doing We’re All Crazy Now might not have seemed a terrific career move. But it put her in touch with songwriter and producer Kenny Laguna
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts took to the road that year supporting the likes of the Police and performing major stadium gigs in the USA before taking off to Europe and Australia. Joan’s cover of Gary Glitter’s ‘Do You Wanna Touch Me’, released in 1982, received significant pick-up on radio as did the album’s other single, ‘Crimson and Clover’, a cover of the Shondell’s song. Suddenly Joan was a multi-platinum selling artist and the major labels were taking her seriously.
Her success in the charts didn’t end with I Love Rock’n’Roll, but the drug abuse that had hampered her in the days of the Runaways did. Laguna had strict rules for his ‘Joanie’ and the Blackheart boys. Drugs were off limits. He wasn’t going to let pills and powder ruin the band’s chances to ride the wave of success they’d worked so hard for. Anyway booze was a good enough substitute for numbing the boredom of being on the road.
After the release of I Love Rock’n’Roll Joan and the Blackhearts toured solidly for nearly three years, only coming off the road to put down tracks for another album before heading out again. They played long tours with a who’s who of rock—Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Cheap Trick (who had opened for the Runaways in 1977), ZZ Top, the Who, Journey, Queen and Foreigner. Joan loved touring and what she called ‘the physical element’ of performing—getting ‘all sweaty’—and the intimacy of the relationship with the audience.
Her next record, simply titled Album, was released in 1983. It featured covers of some of Joan’s favourite songs, including Sly Stone’s ‘Everyday People’ and the Rolling Stones’ ‘Star Star’. Reviewers likened Album to Joan’s first solo offering, Bad Reputation, noting that there weren’t any stand-out songs or chart toppers, but a good selection of solid rock’n’roll tunes. Album went gold.
Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth followed the next year. It included another Gary Glitter classic, ‘I Love You Love Me Love’, and also the song the Runaways are most remembered for, ‘Cherry Bomb’.
Laguna had strict rules for his ‘Joanie’ and the Blackheart boys. Drugs were off limits
But despite numerous albums and a relentless touring schedule that in the space of three years took Joan and her band around the world and back multiple times, things weren’t all rosy in Blackhearts’ financial camp.
Broadway Records, which had released Bad Reputation and I Love Rock’n’Roll, had folded in 1982 with the death of its founder. Joan and Laguna never received what would have been massive royalties for I Love Rock’n’Roll, although Joan did secure the radio rights to the title song, which in years to come would deliver handsome profits. Money was still tight and Laguna had to resort to paying for promotional necessities like video production on his credit card as he negotiated to move Joan from MCA, which had released Album and Glorious Results, to CBS Records.
In 1986 Joan turned her hand to acting, appearing with Michael J Fox and Gena Rowlands in Light of Day. Directed by Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and directed American Gigolo, the film received a mixed reception from critics, although there was consensus that Joan’s performance as a rock singer was exceptional.
It was unfortunate timing that Joan’s next album with the he Blackhearts, Good Music, was released around the same time as the movie’s soundtrack—or that was the excuse her management offered for the album’s lacklustre performance, particularly from a radio airplay perspective. There was little pick-up other than Joan’s cover of ‘Roadrunner’ by Jonathan Richman.
In 1987 the band went out on the road for almost twelve months. On stage is where Joan really comes into her own. She’s a powerhouse of energy, attitude, sweat and deafening guitar playing—you don’t leave Joan’s concerts without your ears ringing for days. By this time the Blackhearts line-up had changed. Kasim Sulton, who had worked with Mick Jagger, Bon Jovi and Patti Smith, was on bass and Thommy Price on drums. Price had played on previous Blackhearts albums in between touring with Mink de Ville. He toured with the Blackhearts in 1987 and returned in 1990 as a permanent member of the band. He’s still hanging with Joan.
