Heart: In the Studio

Heart: In the Studio

With more Top 10 hits than any other female-fronted music group in history, beginning with such ’70s classics as “Crazy on You,” “Barracuda,” “Magic Man,” and “Straight On,” Rolling Stone hailed Heart’s “sister team of Nancy and Ann Wilson. . . [for] shrewdly pulling off a Led Zep role reversal,” while still succeeding in mainstream Top 40 Radio. The band rode a second wave of even greater commercial success throughout the 1980s, producing such smash hits as “These Dreams,” “Who You Gonna Run To?”, “Alone,” “Never,” “Stranded,” “There’s the Girl,” “What About Love?”, and “All I Wanna Do (Is Make Love to You),” going on to sell a cumulative 30+ million albums worldwide! Now, for the first time, inside the pages of Heart: In the Studio , fans get the V.I.P. access behind the scenes of the writing and recording of all of Heart’s hit albums and smash singles! This title features exclusive interviews with band leaders Ann and Nancy Wilson, longtime guitarist Howard Leese, as well as with producers Mike Flicker, Ron Nevison, Keith Olsen, and Ritchie Zito. This study of Heart’s hit-making process in the studio is the first of its kind, and sure to be a must-have for any Heart fan! "Puts the emphasis where it belongs—on Ann Wilson's voice."  — The Oregonian "Pushed along with extensive quotes from most of the key players, alternating with a mixed bag of facts, figures, tidbits and whatnot, [this book] is the most authoritative tome out there on Heart."  —Vintagerock.com "Crammed with tons of previously unseen images, Heart: In the Studio lives up to its title . . . it lends a greater understanding of the inner workings of a successful rock & roll outfit."  — FMQB Magazine Nashville-based music biographer Jake Brown has published fifteen books, including Dr. Dre: In the Studio ; Suge Knight: The Rise, Fall and Rise of Death Row Records ; 50 Cent: No Holds Barred ; Biggie Smalls: Ready to Die ; Tupac: In the Studio (authorized by the estate); as well as titles on Kanye West, R. Kelly, Jay Z, and non-hip hop titles. Brown was also a featured author in Rick James’ recently published autobiography, Memoirs of Rick James: Confessions of a Super Freak . Brown is also owner of the hard rock label Versailles Records, distributed nationally by Big Daddy Music Distribution. Heart In The Studio By Jake Brown, Crissy Boylan ECW PRESS Copyright © 2008 Jake Brown All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55022-831-1 Contents Introduction Rock 'n' Roll Suffrage, CHAPTER 1 The Wilson Sisters' Very Musical Childhood and Teenage Years, CHAPTER 2 Heart's First Musical Beats — The Early 1970s, CHAPTER 3 The Songwriting Craft of Ann and Nancy Wilson, CHAPTER 4 Dreamboat Annie — 1976, CHAPTER 5 Little Queen and Magazine — 1977, CHAPTER 6 Dog and Butterfly — 1978, CHAPTER 7 Bebe Le Strange — 1980, CHAPTER 8 Private Audition and Passionworks — 1981–1983, CHAPTER 9 Heart and Bad Animals — 1984–1988, CHAPTER 10 Brigade — 1989–1991, CHAPTER 11 Desire Walks On — 1992–1994, CHAPTER 12 Heart's Hiatus and the Rise of The Lovemongers — 1995–2001, CHAPTER 13 Jupiter's Darling — 2002–2004, CHAPTER 14 Hope & Glory — 2006–2007, Conclusion 2008 and Beyond, Discography, CHAPTER 1 The Wilson Sisters' Very Musical Childhood and Teenage Years Rock 'n' roll in the 1970s was the eccentric offspring of the pop-culturally stormy 1960s, when rock 'n' roll and the record business were both in an experimental period. New bands shaped musical genres — Bob Dylan with folk-rock, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors with blues-based psychedelic rock, Velvet Underground with the roots of punk rock, or in the case of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and to a slightly lesser degree, The Who, bands redefined rock 'n' roll itself. As the 1970s rock scene took form, groups continued to define new stylistic niches of their own — Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin with heavy metal; Pink Floyd and Genesis with art-rock; the Ramones, The Stooges, the New York Dolls, and the Sex Pistols for mainstream punk rock; Aerosmith and Kiss for hard rock; Bruce Springsteen for blue-collar rock; Alice Cooper and David Bowie for theatrical and conceptual glam rock; Fleetwood Mac with pop rock; and for women in hard rock: Heart. The two frontwomen of Heart, Ann and Nancy Wilson, rose to the heights of rock 'n' roll as early as the mid-'70s, but they started life in a simple Seattle home always filled with music. In a 1980 cover story on the Wilson sisters, Rolling Stone described the girls' childhood and home: "Ann and Nancy grew up on 166th Avenue in Bellevue, a middle-class suburb of Seattle ... in a two-story house [where] ... the well worn spot on the recreation-room floor was where [Ann] and her sister practiced the guitar.... Inside Ann's old bedroom, across a narrow hall, the talk turns to the sisters' teenage years: the acid trips on Ringo Starr's birthday; the stoned joyrides; the pusher who'd throw lids of grass through Ann's bedro