Heart’s Ann Wilson: ‘The Music Industry Has Changed As To Be Unrecognizable’
Heart‘s Wilson sisters, Nancy and Ann, were recently interviewed by ABC News and talked about battling sexism in the ’70s and ’80s. Nancy said, “In the mid-’70s, when we released our first album, in ’75, people were kind of jaw dropping. It was, like, ‘What?’ That doesn’t really compute ’cause it’s not supposed to really exist at the time. So we were a little bit of an anomaly out there in the culture when we started.”
Ann added, “I don’t think people knew what to think of us, because rock and roll was really the province of men; it always was. And they just waited around to see what we do, kind of. So it took several years for us to really catch on.”
Nancy added, “Our joke was always, like, ‘Well, if you give the monkeys some typewriters, eventually they’ll type the Gettysburg address.’ But we had the typewriters. We typed the address.”
Ann talked about how the music business has changed over the last five decades, “Well, the music industry has changed as to be unrecognizable to what it was then. Music is now pigeonholed into a million little places where you can just check out only the kind of music you wanna hear. Whereas back in those other days, there was a radio station that played it all.”
Nancy agreed, adding, “Terrestrial radio was really a connector, a connecting point for everybody, unanimously to kind of hear the same stuff and go to the same shows and hear about stuff on the radio. And now it’s all on your phone and stuff.”
Last December, Heart played their first concert (three of ’em) in more than four years.
They tour for the first time in five years on their “Royal Flush” North America tour. It starts April 20 in Greenville, South Carolina. Cheap Trick and Squeeze are the opening bands.
Heart will also join Def Leppard and Journey for some summer stadium shows in Toronto, Boston, Cleveland and New Orleans.
Heart has been around since the early ’70s. Over 35 million albums sold. 20 Top 40 singles. Inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2013.
Are they the best ‘siblings band’ of all-time?