Joan loved what she called ‘the physical element’ of performing—getting ‘all sweaty’—and the intimacy with the audience
Joan was back in the top ten in 1988 with ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’, the best performing single on that year’s album, Up Your Alley. Songwriter Desmond Child and Ric Browde, who had worked with big-hair rock boys Poison, were brought in to add fresh ideas without losing Joan’s three-chord rock sound. The album was recorded in classic Blackheart style with all the musicians in the one room as if they were playing live. Up Your Alley featured a cover of Iggy Pop’s ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, which Joan had been playing live for years, and a little known Chuck Berry song ‘Tulane’.
Joan and Laguna never received what would have been massive royalties for I Love Rock’n’Roll
The Hit List of 1990 featured covers of some of Joan’s favourite bands. It was an eclectic mix of songs that worked surprisingly well and kept diehard fans buying records. Notorious was released the next year and, as Rolling Stone magazine said, it gave Joan’s fans exactly what they were hoping for: ‘anthemic hard-rock ditties packed with gritty riffs, strong melodies and a touch of grunge, all topped off by Jett’s wonderfully rasping voice.’ The album was followed by Flashback, a collection of lesser known songs and B-sides, which demonstrated the breadth of Joan’s work since going solo in 1980.
In 1993 she worked with Bikini Kill, producing their ‘New Radio’/‘Rebel Girl’. Joan and Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna co-wrote ‘Spinster’, ‘Rubber & Glue’, ‘Go Home’ and ‘You Got a Problem’ (with Desmond Child), all of which appear on Joan’s 1994 album Pure and Simple. Now signed to Warner Brothers, this Joan was more in the vein of the 1990s riot grrrls—who had held her up as a model for female rockers. The album featured Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland and Donita Sparks and Jennifer Finch from L7.
Around this time Joan embarked on a new artistic pursuit, painting. On the rare occasions she was at home with her cats, she would set up her easel and let her mind wander while she daubed paint on to canvas. On tour she preferred reading, often books on philosophy.
In 1995 she recorded an album with Seattle band the Gits, whose lead singer Mia Zapata was raped and murdered in 1993 during the time Joan was in Seattle working with Bikini Kill. Proceeds from the album, Evil Stig (Gits Live backwards), were donated to the Mia Zapata investigative fund which paid for private detectives’ work to solve the murder.
Zapata’s death inspired Joan and Hanna to write Pure and Simple’s ‘Go Home’ about being stalked. The song also appears on the Home Alive: The Art of Self Defense benefit album for Home Alive, a Seattle anti-violence organisation co-founded by Valerie Agnew of 7 Year Bitch. The album features Pearl Jam, Nirvana, the Wilsons from Heart and Soundgarden.
Joan has said numerous times that rock’n’roll is her life. In 1996 she was able to combine the two true loves of her life, sports and music. For an advertisement for US sports network ESPN promoting women’s basketball, she recorded the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, ‘Love is All Around’, giving it a decided rock edge. The reaction was phenomenal, sending Joan back into the studio to record a full-length version of the song.
Back on the touring circuit in 1997, a new-look Joan had short cropped bleached blonde hair, reminiscent of Billy Idol’s 1980 cut, and a tank top replacing her bodysuit and showing off finely honed abs. It proved that being a non-drinking, non-smoking, yoga-practising vegetarian is good for your body.
The title song of the album Fetish, released in 1999, was Joan’s raunchiest song to date with blatant references to sadomasochism delivered with a brutality and profanity that hadn’t been part o
f her repertoire. The song gave new life to what many had thought was a career in its twilight and delivered Joan a younger audience.
To celebrate the new millennium Joan shaved off her bleached locks and then appeared as Columbia in a New York production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wielding her screaming guitar, her powerful stage presence, enhanced by her shining bald head and the ethereal lighting, was well received.
the burkha stomping made it on to CNN, much to the chagrin of the military honchos
When she performed for the troops in Afghanistan in 2001 she took to the stage in a burkha, which she threw off and stomped on. Underneath she wore a see-through top, camouflage pants and what looked like army issue boots. It made it on to CNN, much to the chagrin of the military honchos. She rallied for women’s health too, recording the Beatles song ‘The Word’ for It’s All About Eve, an album to raise funds for breast cancer awareness.
