The beat goes on

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This article was published 21/03/2025 (231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The deck was stacked against Heart finishing its Royal Flush Tour.

Last July, several months into the Crazy on You rock band’s first tour in five years, lead singer Ann Wilson was diagnosed with cancer and advised to undergo chemotherapy. The wheels ground to a halt and pending concert dates were placed in limbo, including a November stop in Winnipeg.

For Ann’s sister and Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson, it was hard to hit pause.

“It was really starting to gather a big head of steam and we were hitting our stride,” she says, speaking over Zoom from a hotel room in Banff, where she was preparing for a belated celebration of her 71st birthday.

“We had to go home for eight months, do other projects, try to stay busy and worry about Ann.”

At home, Nancy cooked, spent time with family and poured her pent-up creativity into writing on subjects of personal interest — including blogging about her lifelong love of dogs.

“I could write reams and reams about dogs,” says Nancy, who’s owned many springer spaniels, including a water-loving hound named Charley who used to accompany her on the road.

Her current dog, a Bernedoodle named Bernie, stays home but receives nightly FaceTime calls.

She’s also shared musings about her musical icons and has pondered a guide on how to survive life on the road as a touring artist.

The Wilson sisters grew up in a wordy home with a dad who became an English teacher after retiring from the U.S. Marine Corps, Nancy says. Blogging and sharing her thoughts online has been a refreshing outlet.

“It’s another form of expression, and not as limited as writing a song because with songs you have your own review board, there’s a committee in your head you have to pass — and it’s never good enough,” Nancy says.

In September, Heart announced it would be resuming and even expanding its North American tour in 2025.

Ann, 74, had completed chemo and received positive results, sharing on social media that there would be maintenance going forward but “the worst is over.”

“She dealt with it head-on and she kicked its ass,” Nancy says.

The band returned to the stage last month and is set to perform in Winnipeg at the Canada Life Centre on Monday.

While Nancy says her sister has been “on top of her game, singing like a champ,” the staging of the show has changed, necessarily. Ann, her raven locks replaced by a silver pixie cut, has been performing seated in a wheelchair owing to having broken an arm prior to hitting the road, Nancy says.

As a pioneering female-fronted hard rock band coming up in the 1970s, the members of Heart have faced their fair share of external sexism and internal adversity.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group — founded in Seattle and based in Vancouver during its mainstream rise, releasing singles such as Magic Man, Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen — went on hiatus in the 1990s and later reunited following a long estrangement between the Wilson sisters.

Coming back from a medical battle has felt like a different kind of triumph.

“There’s plenty of adversity that’s usually created by people and attitudes and chauvinism — the usual stuff. When it becomes physically harder to do the work that we’re blessed to be able to do, it becomes more precious,” Nancy says.

Though chauvinism persists in the music industry (and beyond), Nancy is inspired by the current generation of “non-conformist” artists. At a recent Heart concert in Los Angeles, she spent some time with Good Luck, Babe singer Chappell Roan and members of bands Muna and Boygenius, who were attending the show.

“We had a really good hang and I was telling them backstage, ‘Good for you, don’t give up this freedom of expression,’ because right now we’re going backward in the culture and (the rights) my grandmothers fought for is being challenged,” she says.

“We need a new renaissance.”

On Monday, Winnipeg Heart fans can expect a setlist of deep cuts and hits, such as These Dreams and Barracuda, as well as an acoustic fireside interlude.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com