When I was offered the chance to review the book by the sisters who make up the band Heart, I jumped for it, not because I'm a huge Heart fan but because I wanted to read the story of the women who were pretty much the first hard rocking lady band in rock and roll. And I wasn't disappointed because their stories are pretty fascinating.The book details their struggles in the '70s (when they were referred to as "Led Zeppelin with tits") because, let's face it, the '70s weren't really all that free of sexual harassment for ladies, especially ladies trying to break in the rock business. At one point their defunct label put out an ad basically implying that the Wilson sisters were incestuous lesbian lovers. These aren't the kinds of stories that you hear from men in the business. It was pretty fascinating/horrifying to see some of the blatantly sexist crap these women have had to put up with over the years.
The book covers a lot of ground and goes into some messy stuff: major drug use in the '80s, Ann's issues with her weight and body image, Nancy's fertility problems, and a bit about her failed marriage to director Cameron Crowe. There's some pretty great stuff in there. And it's not all depressing - there's a hilarious story about stalking Paul McCartney.
If you like rock memoirs then this is definitely worth your time. It's available in tons of places now, including Amazon. The Wilson sisters really paved the way for women in rock and tell their stories, warts and all. Now if you will excuse me, I need to fire up iTunes and start downloading some Heart albums.
