Nancy Wilson (rock musician)
Nancy Lamoureux Wilson (born March 16, 1954) is an American musician. She rose to fame alongside her older sister Ann as guitarist and second vocalist in the rock band Heart.
This article is about the guitarist of Heart. For the jazz vocalist, see Nancy Wilson (jazz singer).
Nancy Wilson
Nancy Lamoureux Wilson
March 16, 1954
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
- Musician
- songwriter
- Guitar
- vocals
1973–present
Raised in Bellevue, Washington, Wilson began playing music as a teenager. During college, she joined her sister who had recently become the singer of Heart. Considered the first hard rock band fronted by women to achieve widespread commercial success,[1] Heart released numerous albums throughout the late 1970s and 1980s; the albums Dreamboat Annie (1975), and Little Queen (1977) generated chart singles such as "Magic Man", "Crazy on You", and "Barracuda". The band also had commercial success with their eighth, ninth and tenth studio albums, Heart, Bad Animals and Brigade, which were released in 1985, 1987, and 1990 respectively. Heart has sold over 35 million records.[3]
Wilson has been lauded for her guitar playing, noted for its blending elements of flamenco and classical guitar styles with hard rock.[4] In 2016, Gibson ranked Wilson the eighth-greatest female guitarist of all time.[5] She is also an accomplished singer in her own right, being the lead vocalist in the song "These Dreams", which became Heart's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2013, Wilson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Heart.[6]
Early life[edit]
Nancy Lamoureux Wilson was born March 16, 1954, in San Francisco, California,[1] the third and youngest child of John Wilson (d. 2000),[7] and Lois Mary Wilson (née Dustin; d. 2006).[8] She has two older sisters, Lynn and Ann. Both of Wilson's parents were natives of Oregon—her father from Corvallis, and her mother from Oregon City.[9] Her middle name is derived from her grandmother, Beatrice Lamoureux.[10] Wilson is of French Canadian and Scottish descent.[10] She was raised in Southern California and Taiwan before the family's U.S. Marine Corps father retired to the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Washington, where they relocated when Wilson was six years old.[11] The family lived in a Colonial home in the Lake Hills neighborhood.[11]
On February 9, 1964, Wilson and her sister Ann saw the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, a moment they each recalled as being profoundly influential: "The lightning bolt came out of the heavens and struck Ann and me the first time we saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show... There'd been so much anticipation and hype about the Beatles that it was a huge event, like the lunar landing; that was the moment Ann and I heard the call to become rock musicians. I was seven or eight at the time... right away, we started doing air guitar shows in the living room, faking English accents, and studying all the fanzines."[12] On August 25, 1966, the Beatles performed at the Seattle Center Coliseum, a show which Wilson, her sister Ann, and bandmates attended, another event both recalled as influential in their early lives.[13]
Ann Wilson attended Sammamish High School in Bellevue, where her father was an English teacher, while Nancy attended Interlake High School.[14] After graduating from high school in 1972 and prior to joining Heart, Wilson attended Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, for one year, majoring in art and German,[15] before transferring to Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.[16] In late 1973, Wilson returned to Seattle, transferring to the University of Washington.[17]
Personal life[edit]
Wilson dated bandmates Roger Fisher and Michael Derosier during the early years of Heart. In 1981, Wilson's friend Kelly Curtis introduced her to screenwriter Cameron Crowe;[87] Wilson married him on July 27, 1986.[88] After numerous failed fertility treatments, Wilson and Crowe conceived via an egg donor and surrogate, and the surrogate gave birth to twin sons, Curtis Wilson and William "Billy" James Crowe, in January 2000.[89] The marriage ended in divorce in 2010, with the couple citing irreconcilable differences.[90]
In 2011, Wilson began dating Geoff Bywater, who worked in music production on television shows for Fox. They were engaged in 2012 and married on April 28, 2012, in Mill Valley, California.[91]
On the morning of August 27, 2016, Ann Wilson's husband, Dean Wetter, was arrested for physically assaulting Nancy Wilson's 16-year-old twin sons. The incident took place during a Heart performance at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn, Washington the previous night.[92][93] The sisters' relationship was strained by the incident.[94] Wetter pleaded guilty to two nonfelony assault charges in the fourth degree.[2] Nancy Wilson later commented: "I'm an eternal optimist because I'm from a really strong, tight family, and I don't think any drama that's temporary is going to change our strong relationship. We just have to get through this first. It's been kind of a nightmare."[2] In February 2019, Heart announced that its hiatus had ended and that the band would embark on the Love Alive tour in the summer.[95]
Awards
Nominations