Heart

About Heart

It's a shame we don't have more rock groups like Heart around today. The band, which was formed around Seattle's Wilson Sisters, effortlessly blended elements of 70's metal with 60's folk rock, leaving some melodic and powerful songs as a legacy. It also doesn't hurt that, in a genre dominated primarily by greasy boys and their guitars, Ann and Nancy Wilson were both poster-worthy flower children, with long straight hair and undeniable sex appeal. Of course, those two flower children may have inked a deal with the devil to get their metal chops, and tracks like "Crazy On You", "Barracuda", "Magic Man" and "These Dreams" all prove that the girls could take on the boys in an all-out shred war. And, to further one-up their male competition, the talented Wilson sisters also took credit for providing much of the lush instrumentation on their sprawling power ballads, including flute, piano and mandolin. The band began in 1970 when Nancy Wilson was gigging around Seattle as a folksinger and her sister Ann went to audition for a local all-male rock group. The blistering blues-rock of Led Zepplin and Hendrix was all the rage at the time, and this would prove a strong influence on the formative Heart. Nancy joined her sister and, as the band finally blossomed musically, the musician's personal lives became more and more convoluted. Together, they moved to Vancouver and signed a deal with the Canadian imprint Mushroom Records. In 1975, Heart released their first album, the sublime Dreamboat Annie. The album successfully blended blistering guitar riffs and heavy blues with a mystical, melodic folk-rock element. Music fans at the tine had never heard anything like it. Throughout the late-70's Heart lead a turbulent but successful career, and the Wilson sisters were the only constant in the band's shifting line-up. Heart had a surprising career revival when their 1984 duet with Loverboy's Mike Reno, "Almost Paradise", was featured on the hit soundtrack to the movie Footloose. After that, Heart weas back in the spotlight, even if their 80's incarnation skewed heavily towards epic power ballads. Heart has also had a surprisingly broad-reaching influence on the Seattle music scene, and bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Candlebox all recorded at the Wilson Sisters' Bad Animals studio.