Dreamboat Annie

Heart | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000002UBL
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,231 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

After futzing around Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, for a few years, Heart finally secured a record deal in 1976. It wasn't with Epic or Capitol (which they would later sign with), but with a tiny Canadian label called Mushroom. The resulting album, Dreamboat Annie, was an impressive hard-rock debut. "Crazy on You," which spotlighted the piercing vocals of singer Ann Wilson and the chunky guitar bluster of her sister Nancy, entered the Top 40, and the more mystical "Magic Man" climbed to No. 9. Dreamboat Annie also exposed a more vulnerable side of the band: The title track, for example, was an easy-listening, harmony-laden folk song replete with banjo plucks. --Jon Wiederhorn

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Try to understand--he's a magic man!, June 2, 2003

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreamboat Annie (Audio CD)

After getting into Heart's eponymous breakthrough album long ago, I decided to go back in time and pick up their early stuff, and was it a revelation! A different sound, more pure rock and blues,... were these really the same women who did the raging "If Looks Could Kill"?

A fiery bluesy guitar opens on one of their all-time classics. "Magic Man" is about a girl who's spellbound with a man of her dreams, to the chagrin of her mother. That pulsing bass keeping rhythm works to advantage on this bluesy rock number. Ann and Nancy's choir-like vocals highlight the second part of the song, after the pause. Then that pulsing guitar that rises until Ann starts singing the chorus again: "But try to understand/Try to understand/Try try try to understand/I'm a magic man." Aw yeah!

Then comes version 1 of 3 of the title track, this one the short Fantasy Child version, which opens with ocean waves, a gentle acoustic guitar, and Ann proving she can do a quiet ballad as well as rock out.

This then segues into their second great single, which should've risen higher than the Top 40--"Crazy On You." It dwells on the safety of having one's partner throughout the madness of a chaos and trouble-torn world, "bombs and the devils", and personal "the kids keep coming." It's quicker than "Magic Man" and between the two, I favour this tune. It is alternately poignant, "Wild man's world is crying in pain/What you gonna do when everyone is insane/So afraid of wanting, so afraid of you/What you gonna do....?" and beautifully lyrical at the same time: "My love is the evening breeze touching your skin/The gentle sweet singing of leaves in the wind/The whisper that calls, after you in the night/And kisses your ear in the early light" and "I was a willow last night in my dream/I bent down over a clear running stream/I sang you the song that I heard up above/And you keep me alive with your sweet, flowing love." Wonderful stuff!

For the most part, "Soul Of The Sea" is another lush guitar ballad with string arrangements about casting one's sorrowful past after meeting that someone. "Time, time, time, time/Never ask what's become of us/Just dedicate your sorrow/Here and now/To the soul of the sea/And me." The bridge then turns into the disillusioning daily drudgery a female worker has to deal with, complete with typewriter keys clacking in one section. After Ann belts out "No silence", the tempo returns to the lush romantic tempo of before.

Then comes the title track, whose tempo is a light canter, but it's at least longer than its predecessor version.

"White Lightning & Wine" is another mid-paced bluesy-rock number and is about the effects the title drink has on a woman's perception of a bar pickup--a variation on someone not gifted in the looks department looking pretty after a few too many. A woman's gonna have to drink a gallon of that stuff before she takes a shine to me, I'll tell you.

Acoustic ballad time with "(Love Me Like Music) I'll Be Your Song" and seeing as Ann's a singer/musician, comparing her to a song is appropriate. Ann and Nancy sing together in the second verse, and the effects are angelic. Their harmonies and the following lyric really prove the Wilsons to be the bad angels of rock ballads.

The rocker "Sing Child" sounds a lot like early Zeppelin, and some of Ann's vocal phrasings resemble Robert Plant's.

Sweet ballad time with "How Deep It Goes," and the piano and violin make this one of my favourites. The flute solo after the second verse is a sweet touch. The following line makes me wonder if the whole thing is a reference to Vietnam: "If I could leave anymore, even though there's a scar/Still fresh from the war, don't think about it no more/Letting new love flow."

The reprise version of the title track is slow in the same vein as the Fantasy Child version, and the piano makes this nicer, but after the flute solo, it goes into lush strings, highlighted by kettle drums. The imagery of the opening lyrics is stunning: "Heading out this morning into the sun/Riding on the diamond waves, little darlin' one." and the portrait of a dreamer is aptly put in the line, "Going down the city sidewalk alone in the crowd/No one knows the lonely one whose head's in the clouds." Alone in the crowd, lonely one, head in the clouds... oh, that's me!

A brilliant debut and one of the best albums of the 1970's.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreamboat Annie by Heart, July 5, 2009

By 

Richard Glenn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dreamboat Annie (Audio CD)

This Cd is a classic for those of us that were there when it first hit the record stores. I remember un boxing it as a clerk for the Wherehouse Records. It sold like hotcakes. Great album by a great new band. I also liked the fact that it was on an indapendent record lable "Mushroom Records"

It would have been nice if they could have added that touch to this Cd release. I would rate this 10 on my scale 1-10

Again the whole album is awesome and only showed the pure power of a band led by the sisters Wilson.

Jazzman3

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first... still one of the all time best rock releases, January 9, 2008

By 

Kevin Stanton "stanke36" (Pittsburgh) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreamboat Annie (Audio CD)

When Dreamboat Annie showed up on the scene there weren't many truly great female rockers out there. Then the Wilson Sisters showed up and turned things around.
I remember the first time I heard 'Magic Man'! Wow! There was nothing else like it... and still isn't. Every last bit of their possible talents were showcased on this album in a story type form, gliding from one song to the next and keeping the Dreamboat Annie theme going throughout.
I still listen to this CD a lot.. and still love it. It really speaks to what rock and roll is all about. Kudos to the girls for their timeless creation!