(Credits: Far Out / Frank Schwichtenberg)
Mon 22 December 2025 20:00, UK
Ann and Nancy Wilson credited their musical upbringing for the versatile sound of Heart.
They formed in Seattle in 1973 and were happy about how the music scene had allowed them to develop. There are a lot of music scenes in other cities which are tainted thanks to the success of bands that have previously come from there. It’s great to take pride in where you come from and champion those with whom you’re proud to share a city, but doing so too much can often get in the way of any form of creativity.
Take Manchester, for example, where there is no doubt how exceptional a group of musicians Oasis are. All you need to do is watch videos of their recent reunion tour to understand just how much of a hold they have over the music world. They are proud Mancunians, and as they celebrate their city, so too does the city celebrate them.
One of the negative side effects of this adoration is that there are a lot of small bands in Manchester who are always trying to recreate that Oasis sound. It’s not the best place for innovation within music, as you want cities to welcome all styles rather than just a very specific style that was made popular by former residents.
This is why Seattle was such a great place for Heart to learn. Sure, you had some famous musicians from there, like Jimi Hendrix, but there was no specific sound that the city threw itself into. Ann Wilson loved living there and enjoyed meeting different people who shared her expansive approach to creativity.
“I think that Seattle is full of outliers and misfits, especially in those days,” she said. “It’s a seaport, it’s a place that rains maybe nine or ten months out of the year. It’s grey and dreary. That does have an effect, especially on sensitive people. So, I think if you’re an outlier and you’re a singer…you’re from Seattle!”
By coming up in a creative environment like this, Heart learnt how to write songs for themselves and were very proud of what they stumbled upon. The excellent guitar work and killer vocals were enough to grab the attention of record executives and saw the band secure a record deal. However, while the talent was there, the songs they were writing just didn’t seem to be landing with the public.
“We had the enthusiasm of Don Grierson, the guy who signed us at Capitol, but we knew that we had to make a hit record or quite possibly we’d find ourselves without a record deal,” said Wilson. “He had a vision for the band that we hadn’t even thought of yet.”
That vision meant that Heart had to start working with other songwriters, something they were incredibly hesitant to do at first because they had spent so long working out their own tone of voice. It worked out in the end, but it was a creative decision that Wilson wasn’t too sure about at first.
She said that it took “a couple of bangs over the head with a sledgehammer” to get her okay with the idea of working with other writers. “We had previously written everything, [but the] type of stuff we were writing was not the type of stuff that was being accepted by radio,” she concluded. “We really felt uncomfortable about the fact that we’d worked all those years and written all those songs, and it took other people’s songs to get us number ones. So it was sort of a devil’s bargain.”
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