In 2004 Joan and the Blackhearts released Naked, which was available only in Japan. On the Naked cover was a black-haired Joan topless, the word ‘naked’ scrawled across her nipples. After spending considerable time writing songs, re-recording tracks from Naked and laying down unreleased material with the latest incarnation of the Blackhearts—Dougie Needles on lead guitar, Thommy Price on drums and Enzo Pennizzotto on bass—the long-awaited new album came out in 2006. Sinner was released on her Blackhearts record label.
Sinner was a work of true maturity that showed Joan could still rock as hard, and better, as she ever had. But it is somewhat of a shift into a more politicised rock, eschewing the loves-lost-and-found themes of her previous work. Sinner reveals an older, more introspective person. The single ‘Riddles’ is a political anthem.
When in New York Joan hosts a weekly program on Sirius Satellite Radio, Radio Revolution. She and Laguna have signed more alternate bands to Blackheart Records, including the Vacancies, whose album A Beat Missing or a Silence Added picked up a 2007 Independent Music Award.
The teenage Joan Jett wanted to be a rock star. She’s rocked hard for more than thirty years now and there’s no sign of her losing her love of rock’n’roll.
ANN & NANCY WILSON
All Heart
Ann was born in San Diego in 1950, and Nancy four years later when the Wilson family was living in San Francisco. Their father, a highly decorated officer in the US Marine Corp, moved from one posting to another, including Korea, Taiwan and Panama. He retired in the early 1960s, when Ann was around twelve, and the Wilsons put down roots in the middle-class suburb of Bellevue in Seattle. There their father went back to his great loves—English literature, poetry and music.
A tight-knit family, the Wilsons gave their daughters plenty of love as well as freedom. The three Wilson sisters—Lynn is the eldest—have strong voices and they sang all the time. When Ann was around thirteen her grandmother gave her a guitar to help pass the time while she recovered from illness. Nancy wanted a guitar like her big sister’s. She began playing at the age of nine. Not long after, she was composing. ‘She’s a natural,’ Ann said.
For Ann—who played the flute and was planning a classical career—the musical turning point came in 1963 when she got hooked on the Beatles. Three years later she saw them in concert and thought all her Christmases had come at once: ‘that entire summer we lived on top of this mountain of ice cream and candy floss because we’d been in the same room with the Beatles.’
The Wilson girls had teenage flirtations with drugs—acid trips and pot smoking—but much of the excitement came from the thrill of scoring. Dabbling in a little contraband was rebellious. But they weren’t into excess and were rather scared by the antics of Janis Joplin, a big influence at the time.
they were fired from one gig. Four days later they were supporting Rod Stewart in concert. That’s how fast the game changed
Constantly struggling with her weight, Ann skulked around dressed in black, desperate to conceal her size. Being uncomfortable about her figure compounded the complexities of an already shy personality. But music was something she could lose herself in. By the time she was in her late teens she was playing around the traps in Seattle with various bands. She recorded a couple of singles, including ‘Through Eyes and Glass’ written with Nancy, with folk-rock group Daybreak and the two played in the Viewpoints, another folk-oriented band.
But it didn’t last. Nancy was intent on going to college. And Ann wanted to be a rock chick.
Answering an ad in 1972, she auditioned for Roger Fisher and Steve Fossen, who had been playing together for years. Fisher remembers Ann ‘busting loose’ with a voice of ‘incredible power’ that just blew him away. She joined their band. It was heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin and named Hocus Pocus.
When Fisher’s brother Mike, who had been playing with Roger before fleeing to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War draft, snuck down across the border, ‘I fell in love with him instantly,’ Ann confessed. It was a mutual attraction. Ann moved the 200 kilometres up the coast to Vancouver to be with her man. Fisher and Fossen followed. Mike worked with the band in various capacities, at one point as manager.
Ann wanted her sister to join Heart. It took until 1974 before Nancy, who was in college, acquiesced. But she only agreed after being assured she’d be able to use her acoustic talents—mandolin, keyboards and acoustic guitar— and play electric rock. Soon Nancy hooked up with Roger Fisher. Now both sisters were in relationships within the band.
