Poniedziałek 12 Maj 2008, 20:05
Holy Mother of Music!*
Heart / "How Can I Refuse" / Passionworks (1) / Aug 1983
Artist: Heart
Original Album: Passionworks
Track: How Can I Refuse
*It's Music Mamas & Metal Maidens Week…A week to honor the frontwomen of rock and metal!
Day 2: Ann Wilson (right) & Nancy Wilson (2) (left)
http://i.rollingstone.com/assets/rs/122/785/images/22699_lg.jpg
Staying in the mid-70s to early 80s today, this may be another off-base selection: Heart wasn't even the sisters' band to begin with, which was started in Vancouver back in the mid-60s by Steve Fossen (bass) and brothers Roger Fisher and Mike Fisher (both on guitar) - initially as The Army, and later White Heart. Ann and Nancy came by way of Seattle, having grown up as Marine brats in SoCal and overseas. The band had dropped the "White" by the time Ann joined them in 1970. Nancy came into the fold a few years later, and the sisters were romantically involved with the brothers.
This track is not one of the classics, not my favorite Heart selection, and comes from a lesser-known album, their final with Epic. It also features none of the original founding members: Roger was fired and Mike departed from the role as their manager after the end of the tour for Dog and Butterfly - the romance was over, so to speak. Meanwhile, Fossen and original drummer Michael Derosier left after the tour for Bebe le Strange. Don't mess with the bebes…
That's when they began to falter, though, first with 1982's Private Audition and then with this one. The absence of Roger is especially felt. There's not lots on this album that needs covering. Of interest might be Allies, penned by Jonathan Cain, but only as a portent of what was to come in a couple of years' time. Today's selection basically serves as the definitive conclusion to the era I follow - the final period at the end of the original story, if you will. After this, there was plenty of even bigger success to come for the sisters, but they lost me right away with 1985's self-titled debut on Capitol.
For me, Greatest Hits is enough of a canvass of the classic works. The sisters' fascination and oft-intertwining with Led Zeppelin is nicely revealed here by a 1980 live performance of Rock and Roll and, well, just look at the lettering right there on the cover.
P.S. Also be sure to check out Ann's Hope & Glory, previously mentioned in the thread here, specifically for interesting covers of Goodbye Blue Sky and Darkness, Darkness with Nancy, and for the compelling duet with Alison Krauss on War Of Man.
\m/ (¤_¤) \m/