Heart - Biography
Heart began in the mid-70s when sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson joined an already existing all-male pop band. They evolved into a hard rock group, putting a female face on a genre that was, at the time, completely dominated by men. After four platinum-selling albums, the Wilsons' romantic relationships with the Fishers, the co-founding brothers of Heart, deteriorated. Meanwhile, punk and new wave were being embraced, styles that the band knew they had no business trying to pull off or adopt. The beginning of the 80's was difficult for Heart, as album after album flopped, and they started looking more and more like washed up has-beens. However, right smack-dab in the middle of the 80's came a self-titled album and a comeback no one saw coming. The new glossy sound and sexy image gave them better chart success than ever, as Heart spawned four top ten singles and went platinum five times. Since then, Heart have released scores of hits, taken a few inevitable missteps, started an acoustic-based side project and even put out a Christmas album. Truly, the Wilson sisters can do whatever they want. That's what happens when you top the charts in back-to-back decades.
Ann (born June 19th, 1950) and Nancy (born March 14th, 1954) were the daughters of a Marine Corps captain, which meant that they moved around a lot, their youths split between growing up in Southern California and Taiwan. Eventually, their parents settled in Seattle. While both girls developed a deep fondness for folk music as well as pop, Nancy was the only one who took up an instrument, studying both the flute and classical guitar. After college, the girls' attempts at finding careers in music were at first made separately. Nancy began playing as a folk-singing soloist while Ann joined a rock group called Heart.
Heart's formation dates all the way back to 1963, when in Vancouver, British Columbia, Steve Fossen (bass), Roger Fisher (lead guitar), and his brother, Mike Fisher (guitar) started a band called the Army. After changing their name to White Heart, they shortened it to Heart. Shortly after Ann joined the ranks, she began a romantic relationship with Mike Fisher. Nancy joined the group in 1974, and she herself began dating Roger Fisher. Meanwhile, Mike decided to stop playing with the band and become their sound engineer. A Vancouver following soon began to build around the group, and Mushroom Records owner Shelley Siegel signed the band to a record deal.
After recruiting both a keyboardist (Howard Leese) and a drummer (Michael Derosier), Heart recorded their debut, Dreamboat Annie (1976, Capitol). The album proved that female singers and musicians were not relegated to being Joni Mitchell or Karen and the Carpenters. Nancy and Ann Wilson were rocking as hard as their male contemporaries and by this time, Heart's Zeppelin influence was such that they were being touted as “the female Led Zeppelin.” Upwards of 30,000 copies of the LP were sold, and Mushroom Records, knowing they had a hit on their hands, shipped it over the border to the US, where the hits “Crazy On You” and “Magic Man” helped the album to go platinum.
The band, also knowing they had a hit on their hands, left Mushroom and signed a better deal with Portrait, a subsidiary of CBS. Little Queen (Portrait), the band's second album, was released in 1978. They scored a massive hit with “Barracuda,” the band's most well-known song to date, and the LP soon matched the success of its predecessor by going platinum. It was the rockers on the album that found serious radio rotation, but those who purchased Little Queen found that Heart had a knack for writing slow and gentle ballads as well.
The release of their largely forgettable third album Magazine (1978, Mushroom) was the result of a legal dispute between Siegel and Heart. Siegel felt that the band's move to Portrait was in violation of their Mushroom contract and she reacted by putting out the unfinished album against the band's request. Fortunately, the band's popularity at that point was such that even a half-baked album like Magazine eventually went platinum.
Late in 1978, Heart released Dog & Butterfly (Portrait), definitely a restoration of their fans' faith after the disappointment of Magazine. Two top 40 singles, the title track and “Straight On,” gave Heart their fourth platinum-certified album in a row. It peaked at number 17. After that, the in-band relationships had come to an end and Roger Fisher exited the group. The sisters carried on and put out Bebe Le Strange (Epic) in 1980 with longtime collaborator Sue Ennis stepping in as a session guitarist. Fisher's guitar work was sorely missed on the LP, which mapped an awkward transition for the sisters into a new decade in which new music was being embraced. Even so, it was a number 5 pop album for Heart.
