters now, it’s the kind of gripping music doc that could inspire girls and boys everywhere to ditch Guitar Hero for a real Stratocaster. And yet, as good as it is, we couldn’t help but think, Why no female guitarist in the bunch? Could be that since the electric guitar’s popularity blossomed in the mid-twentieth century, collective wisdom has suggested that great female guitarists simply don’t exist. Take Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Only two women, Joni Mitchell and Joan Jett, were honored. In a Washington Post article written in response to Rolling Stone’s list, the writer suggests that as interest in electric guitar was revving up in the ’60s, women weren’t encouraged to step out of their ladylike gender roles, leaving them with an impossible game of catch-up to Jimi Hendrix and Page. Maybe. But Kelley Deal, lead guitarist of the Breeders, doesn’t buy it. “I think we do exist,” she says, “but in a different capacity. Guys really like to hear themselves talk. Women guitarists seem more song-oriented. What they choose to play contributes to making the song better, not just riffing all over it. It’s a deeper relationship.” And it’s a relationship that could helm its own documentary (cough, cough, Mr. Guggenheim). In the meantime, ELLE presents 12 of the greatest female electric guitar players to ever pick up the instrument.

Joan Jett 

A no-nonsense player who in only a few strums can get an entire barroom howling her 1982 hit, “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.” That kind of power, often amplified by painted-on leather pants, sets the bar high for Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, who’s playing Jett in an upcoming Runaways biopic.

Lita Ford 

After jamming with Jett as lead guitarist in the Runaways, Lita Ford took her pop-metal shedder sound solo and hired fellow rocker chick Sharon Osbourne as her manager. In 1988, she released Lita, a sexy riff-filled album that not only pleased rockers with its head-banging tunes but also got mainstreamers in the pit, especially with “Close My Eyes Forever,” her duet with the prince of darkness Ozzy Osbourne.

Nancy Wilson 

Only a few seconds into the riff of Heart’s “Barracuda” and you know that only Nancy Wilson could knock you over with solos that beg to be air-guitared. Which makes us even more excited to hear that Nancy and sister Ann are preparing a new album slated for next summer.