Heart is an American rock band which came out of Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, Washington State, USA. Going through several lineup changes, the only constant members of the group are sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. The group rose to fame in the 1970s with their music being influenced by hard rock groups like Led Zeppelin, as well as folk music. They have sold over 30 million albums worldwide.[1] They experienced further success in the 1980s with their power ballads before dropping out of mainstream popularity in the mid-1990s.

Band history

Origins (1963–1974)

The Wilson sisters grew up in Southern California and Taiwan before their Marine Corps father retired to the Seattle suburbs. After attending college they returned to Seattle, with Nancy working as a folksinger and Ann joining a hitherto-all-male local group in 1970. (This group was formed in 1963 by Steve Fossen and Roger and Mike Fisher as the Army. They later changed their name to White Heart, and shortened to Heart in 1974.) Upon joining, Ann became Mike Fisher's girlfriend, and when Nancy joined in 1974, she became involved with Fisher's brother, lead guitarist Roger.

Success (1975–1982)

The band moved to Canada.[2] After many one-nighters around their new home of Vancouver, they attracted the attention of Mushroom Records in 1975, a Vancouver-based label run by Shelly Siegel. He had them cut Dreamboat Annie, which upon release in Canada sold 30,000 copies, no doubt benefitting from Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Canadian content regulations. In the US Siegel released the album first in Seattle, where it quickly sold another 25,000. With two hit singles - "Crazy on You" (#35, 1976) and "Magic Man" (#9, 1976), - Dreamboat Annie eventually sold over a million copies.
By early 1977, Heart had broken its contract with Mushroom Records and signed with CBS' subsidiary Portrait, a move that resulted in a prolonged legal battle with Siegel. In retaliation, he released the partly completed Magazine at the same time that Portrait released Little Queen. A Seattle court ruled that Mushroom had to recall Magazine so that the group could re-mix several tracks and re-do vocals before re-releasing the disc. (They had wanted the album taken off the market completely.)
Little Queen, with the hit "Barracuda" (#11, 1977), became Heart's second million-seller; Magazine and the double-platinum Dog and Butterfly followed suit in 1978. After the 77-city Dog and Butterfly tour the Wilson-Fisher liaisons ended; Roger was fired from the band and Mike was no longer their manager.[3] Roger Fisher formed his own band in the Seattle area. Howard Leese and Nancy took up guitar slack, and her childhood friend Sue Ennis helped out on song collaborations. The group then released Bebe Le Strange in 1980.

Comeback (1983–1990)

Following the release of Private Audition in 1982, Fossen and Derosier left the band. That album, and the following year's Passionworks, (featuring new bassist Mark Andes {Spirit, Jo Jo Gunne}, and drummer Denny Carmassi {Gamma}), failed to go gold, putting Heart at a career crossroads. In 1984, Ann Wilson did a duet with Mike Reno of Loverboy called "Almost Paradise". The song was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Footloose and hit number 7 on the pop charts. Then, the group’s first album for Capitol, simply titled Heart (#1, 1985) sold five million copies on the strength of four Top-10 hits: "What About Love?" (#10, 1985), "Never" (#4, 1985), "These Dreams" (#1, 1986), and "Nothin' at All" (#10, 1986). By that time the group had abandoned their earlier hard-rock aspirations to make slick radio-friendly pop. In June 1986, Nancy Wilson married journalist, screenwriter, and director, Cameron Crowe; she had made a cameo appearance in his movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982. Bad Animals (#2, 1987), too, contained a chart-topper, in the power ballad "Alone", as well as "Who Will You Run To?" (#7, 1987), and "There's the Girl" (#12, 1987). In 1989, Ann Wilson and Cheap Trick's Robin Zander had a #6 hit with their duet, "Surrender to Me." Brigade (#3, 1990) became Heart's sixth multi-platinum LP and added three more Top-25 hits to its catalogue, the most notable of which was "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You".

1991–present

Following a 1990 tour, the Wilson sisters put together an informal acoustic group called The Lovemongers with Sue Ennis and Frank Cox; a four-song EP that included a version of Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore" came out in late 1992, and the quartet performed several times in the Seattle area. The Lovemongers released a full-length album titled Whirlygig in 1997. When Heart re-emerged with Desire Walks On (#48) in 1993, Mark Andes had left the band and Shuyler Deale played the bass. For the group's subsequent tour, Heart was joined by bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Denny Fongheiser (replacing Deale and Carmassi). The band offered live acoustic versions of its best-known songs on 1995's The Road Home, which was produced by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones. The pared-down format echoed Heart's low profile in the late 1990s. Of the two sisters, Nancy had kept busier, scoring her husband's movies, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Elizabethtown, and releasing a solo album in 1999. That same year, she and Ann embarked on a tour of their own, the first time that they ever had done so.
In addition to their own recording careers, the Wilson sisters have played a key role on the Seattle music scene. Among the groups who have recorded at their Bad Animals studio are R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Candlebox. Heart's Heart: 20 Years of Rock & Roll was the first CD-ROM multimedia biography/greatest-hits package ever released.
In 2004, the Wilsons released Jupiter's Darling, their first studio album as Heart since 1993. It features a variety of songs that include a return to Heart's original sound, as well as a blend of pop and new textures. Stand-out tracks include "Make Me", "Enough", "Oldest Story In The World" and "Lost Angel".
In 2005, the Wilsons appeared on the CMT Music Awards as a special guest of Gretchen Wilson (no relation), and performed the Heart classic, "Crazy On You" with Gretchen. Heart performed again with Gretchen on VH-1's tribute to the band, Decades Rock Live. The special also featured Alice in Chains, Phil Anselmo, Dave Navarro, Rufus Wainwright and Carrie Underwood.
On 24 May 2007 at the second annual VH1 Rock Honors, Heart was an honoree and performer, along with Ozzy Osbourne, Genesis and ZZ Top. This, along with the announcement of their inclusion in the Guitar Hero III video game (due for release in 2007), has renewed interest in the band.

Controversy

When Dreamboat Annie was released in 1976, rumors spread that the sisters were witches. It was said that the album's hit, "Magic Man", was about Satan's seduction of a child.[4]
In 1977 Heart's record label, Mushroom Records, is said to have started a rumor that Ann and Nancy were lesbian lovers. The label ran a full page ad in Rolling Stone suggestively captioned, "It was only our first time". When a reporter suggested after one live appearance that the sisters were sexual partners, Ann returned to her hotel room and wrote the lyrics to "Barracuda" to relieve her frustration. The song became one of Heart's biggest hits.