Heart (band)

Heart is an American rock band who first found success in Canada and only constant members of the group are sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. Heart rose to fame in the mid 1970s with music influenced by hard rock and heavy metal as well as folk music. Their popularity declined in the early 1980s, but the band enjoyed a comeback starting in 1985, and experienced even greater successes with power ballads and pop hits into the 1990s.

To date, Heart has sold over 30 million records worldwide. Heart was ranked number 57 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".

Heart's residency in Canada was long enough for the group to gain recognition as "Canadian artists" by the CRTC for broadcasting purposes. This meant that the group's early recordings qualified as "Canadian content" and therefore would receive increased attention from radio programmers. Ann Wilson told audiences that the group was from Canada, even though all the members of Heart were citizens of the United States and were never permanent Canadian residents.

Heart's first single How Deep it Goes b/w Here Song received little attention when released in Canada in 1975. But the second single Magic Man was picked up for radio airplay by a station in Montreal. Airplay on other Canadian stations picked up, helped in part by the record's "Canadian content" status. The album Dreamboat Annie followed and sold an impressive 30,000 copies across Canada in its first few months. With two hit singles, "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man", Dreamboat Annie eventually sold over 1 million copies. \

When a reporter suggested, backstage after a live appearance, that the sisters were sex partners, the infuriated Ann returned to her hotel room and began writing the lyrics to "Barracuda" to relieve her frustration.&nbsp Little Queen, with the hit "Barracuda", became Heart's second million-seller. In late 1978, the double-platinum Dog and Butterfly was released and yielded top 30 hits with its title song and "Straight On". The album was composed of 8 tracks and divided into two sections, the A-side being "Dog" and featuring more uptempo rock/pop songs, whilst the "Butterfly" B-side featured longer tracks with a more experimental and moody flavor.

Heart released Bebe le Strange in 1980 and became the band's second top ten album, peaking at number 5 and achieving gold status, and yielded the Top 40 hit "Even It Up". By the end of the year, the band scored their highest charted single at the time; a remake of the ballad "Tell it Like it Is" which peaked at number 8. In November 1980, to mark the significant achievement of their first five studio albums, the double album Greatest Hits Live was released to double platinum success and reached number 12 on the US chart, continuing a chart run until spring 1981.

Following the release of Private Audition in 1982, Fossen and Derosier left the band. Both Private Audition and 1983's Passionworks, failed to go gold. Passionworks featured the Top 50 hit "How Can I Refuse", and was a definite step towards the mainstream rock sound which reached its zenith in the three studio albums that followed. This was particularly evident in the metal ballad "Allies" and rocker "Sleep Alone". In 1984, Ann Wilson recorded a duet, with Mike Reno of Loverboy, called "Almost Paradise". It was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Footloose. The song was a hit on the pop charts, reaching number 7, and was a further foreshadowing of the sound that shaped the band's enormous comeback.

Heart's next album, Heart, was released and turned out to be the biggest commercial success in the band's history. It sold five million copies on the strength of four Top-10 hits: "What About Love", "Never", "These Dreams" and "Nothin' at All". In 1990, Brigade was released and became Heart's 6th multi-platinum LP and added three more Top-25 hits to its catalogue: "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You", "Stranded" and "I Didn't Want to Need You". Three other album cuts, "Secret", "Wild Child" and "Tall, Dark Handsome Stranger" were Billboard Rock Chart hits and received considerable airplay on US hard rock and heavy metal stations. Brigade was the band's highest charting album ever in the UK, reaching number 3.

Rock the House Live! featured highlights of the Brigade world tour, and was a moderate success in the US and UK. In 1993, Desire Walks On included the galloping hard rock/metal radio hit "Black on Black II" as well as the Top 40 hit "Will You Be There (In the Morning)".

In 1998, Ann toured without Nancy, this time billed as Ann Wilson and Heart. Nancy kept busy scoring her husband's movies Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Elizabethtown and Vanilla Sky. In 1999, Nancy released a solo album, Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop. Also in 1999, Nancy and Ann embarked on a tour of their own, this being the first time that they had done so.

In 2002, Ann and Nancy returned to the road with a brand-new Heart lineup. In 2003, Heart released their concert DVD Alive in Seattle which includes such hits as "Alone", "Barracuda", "Crazy on You", "Magic Man", "Straight On", "These Dreams" and many more. In 2004, the Wilsons released Jupiter's Darling, their first studio album as Heart since 1993. It featured a variety of songs that included a return to Heart's original hard rock sound, as well as a blend of pop and new textures. Stand-out tracks included "Make Me", "Enough", "Oldest Story in the World" and "Lost Angel".

Heart was honored at the second annual VH1 Rock Honors in 2007 and Ann Wilson released her first solo album, Hope & Glory. In August 2010, the band's long-awaited new studio album, Red Velvet Car, was released. The album featured 10 tracks, including a new working of the Lovemongers' song "Sand". It marked a stylistic return to Heart's melodic hard rock and folk sound previously featured most prominently on Little Queen and Dog and Butterfly. Red Velvet Car peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Album chart and became the group's first top 10 album in 20 years. The album also reached number 3 on Billboard's Rock Album chart. Red Velvet Car spawned two singles, "WTF" aimed at hard rock and classic rock radio and "Hey You" aimed at Adult Contemporary formats. "Hey You" peaked at number 26 on Billboard's AC chart, while "WTF" peaked at number 16 on Billboard's Top Selling Rock Singles chart.

A live DVD and Blu-ray disc of the 2010 US tour, A Night at Sky Church, was released in March 2011.

Music Videos

 * All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You
 * Allies
 * Alone
 * City's Burning
 * Cook With Fire
 * Crazy On You
 * Barracuda
 * Break
 * Even It Up
 * Hey You
 * High Time
 * How Can I Refuse
 * I Didn't Want to Need You
 * Little Queen
 * Love Alive
 * Magic Man
 * Never
 * Nothin' at All
 * Secret
 * Straight On
 * Stranded
 * Tell It Like it Is
 * The Oldest Story in the World
 * The Road Home
 * The Situation
 * There's the Girl
 * These Dreams
 * What About Love
 * Who Will You Run To
 * Will You Be There (In the Morning)
 * WTF
 * You're the Voice