80's Music Junkies: Heart - The Essential 80s Rock

Heart is an American rock band which came out of Newport High School in Bellevue, Washington. Going through several line-up changes, the only constant members of the group are sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. The group's music during the 1970s was influenced by hard rock groups like Led Zeppelin, and folk music. In the 1980s, they became a mainstream rock act, before dropping out of the public consciousness in the late 1990s.

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, 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.

The band moved to Canada. 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 benefiting from 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. During sessions for Bebe Le Strange the Wilson-Fisher liaison ended. Roger Fisher formed his own band in the Seattle area. Howard Lesse and Nancy took up guitar slack, and her childhood friend Sue Ennis helped out on song collaborations. The group hit the road for a 77-city tour to support Bebe Le Strange, and then returned to make Private Audition in 1982.

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. But 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 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.

Bad Animals was an album released in 1987 by the band Heart. The album was a hit, scoring triple platinum sales, but failed to capture the same success as their previous record. It contained the hit number one single "Alone."