By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up
@bugsburnett
The first time Heart played in Montreal, they were hired at the very last minute to open for Rod Stewart at the Montreal Forum in 1976. Heart were playing at Lucifer’s nightclub in Calgary at the time and rode the train to Montreal because that’s all they could afford.
When they arrived in Montreal, they discovered CHOM-FM was the first radio station anywhere to play their music. So the crowd at the Forum gave them a big welcome.
“It was one of the biggest moments of our musical career,” guitarist Nancy Wilson – who co-founded Heart with her sister, Ann – told me when the band headlined Montreal for the umpteenth time last year. “It was awesome the crowd knew our songs. Back in the States, everybody just screamed for the headliner, but in Montreal, they lit their matches and Bic lighters! ”
The Wilson sisters then showed the world women could rock when Heart stormed the charts with songs like Crazy on You and Magic Man. The band has notched 22 Top 40 hits (including 1987’s No. 1 hit Alone), sold more than 35 million records and were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2013.
“We really had to fight for this, and to be acknowledged (by the Hall) is really sweet,” says Nancy Wilson.For nearly four decades, the Wilson sisters have blazed a trail for women in rock ‘n’ roll, which is still pretty much a boys’ club.
Take the ad campaign for Dreamboat Annie in 1976 by Vancouver’s now-defunct Mushroom Records. The record label took out a full-page ad in Rolling Stone and other magazines and laid it out tabloid-style with the caption “It was only our first time” beneath a picture of the bare-shouldered Wilson sisters. Ann Wilson was so outraged, she wrote the classic song Barracuda.
Has the music business changed? “When MTV came along, everything became much more shallow,” Wilson says. “It was harder to be taken seriously as artists, especially for women. It was (also) a tough balancing act for us. For women nowadays, if you’re doing college-level music, you have a better chance of being taken seriously as an artist than if you’re in pop music. There’s always been that duality for women.”
Some critics dismiss Heart as mere Led Zeppelin wannabes. But Heart got the stamp of approval from Led Zeppelin themselves at the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2012. Heart famously paid tribute to Zeppelin with a memorable version of Stairway to Heaven.
Now Heart will be joined by special guest Jason Bonham when they kick off their 11-date Rockin Heaven – Canada Tour 2014 in Montreal on June 14. In addition to Heart’s classic hits, Heart and Bonham will close each show with a tribute to Led Zeppelin.
“We’ve become bad-asses!” says Nancy Wilson. “I think one of the best things of all is to see young people enjoying our shows and still getting into our music.”
Heart performs at the Bell Centre on June 14 with opening act Jason Bonham. Click here for more info and tickets.
Photo courtesy www.heart-music.com
