Review
Author: Ann & Nancy Wilson with Charles R. Cross
Reviewed by: Mike Peluso
Issue: December 2023
My wife and I are voracious readers of music biographies and autobiographies. Grace Slick, Eric Clapton, Jewel, Bruce Springsteen, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Brandi Carlile, just to name a handful. But I've just finished maybe the best of all: Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll. Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart take you through the story of their lives, and what a ride it's been! It's not just a story of life as rock 'n' roll performers, but they unabashedly take you on a literary trip through the most personal and intimate details of their lives, and leave you appreciating them not only as rock superstars, but as real human beings with triumphs and heartbreaks, highs and lows, self-assuredness and insecurities, vices and virtues, hopes and dreams. Unlike musicians of nearly all of the other biographies I've read, Ann and Nancy Wilson came from a happy, close, functional, loving family. Every single reference to their mother, father and older sister are words of love, caring, kindness and admiration. Ann shares her formative years as a stuttering, overweight girl who bravely stands up to the verbal and emotional bullying in her junior high and high school. Nancy is the quiet, sensitive girl who is as protective of her sister as a mother hen. Ann discovers her singing talents and Nancy discovers her skills at playing guitar, and the journey to stardom starts there. From proms and school dances in Seattle to becoming the hottest club band in Vancouver, Heart then gets the proverbial break and the road to international stardom begins. But through it all, the girls remain true to themselves and to each other, sharing the euphoria of being in love to the heartbreak of splitting up, chronicling Ann's adopted children and Nancy's surrogate Children. There's probably nothing more interesting in reading a book of this genre than when the authors tell the genesis or inspiration for their most famous songs. Ann Wilson had met her first love when she was 20, and moved to Vancouver to live with him. Her mother had hoped that Ann might move back to Seattle, but Ann replied, "But mama, I can't leave him. He's such a magic man!" And the rest is a platinum record. The girls deftly take the reader through their experiences with sexism in rock and roll, inappropriate advances from some surprisingly famous celebrities, experiences with alcoholism, the decadence of the rock and roll world, and in the end, Ann and Nancy Wilson stand tall as one of the most successful female rock and roll bands in history. And best of all, they come across as so real and genuine, two sisters from Seattle who never left their roots, who remain true first and foremost to each other, childhood friends and family, and two women with whom you feel you could sit down at a coffee shop, share a few bagels, and comfortable converse about anything.