If You Go
* What: Heart* When: 9:30 p.m. tonight* Where: Coca-Cola Stage
If you like a beautiful voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar and smooth melodies, go see Courtney Holder tonight.
If you like your music with a little more - maybe a lot more - grit and gristle, Husky Burnette should be your pick.
But come on Heart. You gotta go see Heart, right?
Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson wrote and sang some classic rock songs like "Barracuda," "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man." They kind of disappeared for a while, then roared back in the mid '80s with their biggest-selling records ever, including two No. 1 singles - "These Dreams" and "Alone" - and six Top 10 singles between 1986 and 1987.
And four years ago they crushed "Stairway to Heaven" during the tribute to Led Zeppelin for "Live at the Kennedy Center Honors" - and did it in front of the song's original singer, Robert Plant (who teared up at the performance) and President Barack Obama to boot.
It's not likely we'll hear them do that tonight, though.
The Wilson sisters were pioneers in so many ways, being the first females to front a hard-rocking band, with Nancy leading the way on guitar and Ann providing those powerful, soaring vocals. Did you know, however, that they didn't start the band, or that Nancy didn't even join until four years after Ann first joined up in 1970?
Heart actually started in 1967 as Army, then it was White Heart. After Ann Wilson joined the band in the the early '70s, the name was changed to Hocus Pocus. They finally became Heart in 1974 and Nancy Wilson joined a few months later.
All-in-all it's classic rock 'n' roll. With Heart.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.