DU Album of the Day: "Dreamboat Annie" Heart

[gratuitous]

Released in the U.S. on Valentine's Day 1976, "Dreamboat Annie" heralded the arrival of a new group, fronted by women with songs by women for a woman's sensibilities. Were they balladeers? Hard rockers? Blues-influenced pop? Yes. Were the vocals the main thing? Or was it the musicianship? Yes again.

Ann Wilson had worked the local music scene in Vancouver BC and Seattle, Washington for several years before her younger sister Nancy joined her group in 1974. Naming themselves Heart, they proceeded to work out an act that has stayed strong for 32 years. Although the first track on the album is the "wrong" song (the album should lead off with Dreamboat Annie, in my opinion), there is a diversity of themes on this first collection that foreshadows what Heart would play in the years to come. Ann Wilson has the vocal chops to do the sweet "I'll Be Your Song," then the hard-rocking "Magic Man," harmonize with sister Nancy on "Sing Child" and then snarl out "Crazy on You" in a way to give male fans pause in mid-fantasy.

It's all here, right from the beginning, and Heart hasn't disappointed over the years, giving fans lots of different sounds, and blending genres with ease.

Magic Man
Dreamboat Annie (Fantasy Child)
Crazy On You
Soul Of the Sea
Dreamboat Annie
White Lightning and Wine
(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song
Sing Child
How Deep It Goes
Dreamboat Annie (Reprise)

[Swede]

1. I was just thinking about this album.

[KurtNYC]

2. I have a vintage copy on vinyl

I would pull it out right now but that album demands volume.

Thundering Canadian guitars, immaculately recorded, tight and punchy rock.

Magic Man seems kind of appropriate for Valentine's Day.

[cliffordu]

3. I ran into Nancy Wilson

last summer.

OMFG.

I'm a 60 year old curmudgeon and she knocked me out. She asked for directions back to her hotel.....

Turned me into a 13 year old blabbering fanboi. It took a minute for me to realize who the hell I was talking to.....

I got to tell her what their music means to me, how long I've been listening to it.....


(FUCK Cameron Crowe, he lost that woman. Christ almighty, he lost that woman.)

Happy valentines day, Nancy, wherever you are, and my offer of marriage still stands.

The dude from the waterfront, in Portland, Oregon.

[hifiguy]

4. Ann Wilson was one of the first women singers

in rock to put the fear into a lot of the boys. She had the sheer vocal technique and horsepower to stand up to even the likes of Ian Gillan and Robert Plant. Great band back in the day and I definitely had a crush on Nancy back in the 1970s.

[Myrina]

5. They were inspiring to this chubby bathroom-mirror-rock star wanna-be...

I knew/still know all the lyrics down pat. Dreamboat Annie was one of the songs that tipped me over the edge from a normal dorky 10-year-old misfit into a hippie-leaning artsy musical chick.