What do you get when you cross Stevie Nicks with Led Zeppelin? Heart, of course. Ann Wilson brought folk-inflected female tonsils to the hard-rock table, and things were never the same.
Or rather they were the same, because Heart, while they were groundbreaking, were not one of those bands like the Velvet Underground that went on to launch a thousand imitators. Aside from the songs we all know because they still get played on classic rock radio, Heart’s sound never caught on for the simple reason that they could never settle on a sound, as is demonstrated on their 1976 debut Dreamboat Annie.
Dreamboat Annie veers from Led Zep rips (see “Soul of the Sea”) to Glen Campbell-flavored ersatz country (see all three iterations of the title track, the second of which is the keeper), and takes a few MOR folk, pop, and country rock stops on its way. So if it’s continuity or cohesiveness you’re seeking I suggest you look elsewhere. Diversity–in terms of both gender and music–is the order of the day, and while Ann and Nancy Wilson certainly did a lot in terms of proving girls could play just as well as the boys, the musical on their debut is diverse to a fault.
Ann Wilson is what happens when a little girl grows up wanting to be Robert Plant instead of Janis Joplin or Karen Carpenter; unfortunately the Wilson Sisters couldn’t decide whether they wanted to grow up to be Led Zeppelin or Fleetwood Mac. The lesser angels of their nature led them to unsatisfying compromises like “How Deep It Goes” (string and horn-infested pop shlock) and “(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song” (bona fide soft rock), the latter of which reminds me of Bread, for Christ’s sake.
No, Ann, Nancy, and Company are at their best showing off their rock’n’roll chops, and the real problem with Dreamboat Annie is they don’t do so more often. “Sing Child” is the lovechild of “Funk #49” and Jefferson Starship and features a downright nasty guitar riff; I can even forgive Ann the flute solo, on which she has the good sense to ape Ian Anderson rather than Chicago’s Walter Parazaider. And “Crazy on You” opens with some show-offy acoustic guitar noodling before exploding into one of the best hard rock songs to come out of 1976.
As for “Magic Man,” well, who can forget that twisted guitar, that slinky groove, and those hocus-pocus lyrics? It’s all so spooky, man, and my friend Dennis Davis tells me he had a friend who was convinced the Wilson sisters were Manson Girls and the Magic Man was none other than Charlie himself. There’s not an ounce of truth in the story, but this one sure gives off a witchy messianic sex cult vibe. Also a rocker: the very syncopated “White Lightning and Wine,” a rather lightweight baby which succeeds on drums and bass alone. That said I love the guitar solo, which actually makes me think of Television.
Dreamboat Annie is the work of a band torn between contradictory impulses; they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to rock out without their cocks out or produce dreamy melodies that showed off their folk-pop leanings. So they did both, and what we’re left with is an album with multiple personalities. On their best songs they integrated both sides of their personality; on the lesser songs they settle for pleasant AOR radio fare that fails to shine.
Led Zeppelin managed to weave folk influences into their blues-based heavy metal sound; Heart were the lesser weavers. They more or less gave up on trying and went straight for the hard rock jugular on 1980’s Babe Le Strange, but it didn’t sell as well as their first two LPs. Seems you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, and a sister can’t catch a break nohow.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C
