BURNING TO THE SKY

Adear, departed friend was a huge Heart fan. There were very few fishing trips where we didn’t have a conversation that went something like this: “Buddy, this band is the best,” he would start. “No one can sing like Ann Wilson— and Nancy, she is like a female Jimmy Page!” Then, as we headed down the highway, he would slip in a CD, usually Dreamboat Annie or the The Essential Heart anthology. Soon, the neo-classical guitar stylings of Nancy Wilson would fill the air and my friend would smile. Then, Ann would break in and the song would lift off.

“That,” he would say, jabbing his finger at the CD player, ”is how you do it.”

There can be no doubt that Heart is one of the most unique and slightly overlooked bands of the classic rock era. When they broke out in the mid 70s, there were no other bands like them. For starters, the sisters looked like a yin and yang. Ann, the oldest, was brunette and tended to wear dark clothing on stage. Nancy was blonde, a bit earth motherish, yet a fiery ball of energy. She also played guitar like a world beater, whether it was an Ovation or a Telecaster, often punctuating the beat with leg kicks or hair flips.

Yet the Wilson sisters don’t always get their due as the groundbreakers they were. Many of the sister bands that came in behind them, from Haim to First Aid Kit, owe a major debt to Heart. Nancy Wilson almost never gets on the great guitar player lists. Yet she has had a mighty influence on players like Nuno Bettencourt and Eddie Van Halen. In fact, Nancy is credited with giving the mighty Eddie VH his very first acoustic. She also has a beautiful, emotive voice which is showcased sparingly in Heart, but is front and centre in mega hits like “These Dreams”—also the band’s first number one song.

In more recent years, the Wilson sisters have spent more time apart than together. Initially, this was due to an unfortunate family rift. That got sorted out, but then COVID-19 hit. Plans for a big Heart tour were shelved. Nancy suddenly had some time on her hands.

“Forever people have asked me ‘When are you going to do a solo album?’” Wilson recently told Forbes magazine. “In a way, being sucked into the vortex of Heart, summer after summer after summer and tour after tour after tour, and album after album after album, it was like, ‘Well this is a really good excuse to do that thing that I’ve been wanting to do for so long.’ And there’s no real distraction from doing it.”

One of the first recordings Wilson made for her first ever solo album, You and Me, was a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising.” Wilson said she had been blown away by the stripped-down, acoustic version performed by The Boss during the Springsteen on Broadway show. She felt the words to “The Rising” were especially relevant during the pandemic. The song is beautifully executed, with Wilson’s voice front and centre.

The album’s title track, “You and Me,” is a gentle, lilting ballad about her mom that recalls vintage 70s folk. Wilson has more than a little folk music in her, and you can sense the musical nod to one of her other heroes, Joni Mitchell. You can also hear Paul Simon in her fingerpicking. So perhaps it is no surprise that she covers “The Boxer” here, assisted by the red rocker Sammy Hagar.

At age 67, Nancy Wilson is unlikely to charge headfirst into a new solo career. She remains a member of Heart and will be at her sister Ann’s side when the pandemic finally ends. However, You and Me shows the world that she is a unique talent with a heart still full of soul, fire, and rock and roll.