Wilson sisters glad Heart is beating again
By ALAN SCULLEY
Get Out

After going a dozen years without making a CD as Heart, guitarist/singer Nancy Wilson and her sister, lead singer Ann Wilson, approached their new album, “Jupiters Darling,” with an oddly fatalistic, but understandable outlook.

“I figured, well, if we’re going to do this at all, first we have to pretend this is our last chance to ever make an album. And then we’ll make a good one, like, ‘What if this never happens again?’ ” says Nancy Wilson.

Considering the creative environment Heart existed in during the 1980s, that desire to take full creative control over “Jupiters Darling” makes sense.

Like many other heavier rock bands of the ’80s, Heart made a significant artistic compromise in order to maintain their popularity during those years.

“All the rock bands were expected to do other songwriters’ hit songs, like the songwriters stable from L.A,” Nancy Wilson says. “That was just how it was being done then, and you couldn’t really say no.”

That was a major shift for the Seattle-based band, which up until then had featured the songwriting of the Wilson sisters. Early albums such as “Dreamboat Annie,” “Dog And Butterfly” and “Bebe Le Strange” yielded numerous hits and turned Heart into an arena-headlining act.

But things got rocky after the 1980 release of “Bebe Le Strange.” Romantic relationships between Ann Wilson and guitarist Roger Fisher and between Nancy Wilson and Fisher’s brother, the band’s sound engineer Michael Fisher, fell apart, leading to a lineup shakeup that included the departure of the Fishers and the arrival of a new bassist and a new drummer.

Two uneven albums followed — “Private Audition” (1982) and “Passionworks” (1983) — and the group’s commercial fortunes sagged.

Beginning with a label switch from Epic to Capitol Records for the 1985 album “Heart,” the Wilson sisters were essentially forced to rely on outside songwriters to provide singles for their albums.

The move paid off commercially, as imported power ballads such as “These Dreams,” “Alone,” “Nothin’ At All” and “What About Love?” reached the upper levels of the singles charts and also somewhat reshaped Heart’s musical identity. Meanwhile, lavish videos accompanying such singles (featuring the strikingly pretty Wilson sisters) gave the group a whole new visual profile.

But by the time recording began on the 1993 CD, “Desire Walks On,” Heart’s lineup had shifted again and the musical compromises of the ’80s had taken a toll on the Wilson sisters. They decided to put Heart on the shelf.

“After awhile, (relying on outside songs for singles) got a little old to us and I’m sure for a lot of the other bands that were going through the same thing,” Nancy Wilson says, adding that the emphasis on looks and fashion brought on by MTV also wore thin.

The Wilsons spent the ’90s with several other pursuits. They joined forces with Sue Ennis and Frank Cox to form the acoustic-based group the Lovemongers, releasing two CDs with that band.

Nancy Wilson, who is married to rock journalist-turned-screenwriter Cameron Crowe, wrote music for films written by her husband, including “Jerry McGuire,” “Vanilla Sky” and “Almost Famous.” She also did a solo acoustic tour that resulted in a 1999 CD, “Live At McCabe’s Guitar Shop.”

Ann Wilson, meanwhile, did some stage acting (including a performance in a production of “The Vagina Monologues”) and also was part of Beatles tribute tour, “Return To Abbey Road.”

But Nancy Wilson said both sisters came to miss Heart and in 2001 they formed a new touring lineup and returned to the concert trail.

“It felt so good to just get up there in the sweaty summer nights and just really rock out and do the powerful ballads as well that can be even more powerful than the rock songs sometimes,” Nancy Wilson says.