Together with her sister Nancy Wilson, she led one of the great "female rock" bands of the 70's and 80's and even nurtured the grunge heroes behind the scenes. She is Ann Wilson, so let's sing her some songs and find out some interesting details about her.
(Photo: Society of Rock)
1. Her full name is Ann Dustin Wilson and she was born on June 19, 1950, in San Diego, California.
2. Since her father served in the army, the family traveled the world a lot. They lived for a long time in Panama and Taiwan, before landing back in the US and settling in Seattle.
3. She said that her parents tried to make the family feel at home despite their stay abroad, through music. Every weekend they would hold sessions where they would listen and play music from different genres.
4. In 1970 she joined a band called "White Heart" which went through several incarnations and different names when it was finally established with the name "Heart".
5. In 1973 Ann's sister, Nancy joined the band and they all moved to Canada, where they recorded the band's first album.
(Photo: Norman Seeff)
6. In 1975 they released their debut album "Dreamboat Annie". Producer Mike Flicker helped the band polish the sound and sign a recording contract with Mushroom. They released 4 singles from the album that gained momentum one after the other, including the mighty "Crazy on You". From there, the band also broke into the United States via Seattle, the birthplace of the Wilson sisters.
7. Following very bad conduct by the record company that culminated in a full-page article in Rolling Stone magazine, which included a picture of the Wilson sisters bare-shouldered side by side and the phrase: "It Was Only Our First Time," the band-company relationship fell apart.
8. In 1977 the band released their second album "Little Queen" recorded in Seattle. One of the band's most famous songs "Barracuda" conquered the charts and brought Hart back to dizzying success. This is a particularly angry song on the record company Mushroom Records about the same publication in Rolling Stone and the spread of the rumor that the nurses are allegedly having an affair, to arouse public opinion. Ann found out about the article by chance when a fan came to her after a show and asked her "How is the relationship"? She thought he was talking about her boyfriend, but when she realized what it was about she was shocked and went to write the song.
9. However, this was not really the end of the story with the record company, and as a result of a legal dispute the band had with Mushroom, they were forced to release another album through it. They worked a marathon for 4 days to record another album called "Magazine" which was also released in 1977, only to end the engagement with the same company that spread the malicious rumor about the Wilson sisters.
10. As a result, the band reached an extraordinary achievement with three of their albums marching simultaneously in the charts.
11. If That's Not Enough, then a year later, in 1978, they release their fourth album, Dog & Butterfly. The album was split in two when the first part was the "Dog" and included more rockish and powerful songs, while the second part - "Butterfly" included ballads and softer songs. The album reached number 17 on Billboard.
12. In 1980 the band released their fifth album "Bébé le Strange". This is the first album without the band's guitarist and producer Roger Fisher, who left with his brother several months before the recordings. The Wilson sisters have always led the band, but from then on they actually formed the hard core of "Heart". The album was a resounding success and reached number 5 on the Billboard charts as he spent 22 weeks there.
13. Since the early 1980s, the band has undergone musical changes, mainly softening and squinting in the mainstream direction, with elements of pop, hard rock, and glam metal. The climax of the musical revolution was on the album "Heart" which was released in 1985 and which included many hits such as: "These Dreams" which was the band's first song to conquer the summit, "What About Love", "Never", "Nothin at All" and more. The transition to glam was also reflected in the external appearance as reflected on the album cover.
The Wilson sisters released a total of 16 albums under the band "Heart" when the latest "Beautiful Broken" was released in 2016. They were a great success and appreciated by listeners and critics and many singles conquered the charts and radio stations.
15. In 1991, the sisters founded the Bad Animals recording studio named after Hart's ninth album. The famous studio known today as Studio X was a huge part in the development of the grunge scene, in which many bands recorded between them: Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and many more ...
16. That same year they also formed a side band called "The Lovemongers" which recorded a cover version of Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore", for the big soundtrack of the movie "Singles". A few years later, in 1997, the band released the EP "Whirlygig".
17. In those years before and during the blossoming of grunge, the stars of the scene like Chris Cornell, Andrew Wood, Lane Stalie, and more, were among the fans of the Wilson sisters. This fact earned them the nickname Grunge Godmothers (without detracting from Neil Young's status - Grunge Godfather). Ann Wilson said her house was open to all the guys from Nirvana, Alice, and Soundgarden, who would come to her house for parties and play together.
18. In 1992, Anne participated in the Alice In Chains EP called "SAP". She contributed her voice to the songs "Brother" and "Am I Inside."
19. In 2004, "Heart" released their 13th album called "Jupiters Darling". The album featured Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez from "Alice In Chains" and Mike McCready from "Pearl Jam", among others.
20. In 2007 Anne released her first solo album "Hope & Glory" which included covers, featuring many artists such as: Elton John, k.d. lang, Alison Krauss, Gretchen Wilson, Shawn Colvin, and more.
22. In 2013, the band was inducted into the Music Hall of Fame. The speaker for the band's inauguration was none other than Chris Cornell. In his speech, he explained with great emotion how much the Wilson sisters influenced him and his friends from the grunge scene.
23. In 2015 and 2016 she released Ann her first two EPs called "The Ann Wilson Thing # 1 & # 2".
24. In 2016 the album "Beautiful Broken" released the 16th album of "Heart" which combined new songs and old songs of the band in a renewed performance. The album features James Hetfield from the band Metallica.
25. That same year, Ann's husband was arrested on charges of assaulting one of her sister Nancy's children. This allegedly happened during the band's performance at the White River Epithet in Washington. Rumor has it that following that incident, the nurses stopped talking and switched to communicating through texts.
26. In 2017 Anne noted that Heart is currently on “break” and each of the nurses has turned to her projects.
(Photo: Steve Jennings)
27. In 2018, Anne performed with "Alice In Chains" members in a tribute to Chris Cornell at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
28. In 2018 Ann released her second solo album “Immortal”. It is a cover album, where she combines several styles from which she has been influenced by friends that she has lost during her life.
29. In 2019 the sisters announced that the band "Heart" had returned from the "break" they had taken and that they were performing again together.
30. They went on a tour called "Love Alive tour". The round was so successful that the nurses even extended it, but it was recently halted due to the corona crisis.
31. Since the beginning of 2021 Ann has released four new singles, currently unknown are part of a new solo album or singles in their own right.
Feel free to listen to her latest solo album Immortal on: Spotify, Apple Music
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