Mothers of reinvention

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This article was published 16/03/2016 (3857 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When it comes to rock ’n’ roll, gender doesn’t really matter.

So says Nancy Wilson of Heart, who, along with her sister Ann, forged a path for women on the arena-rock stage.

They perform March 17 with another group led by a female rock pioneer, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, at the MTS Centre, but Nancy doesn’t get caught up in the all-woman guitar-rock tag team.

“Gender-wise, it’s just good rock, either way you slice it,” she says from Dawson Creek, B.C., where she was relaxing prior to a show last week.

“This coming summer we’re doing Cheap Trick, Joan Jett and Heart together, and it’s not going to change the excitement of the night. It’s just going to make it even cooler.

“And Joan is kind of a little dude anyways,” Nancy adds with a laugh.

Heart is marking the 40th anniversary of its landmark debut album, Dreamboat Annie, this year.

And just like old times, the group is touring Western Canada, the place that first accepted Heart when the album was released in Canada in 1975.

It wasn’t until 1976 when the record, which includes hits such as Crazy on You, Magic Man and the title track, made its debut stateside.

“It’s like looking down the wrong side of a telescope. It’s really far away,” Nancy begins, recalling the early 1970s.

“We were from Seattle initially, but because of the Vietnam War, Ann’s boyfriend was up there (in Canada) evading the draft. He also was kind of the manager and sound man and Svengali at the time; we all moved up there and did this first album in Vancouver, and we toured a lot of Canada.”

Hits from the ’70s such as Barracuda and Kick it Out catapulted the band to superstar status.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0OX_8YvFxA

But the sisters were able to switch into softer sounds in the 1980s with tunes like These Dreams.

A revival in 2010, thanks to the album Red Velvet Car, got Heart back into the top 10.

In all, they’ve sold more than 35 million albums worldwide.

But the journey wasn’t easy, Nancy says.

“You got to be pretty dogged to make it for a long time in a career like this,” she says. “We just kind of surmount the obstacles as we go, and there’s always new ones. You just have to reinvent yourself and move forward with grace and dignity and a lot of muscle.”

The reinventing begins anew later this year with a new album, Beautiful Broken. The title track is certainly a departure, she says.

“It’s almost like a punk-rock polka song. It’s hard to explain, but if you come to the show, you’ll understand,” Nancy says.

Last time Heart played Winnipeg, they toured with drummer Jason Bonham, the son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.

The Wilson sisters teamed up at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors concert in Washington, D.C., to play Stairway to Heaven, and that led to a tour where they played a set of Zep classics.

Heart began their career playing Led Zeppelin songs in cabarets before Dreamboat Annie came out, and have always felt natural playing the British group’s rock anthems, Nancy says. They still play one or two of their songs live.

The Kennedy Center Honors gig was a whole different show, however.

“The joke was like, ‘Hey, no pressure, it’s just Led Zeppelin and the president of the United States and every sort of dignitary in the world, and you’re only playing one of the most iconic songs of all time,’” she says.

“We were nervous as hell, of course. Me and Ann just had to look at each other and take a super-deep breath and exhale and walk out and just do it, and not hurry through. We had to be deliberate and do it right. Only one chance to do it.

“It was really one of the amazing moments.

“Afterwards Jimmy (Page) and Robert (Plant) and John Paul Jones, came up to us individually and said, ‘Way to go, that was amazing!’

“That meant everything, because we weren’t able to know how it came off and see how it looked until afterwards.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf2O3OAQjng

 

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall