Ann Wilson
Ann Dustin Wilson (born June 19, 1950) is an American singer and songwriter best known as the lead singer of the rock band Heart.
For other people named Ann Wilson, see Ann Wilson (disambiguation).
Ann Wilson
Ann Dustin Wilson
San Diego, California, U.S.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Singer, songwriter[1]
Vocals, flute, guitar
1967–present
Wilson has been a member of Heart since the early 1970s; her younger sister, Nancy, is also a member of the band. The first hard rock band fronted by women,[2] Heart released numerous albums between 1976 and 2016; the early Heart albums Dreamboat Annie (1976), and Little Queen (1977) generated classic hard rock singles such as "Magic Man", "Crazy on You", and "Barracuda".[3] All told, Heart has sold over 35 million records worldwide,[3] placed 29 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and has scored top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s.[4][5]
Ann Wilson was ranked no. 78 in Hit Parader's 2006 list of "Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time".[6] In 2013, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Heart. Wilson possesses a dramatic soprano vocal range.[7][note 1] She is known for her operatic abilities.[9]
Early life[edit]
Ann Dustin Wilson was born in San Diego, California.[10] Her father was a major in the U.S. Marine Corps.[11] Due to her father's military career, the Wilson family moved frequently.[12] They lived near American military facilities in Panama and Taiwan before settling in Seattle, Washington, in the early 1960s. To maintain a sense of home no matter where in the world they were residing, the Wilsons turned to music. "On Sunday we'd have pancakes and opera," her sister Nancy Wilson recalled. "My dad would be conducting in the living room. We'd turn it way up and rock. There was everything from classical music to Ray Charles, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, bossa nova, and early experimental electronic music."[13]
Wilson's family eventually settled in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, Washington. In 1968, she graduated from Sammamish High School.[14] Shy because of a stutter, Wilson sought fulfillment in music.[15] In the early 1970s she joined a local band, White Heart, which changed its name to Hocus Pocus, and then in 1974 to Heart.[16] Wilson also attended Cornish College of the Arts.[17]
Personal life[edit]
Relationships and family[edit]
During the 1970s, Wilson was in a relationship with Michael Fisher, the manager of Heart, while Nancy was involved with lead guitarist Roger Fisher, Michael's younger brother.[30] Both couples controlled the band. In 1979, the relationships ended; Ann stated that Michael had fallen in love with another woman and they parted.[31]
In 1991 Wilson adopted a daughter, Marie, and in 1998 she adopted a son, Dustin.[32]
Wilson married Dean Wetter in April 2015. The pair had dated briefly in the 1980s.[33] On the morning of August 27, 2016, Wetter was arrested for assaulting his nephews, Nancy Wilson's 16-year-old twin sons, after the boys had left the door to his RV open. The incident took place during a Heart performance at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn, Washington the previous night. Wetter pleaded guilty to the charges.[34][35]
The sisters' relationship was strained by the incident.[36] Following the end of Heart's 2016 tour, the sisters opted to tour with their own side-project bands, with Ann saying in April 2017 that Heart was on hiatus.[36]
In February 2019, the sisters announced that Heart's hiatus had ended and that the band would embark on the Love Alive tour in the summer.[37] In March 2019, the sisters reunited on stage for the first time since the band went on hiatus, at the Love Rocks NYC benefit concert.[38]
Health[edit]
As a child, Ann was bullied for being overweight. She revealed that in the 1970s and into the early 1980s she would starve herself and use diet pills to stay thin. By the time Heart made a comeback in the mid-'80s, she had gained a significant amount of weight. Fearing that Heart's lead singer's physique would compromise the band's image, record company executives and band members began pressuring her to lose weight. In music videos, camera angles and clothes were often used to minimize her size, and more focus was put on Ann's more slender sister, Nancy. Ann stated she began suffering from stress-related panic attacks due to the negative publicity surrounding her weight. She underwent adjustable gastric band weight-loss surgery in January 2002[39] after what she called "a lifelong battle" with her weight.
In November 2009, Ann collapsed. Doctors found that she had liver disease resulting from alcoholism. While she had stopped using other drugs after adopting her daughter, she had increased her alcohol consumption. Nancy and other family members and band crew had been concerned about her for some time and had built a break into a Heart tour to allow Ann an opportunity to obtain treatment. She ultimately underwent therapy on her own.[40] In the band's 2012 autobiography, Ann revealed her past struggles with cocaine and alcoholism. She stated that she had been sober since 2009.[41]