Crazy on You
Heart · Dreamboat Annie · 1975
Nancy Wilson tracked the driving acoustic rhythm on a Guild jumbo she described as hellish to play because of its high action, using a thumbpick and fingers for the "Silver Wheels" intro. The electric rhythm alongside it is Roger Fisher's Les Paul Goldtop into a Fender Twin Reverb turned way up, so the crunch is the amp breaking up rather than a pedal. For the acoustic, go bright and dry with a hard, percussive strum; for the electric, bridge humbucker and just enough grit to bark on the low strings.
Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record
Tuning
Standard tuning, no capo
Standard tuning in A minor; the acoustic rhythm is one guitar and the crunchy riff/power-chord part is a separate electric track, so pick which one you're covering before you dial in a tone.
Guitar
- Guild jumbo acoustic
- Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (Fisher recalls a '65) · stock humbuckers · bridge pickup
Amp
Fender Twin Reverb
Fisher described the whole Dreamboat Annie setup as a Les Paul into a Fender Twin Reverb run LOUD, so the dirt is power-tube breakup rather than a pedal; the Twin has no presence control. Volume that high on a Twin is very loud in a room, so a master-volume amp or attenuator gets you closer at home.
Amp
Acoustic recorded direct to console (no amp)
The strummed rhythm part was a mic'd acoustic at Can-Base Studios in Vancouver, produced and engineered by Mike Flicker with Rolf Hennemann; if you're playing it amplified, keep it flat and bright with a little compression.
Pedals
- Univox Uni-Vibe · rotary/vibe · Fisher says he was using one during the album sessions; it is not clearly audible on this track
- Unidentified distortion pedal · distortion · Fisher thinks a distortion pedal was used somewhere on the album but could not name it
Tone character
bright strummed acoustic · percussive pick attack · forward mids · cranked-Twin power-tube crunch · tight, dry, minimal reverb
The acoustic rhythm is fast, near-constant sixteenth-note strumming around 144 bpm with quick Am–G–F–E type changes, so the challenge is right-hand stamina and keeping the strum even, not the chord shapes.
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