The lineup continued to crumble around them. After an extensive tour, both Fossen and DeRosier quit. Heart replaced them with bassist Mark Andes (of Firefall and Spirit) and Denny Carmassi, formerly of Gamma. Two subsequent albums failed to deliver on the promise of Heart's beginnings. Private Audition (1982, Epic) and Passionworks (1983, Epic) found the band slipping in the charts. According to the Wilsons, the shoddy album promotion by Epic Records was at fault. Heart moved to Capitol Records to regroup and rethink a career that was circling the drain.
In 1985, the band surprised everyone when they released their self-titled eighth album (Capitol), a commercial steamroller that sent four singles into the top ten and went platinum five times over. “What About Love?” “Never,” “Nothin' At All,” and “These Dreams,” which hit number 1, found the sisters turning up the 80's synth, and in the accompanying music videos, turning up the sex appeal. The songs were anthemic and huge. Today, the big 80's sound and the even bigger 80's hair seem laughable, but back then, the combination was a money-making machine. Heart finally had a number one album under its belt.
With Bad Animals (1987, Capitol), the girls followed up strongly on their newfound success with three more arena-ready singles: “Alone,” “Who Will You Run to?” and “There's the Girl.” Brigade (1990, Capitol) was another job well done, spawning the hits “All I Want to do is Make Love to You,” “Stranded,” “I Didn't Want to Need You,” “Wild Child,” and “Tall, Dark Handsome Stranger.” The album peaked at number 3.
The sisters Wilson decided to take a well-earned break from Heart, but surprisingly, not from each other, as they returned in 1992 as the Lovemongers, an acoustic quartet that also featured Frank Cox and Sue Ennis. They debuted with a four-song EP that included a cover version of Led Zeppelin's “The Battle of Evermore.” During Heart's hiatus, Capitol issued Rock the House Live! (1991), a set recorded during their 1990 tour.
Quickly returning in 1993, Heart replaced Andes and Carmassi with bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Denny Fongheiser for the release of Desire Walks On (Capitol). A new decade had brought a new fad in music, and therefore, another personality crisis for Heart. Arena ballads were way out of style, and the Wilson sisters had little to offer alternative rock enthusiasts. On the other hand, they were practically rock legends at that point, and had little to worry about from a commercial perspective. They still did well on the charts, scoring a number 4 mainstream rock track with “Back on Black II.”
In 1995, Heart recruited John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame to produce an acoustic live performance of the band's best-loved songs called The Road Home. It was an artistic success, resulting in one of Heart's best and most natural-sounding efforts. And yet, it gave them their biggest dip in the charts in a long time, peaking at 87. After that, Nancy and Ann shelved Heart yet again and went back to the Lovemongers, releasing Whirlygig in 1997 and Here is Christmas in 1998. In a Grinch-like business move, the latter album was repackaged by Beyond Records as a Heart release in 2001.
1998's Greatest Hits collected most of their early work, while in 2000, their later hits were issued on Greatest Hits 1985 – 1995. In 1999, Nancy released a solo album called Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop. One year later, she wrote the score to Almost Famous, a movie about rock & roll by the man to whom she's married, Cameron Crowe. Another live album, Alive in Seattle (Epic/Legacy) was released in 2002. Two years later, Heart returned with a set of new music, Jupiters Darling (Sovereign Artists). In 2007, Nancy and Ann Wilson were one of four bands profiled on VH1's Rock Honors series, along with Ozzy Osbourne, Genesis, and ZZ Top. The show celebrated their three-decade run with performances by Gretchen Wilson and fellow Seattle natives Alice in Chains. in 2010 the group released an LP called Red Velvet Car, followed by a world tour in which the 2011 DVD titled A Night At Sky Church was produced. In 2012 the band released not onyl a new LP entitle Frantic, but a book as well, called Kicking And Dreaming.