Ann Wilson’s seven favourite singers of all time
The versatility that you hear in the music of Heart is in large part due to Ann Wilson‘s powerhouse belting capabilities.
This allowed Heart to experiment with different kinds of sounds in rock music. Granted, they have always dabbled within the realms of rock, but their sound straddles the line between hard, soft, stripped-back and epic, with Wilson crediting this range to growing up in Seattle.
She explained that the lack of a status quo between the myriad scenes blossoming in the city granted people the freedom to explore any music or sound that took their fancy: to listen to, play, and experiment.
“I think that Seattle is full of outliers and misfits, especially in those days,” she explained, “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!”
She also explained that apart from a very brief moment in the 1990s, Seattle was never a place where musicians were desperate to be from, but a stopgap for creative people to engage with their artistry and then eventually flee the nest. However, the fact that it wasn’t a particularly “cool” place to hail from meant you never got industry people infiltrating the music scene and tampering with it before bands had even found their voice, as clearly evidenced in the sounds of bands like Heart and others from the land, making Seattle one of the most exciting musical cities in the US.
The freedom that Wilson was granted by her surroundings is not only reflected by her music but also influences. She was clearly willing to listen to everyone and anyone, and whether they dabbled in rock, pop, or folk, so long as Wilson liked their sound, she had time for them.
When asked who her favourite vocalists were, she highlighted seven different performers, each with their own unique tone, who have and will go down as legends of their selected genres: “My favourite singers of all time would be Joni Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, Robert Plant, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Robin Zander, Vince Gill.”
Wilson was particularly fond of Freddie Mercury. You can certainly hear the Queen influence in a lot of her music, and she performed with the band on occasion as well. She recalled meeting Mercury, saying that the two of them had a bond which you could only really have between two lead singers.
“Oh yeah. He was just such a fun person at that point,” she had claimed, “I think that as the two lead singers, we recognised something in each other, and we could party and joke around with each other. And be flamboyant with each other. [Laughs] He was great. He was just so fun. And boy, what a talent. What a super-energised powerhouse he was.”
