Lindsay Ell’s Top 5 Female Guitarists

“I love Strats, I’m such a Strat girl, and Fender actually recently did the 70th-anniversary Strat. And so this is one of the models that they made,” Lindsay Ell says, as she picks up her iridescent purple Ultra Stratocaster guitar and holds it up for me to see.

“It picks up the light, so it depends on where you’re looking,” she continues. “It can [appear] turquoise or even yellow or pink or whatever, but it’s really purple.” Just like her long, purple hair that cascades over her shoulders. “I have way too many guitars, obviously. It’s sincerely a problem. But yeah, she’s my fave right now. I just keep going to her and I’ve been writing a lot on her.” 

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Ell is calling from her Nashville home, where she’s been living for the past 15 years. Originally from Calgary, the largest city in the Canadian province of Alberta, she started playing classical piano when she was 6 years old. But when her father showed her how to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar two years later, she made the switch.

“My dad played a lot of bluegrass, like went to bluegrass camps around town,” she tells me. “And so I would just follow him, and I would be hanging out with my dad and all of his friends just playing fiddle, flat picking tunes till 3 in the morning.”

Ell began listening to Tommy Emmanuel and Bob Evans and by the time she was 13, she started working with Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. “He would sit in the studio and play all of these crazy jazz chords up and down the neck. And I’d just sit there as my 13-year-old self and be like, ‘Randy, what are those?’ He learned to play guitar from a jazz guitarist, Lenny Breau. And so a lot of his songwriting and chords that he uses are very influenced by jazz.”

Breau also introduced Ell to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Eric Clapton, which fed her need to learn as many guitar styles as possible. 

When she turned 16, Ell saved up and bought a 15-passenger van, which she drove to high school during the week and then to gigs up to eight hours away with her band on the weekends, where she honed her stage performance skills.

“I think it’s why playing live is one of my favorite things to do because it’s where I feel the most at home,” she says. “I’ve been doing it ever since I was 10 years old. I would play at anything if they would have me; I would play for free wherever I could. And when I started making a little bit of money, I would just scrape together pennies and pay for a gas tank and then carry on.” 

As a teenager, Ell opened for Chris Isaak and toured with Buddy Guy, who invited her to play at his Legends club in Chicago. “I remember the first time I did that, I wasn’t 18 yet,” she says. “And so I was just this tiny little blonde girl in this blues club. And I sat in this chained-off section of the club because I was so underage. Buddy used to do a residency there every January. And so he invited me up and he was like, ‘This is Lindsay Ell and she’s going to play some blues with me.’ And I didn’t even know what we would play. He would just be like, ‘Honey, we’re in G. And I’d be like, okay, here we go.’”

At 20, Ell moved to Nashville to make music her career; her goal was to become a “female John Mayer,” get signed by a label, and make a professional album. She was signed to Stoney Creek Records and in 2017, released The Project, her major label debut, which ranked on the Billboard 200 chart at No. 40.

The problem was, she didn’t consider herself a country artist. 

“I feel like when I came down to Nashville, I was so eyes-on-the-prize, all I wanted to do was make music my job and tour around the world and play in front of people who one day maybe they would learn my songs and I could hear my songs sung back to me,” she says. “I feel like I was so eager that the minute I got offered a record deal, I said yes. I didn’t even shop a deal. And not that I’m regretful of that in any way, but I think I was just so ready to go.”

While she loved playing country music, Ell felt like it wasn’t quite the kind of music she was meant to play. But every time she tried to do a not-quite-so-country sound, her label resisted. “I had been told the whole time, like, ‘Lindsay, you’re not really country, and this song’s not really country enough.’”

After 15 years and three country albums under Stoney Creek, she left the label in 2023 and pursued the kind of music she wanted to create. 

“My core fans have fallen in love with me and my music and I’m so grateful for them,” she says. “But the wider reach of everything that we were marketing music to, I just feel like those weren’t my people. And I’m like, why am I trying to yell so loudly to the wrong people? Maybe I just have to turn directions or something.”

So, she did. 

In 2024, Ell released her EP Love Myself, a much more pop-dance-oriented collection of songs. Earlier this year, she put out a new single, “I Shouldn’t Call You,” a collaboration with Nashville-based indie group Nightly. Then at the end of February, she released two songs exclusively on Apple Music: a re-imagined version of “Pain Tolerance” from her latest EP and a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.”

Ell is currently working on her new album, which will be released later this year. 

“Country music will always be a part of me,” she says. “But creatively, I need to be able to do some fun and exciting things that my brain just cannot wait to go into the studio and pick up an instrument and play.”

As a guitarist who knows no bounds, a player who can pick and grin and play the blues and rock and roll, Ell’s guitar knowledge is extensive. Besides Hendrix, Clapton, and Vaughn, she praises five women guitarists who stand out in the typically male-heavy field.

Bonnie Raitt

So my number one is Bonnie Raitt. I feel like she put female guitar players on the map in a way that no other woman has. And I look up to her so much as a songwriter, as an artist, obviously as a slide player. But a lot of my favorite guitar players come from feel; they don’t necessarily come from speed or how many notes they can play in a given amount of time, which I have so much appreciation for. But I really love players who play with feel and soul.

H.E.R. (Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson)

My number two right now is H.E.R. I’ve just been so inspired watching what Gabi has built. I also love her feel, I love her style, I love her whole branding as an artist; the way she sits in with Lenny Kravitz and is at the Super Bowl, and her performance playing. She’s just so cool, man. Every time I see her play I’m just like, god bless. She’s awesome. She’s so special. 

Celisse

I don’t know if many people have heard of her, but if they haven’t, they definitely need to. Her name is Celisse and I have been on a few festivals with her. She’s just a darling of a human. I was on the Melissa Etheridge cruise with her, which gosh, goodness gracious, Melissa Etheridge, talk about such an important female guitar player. But Celisse is just so cool. She has such a vibe to her playing and anytime you see her play live, people are like, “Wait, what? Who is that woman? And where does she come from?” She sits in with Brandi Carlile and Joni Mitchell, and the Dave Matthews Band, and she’s just so cool. I’m grateful to call Celisse a friend and she’s definitely one of my faves. 

St. Vincent 

Next I want to give a shout out to St. Vincent, or Annie Clark is her real name. I love St. Vincent. I think she is so cool. Like, the way that Annie is just so inventive. Talk about an artist going to the muse of her own heart. I love the sounds she finds. I love the way she performs. It’s so edgy, it’s so raw. It’s just very unique in my opinion. You can see a lot of people play guitar and sort of predict where they’re going to go next. But I never know where Annie’s going to go next, and I love that I don’t because she’s just so cool. She’s the definition of it. 

Grace Bowers

And last but not least, I want to give a shout-out to a fellow girl who lives in Nashville. She’s super young. She’s a blues player, Grace Bowers is her name. And she’s been doing some really cool things around this scene. And she’s 18 years old. She has this really sick blonde afro and she’s just really awesome. I think she’s a really gifted player. I love the way she phrases things. I think she’s so, so talented. I can’t wait to see where she’s going to take her career.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.