Nancy Wilson Details Plans to Tour as ‘Nancy Wilson’s Heart,’ without Sister Ann Wilson

Earlier this month, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson posted a message to social media about her touring plans as Nancy Wilson’s Heart, presenting a lineup of backing musicians that doesn’t include her sister, singer Ann Wilson:

Here comes Nancy Wilsons Heart. Me, @kimnicky and the guys : @bensmithmusiccompany @ryanwatersmusic @danno405 @andystoller are ready to BRING IT! (Photography: @juliabywater / my hair: Shannon Maloney) pic.twitter.com/1xpy39T5LZ

— Nancy Wilson (@NancyWilson) February 11, 2022

The names included above are guitarist Ryan Waters, bassist Andy Stoller, drummer Ben Smith and keyboardist Dan Walker, all frequent collaborators with Nancy. Vocal duties will be provided by Kimberly Nichole, who was a finalist on the eight season of The Voice.

Of course, this suggestion by Nancy Wilson that she plans to use the Heart name on a tour that won’t feature Ann is noteworthy, given the history between the sisters and the inconsistent nature of official Heart tours in recent years.

As Nancy told NYC radio station WBAB 102.3 (per Blabbermouth) about the situation:

“Heart had a big offer on the table last year for a bigger tour, but Ann wasn’t interested in going out with my lineup of guys that we were out with before.

“She has a new lineup of guys that she wanted me to join up with. And I sort of [thought], I don’t really know them and don’t have loyalty yet for anybody like that. So I just kind of shined it on and decided when I do go out with my new singer Kimberly, I can telegraph to the people coming to the show that they’re gonna hear Heart songs in a whole different way.”

Nancy also released her first solo album, You and Me, back in May. Click here to read Rock Cellar’s feature interview with Nancy about her solo project.

Ann, meanwhile, has been keeping busy with a series of solo releases, and will unveil a new studio album, Fierce Bliss, in late April. She previewed it recently with “Greed”:

Ann also talked about performing with the “new lineup of guys” that Nancy mentioned in the quote above. As Ann told Rock Cellar in a chat:

Rock Cellar: You performed a mini-tour of Florida in June, your first since the start of the pandemic. How was getting back in front of an audience after such a long layoff?

Ann Wilson: The first night, I felt pretty wobbly just because to get up there and do that takes a certain kind of confidence. And you have to feel wide open and not that introverted. After a year and a half of being in quarantine, I felt really inward. So here you are on stage — that’s not the place to be inward.

After a few songs, I began to open up and saw the places that I need to work on after a year of not doing that.

Rock Cellar: How did you and the band prepare after such a long layoff?

Ann Wilson: We spent a week up in Nashville in rehearsal. We just got in a room, because I have a whole new band, so for them, everything was new. Even the Heart songs, they’d never played before. I’ve been doing a lot of recording and they were the band that I’ve been recording with. The new songs came really easy, it’s just the old Heart songs and some of the covers that I do in my set were all new to them.

When we stepped onstage at that first show, they had 18 new songs to do. And they did great!