here<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe road to right here, right now has been rough and rocky, as the Wilson sisters have squabbled often over the years, throwing doubt on their future together (see the very end of the interview for the answer to that question). There have been plenty of solo projects along the way.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Ann was diagnosed with cancer, and following successful treatment went back into the studio, and on the road.<\/p>\n
She talked about it all in the documentary film Ann Wilson: In My Voice, released last spring.<\/p>\n
And she talked to the Catalyst.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: First things first. How\u2019s your health?<\/p>\n
Ann Wilson: It\u2019s beautiful. I\u2019ve been clear of any cancer for about two years. I just go in and get checked every six months. I just did that, and everything\u2019s still clear. And I feel great. I\u2019ve been on a Heart tour since then, and the old body held up really well!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is playing a Tripsitter show a little less pressure for you? You don\u2019t have to play every one of the Heart hits.<\/p>\n
Yeah, sure, because it helps keep it interesting. Not that a Heart set isn\u2019t interesting, because it\u2019s always interesting to me, but to play some covers, to play the songs that we\u2019ve written with Tripsitter \u2026 we have three Tripsitter albums out, so there\u2019s a lot to choose from that\u2019s just ours. We include some of that. It\u2019s a real mix, what we play. There\u2019s some Heart stuff, there\u2019s some Tripsitter stuff, there\u2019s a couple covers. It\u2019s great fun.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When you choose covers, do you still reach back into the Zeppelin bag, and the Beatles bag? The old standbys.<\/p>\n
Well, I never felt good about doing Beatles covers, because I don\u2019t think anyone can do \u2018em as good as the Beatles. But yeah, we still do a Zeppelin cover now and then.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I was just listening to you singing (the Beatles song) \u201cI\u2019m Down\u201d \u2026 that was so cool.<\/p>\n
Yeah, that was a long time ago, too. [Laughing]<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the things I always loved about Heart was the way you blended acoustic and electric music, often in the same song. Was that a conscious thing?: \u201cLet\u2019s not just rock all the time, and let\u2019s not be folkie balladeers all the time \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
No, I think it probably came from our family, because we had a really musical family. The parents were always singing, and playing the piano and ukuleles \u2026 there was just always music going on in our house.<\/p>\n
Oh, and also there was Led Zeppelin, there was the Beatles, there was all these bands who were able to travel freely between acoustic and electric. And blend the two, especially Zeppelin did. They would have this huge, heavy velvet-hammer rock band with an acoustic guitar at its heart.<\/p>\n
And that just really was inspiring to Nancy and I as songwriters, early on. We just carried that on.<\/p>\n
Music was everything. Nothing was as important as music \u2013 boys weren\u2019t important, clothes weren\u2019t important. [Laughing] There\u2019s a girl sitting on the side of her bed with a guitar, and maybe she has somebody else on the other bed with their guitar \u2026 and that\u2019s how they learn how to play, one to the other.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
How important was Led Zeppelin in your evolution?<\/p>\n
Very important, because they showed rock with acoustic at its base, better than anyone, and we could relate to that.<\/p>\n
And also, they were important to me because Robert Plant probably taught me how to sing high and loud. He and Aretha Franklin, I think, were responsible for my singing style. Get up there and just wail, you know?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did you always know how to wail like that?<\/p>\n
No. I didn\u2019t always know how to do that. It\u2019s just something that happened by chance during a band rehearsal; we were trying to put Heart together. And the men in the band wanted to do some Zeppelin songs, but none of them could sing that high. They couldn\u2019t screech and howl like that. They didn\u2019t have the thing. So it fell to me, because I had the higher voice. And that\u2019s how I learned.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why did you make the documentary?<\/p>\n
After all this time, nearly 50 years or so, I\u2019ve been associated with Heart. So I\u2019m not Ann Wilson, I\u2019m Ann Wilson of Heart. I just wanted to be able to step out from behind that moniker, you know, and just be myself. And show people about my own life. What goes on behind all that. And what my life has been like for me, just as a person.<\/p>\n
And it came out really good!<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some revelations in it. I talk about my love life and my life as a parent. Just all kinds of stuff that goes on. Like you know, how much stuff goes on in your life? So much stuff. You can\u2019t cover it all in a documentary, but you can sure scratch the surface and give people a feeling of who you are.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is it sometimes difficult, or made difficult, for you to pull you away from Ann Wilson of Heart? I assume you are two different people.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah. I just think there\u2019s so much interesting stuff that goes on in a person\u2019s life. Especially when they travel around as much as we do, you know? We totally travel all the time. So you meet a lot of people, you see things of the world, and it makes you a pretty well-rounded person.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center Honors: Was that a special moment for you, singing \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d with Led Zeppelin right there in the room?<\/p>\n
Indeed it was. There was nothing to do except go out there and sing the song. Just pay attention to the song and not worry about who was in the audience and all that. There were a lot of luminaries there that night, watching.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
You cut \u201cMagic Man\u201d with Dolly Parton for her Rockstar album in 2023. What was that experience like?<\/p>\n
She did an amazing thing with that. She just seemed exactly like what she says she is. When she came into the studio, her assistant laid out this big spread for us. And Dolly was just being hospitable, you know? She\u2019s a tiny little thing, and all dressed up and made up, big hair, the whole deal. She WAS Dolly Parton.<\/p>\n
And she was really sweet. She wanted to hug everybody. She was warm. I felt she was really authentic.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, I have to ask if you and Nancy are speaking. Will there be more from Heart?<\/p>\n
Yeah, we\u2019re so past all that stuff now. We just finished a new album, and we\u2019re gonna go out on tour next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ann Wilson made Robert Plant cry. At the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., Wilson (on vocals)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-391063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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