After three years of playing every conceivable rock venue, the now-named Heart finally made its mark. It was hard going, doing the rounds of the clubs. They would play sets over five hours in as many nights as they could get bookings. Roger lost his temper at one lousy venue and set the band room on fire. They were fired. Four days later they were supporting Rod Stewart in concert. That’s how fast the game changed.
Heart released its first album, Dreamboat Annie, in 1976 on the Canadian Mushroom label run by producer Mike Flicker, Howard Leese and Shelly Siegel. Before the band signed, Mushroom had offered Ann a solo deal. She wasn’t interested. She was the dynamic vocalist in a bone fide rock’n’roll band—just where she wanted to be.
Leese, who’d met the Wilson sisters two years earlier and had worked with them on a demo tape, played keyboards on the album. Before long he officially became a member of Heart. Drummer Michael DeRosier completed the permanent line-up. And Ann and Nancy’s big sister Lynn sang back-up vocals on the album.
Siegel knew Heart had to crack America. The Canadian market was just too small. He watched the success of other arena rock bands, like Foreigner and Boston, and wanted some of that magic for Heart. After all the major record labels rejected the band’s work, he set up an independent distribution network in the States and succeeded in getting radio time for Dreamboat Annie.
they were a marketer’s dream—an innocent blonde and a voluptuous brunette. The fact they were sisters and serious rock chicks made it even better
That was all it took. The record sold over a million copies and peaked at number seven on the US charts. Rumours were rife that the single Ann had written, ‘Magic Man’, was about Charles Manson (the real subject was an old boyfriend). That didn’t hurt sales. The song was Heart’s first top ten American hit. The album’s two other singles written by Ann and Nancy, ‘Crazy On You’ and ‘Dreamboat Annie’, both reached the top fifty.
‘Magic Man’ was the band’s mass-market breakthrough. Rock fans loved Ann’s powerful, hypnotic, incredibly sexy voice and Nancy’s classy guitar work. The press, with Mushroom Records’ help, began to refer to Heart as Ann and Nancy Wilson. It infuriated the band. But Mushroom was only interested in selling records. These two were a marketer’s dream—an innocent-looking blonde (Nancy) and a voluptuous brunette (Ann). The fact they were sisters and serious rock chicks made it even better.
Ann’s voice ranged from melodic to the animal howls of a true rocker.
She was like a tornado, whipping everyone around her into a frenzy
They were bare shouldered on the cover of Dreamboat Annie but it looked as if they were naked. Mushroom used the picture with the tag line ‘Heart’s Wilson Sisters Confess: It Was Only Our First Time’ in an ad—the implication being the sisters were lesbian lovers.
But there was a lot more to the Wilson sisters than sex appeal. They were almost obscenely talented. Ann’s voice was her most impressive asset, but she was also a good musician (guitar, ukulele, flute) and a powerful lyricist. Nancy’s true brilliance lay in arranging music to Ann’s lyrics. She played a range of electric and acoustic instruments and could hold her own as a vocalist too.
The publicity machine spun and spun. Heart was new. And it was a band with women. Often the questions came back to how much cleavage they were showing. But once the band started playing, it was very obvious that these rock chicks could rock. ‘We want people to know this is a real band, not one of those machines that turns out records and never tours,’ Ann said. ‘We love to get out and play ... We’re the most fulfilled when everybody gets off.’
Heart toured extensively, building its reputation as a potent live act. Ann was mesmerising, a powerful singer who commanded the spotlight. Nancy was equally dynamic, her svelte body at one with the guitar as she rocked her way across stage. On tour they were one big happy family, the Wilson girls and the Fisher boys. But being in close proximity in a high-powered, ego-sensitive environment was courting disaster.
Mushroom offered Ann a solo deal. She wasn’t interested. She was just where she wanted to be
They were losing faith with Mushroom Records, mainly because of the way the girls were being portrayed as rock’n’roll sex kittens. As Ann said, you can be both a heavy rocker and a woman—and not sell your soul in translation.
Rock Chicks Page 8