Caught in the Carousel

Ann Wilson

Hope and Glory
Zoe

When I was a kid, I played the flute because of Heart. I played it badly but that's not important. I affixed a Heart bumper sticker to my flute case, thinking it might make me look cool. It didn't, I wasn't. I was a geek with a flute but Dreamboat Annie was my ship of dreams and I listened to it 800 times. The Wilson sisters were everything to me. That was 1976 and I still know all the words. Thirty two years (Jesus…really?) later Ann Wilson has reappeared, seemingly out of nowhere, with a new CD (and not looking all that long in the tooth on the cover, although Photoshop works wonders) and it's not the stuff of washed up rock stars who now moonlight doing Jenny Craig ads on TV. No, it's pretty good. Wilson has assembled a nice little group of collaborators, too. Ben Mink, of k.d. Lang fame, produces (overproduces in spots but that's okay, they can't all be winners); Lucinda Williams' "Jackson" with k.d. Lang on back-up vocals is a standout and John Fogerty's "Bad Moon Rising" with Gretchen Wilson is good fun and very lively. Although an odd choice, "Get Together" with Deanna Carter, Wynonna and Nancy Wilson is about as good as this CD gets. Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" is a round robin of cool with Shawn Colvin and Rufus Wainwright guesting. The old Heart Stadium Rock Star sound is easy to spot on some of the songs but surely Wilson's earned it. Oddly, the only song that falls short is the only non-cover on the album "Little problems, Little Lies" If you're not convinced yet, you should know that Elton John also appears…okay?...and he's a SIR (yes, it happened shortly after the hair transplants—the Queen thought he was Margaret Thatcher).

-- Yvonne Prinz