Heart - Little Queen Promo 1977 & Barracuda/Kick It Out/Love Alive- Seattle Memorial Stad. 8-31-77

A Heart promotional film about the making of the Little Queen album cover and live footage from their Seattle Memorial Stadium concert August 31,1977. This promo was shown in early 1978 on the Midnight Special TV show which had live performances in the 70s. They would often tack on promo videos or interviews along with the live show. Little Queen was released on May 14, 1977 with Barracuda, Kick It Out, and Little Queen being radio hits. Barracuda peaked at #11 on the Billboard chart. Little Queen sold over 3 million records and had also appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in July 1977. Their Dreamboat Annie album released in 1976 was still on the charts with their hits "Magic Man" and "Crazy On You," and they had re-released their Magazine album in 1978 which included the hit "Heartless," thus they had three albums on the charts at once--an impressive feat. To paraphrase their new autobiography Kicking & Dreaming about this photo shoot, this wasn't their favorite album cover. It's my favorite. Ann didn't like that they chose a photo of her not smiling and she and Nancy joked that she was always made to look "fierce and raw and Nancy as ethereal and angelic." Nancy blamed this on the stereotypes of hair color. Both were clearly fierce and raw in performances, and on their quieter songs Ann's vocals are ethereal and angelic. Ann describes the photo shoot: "We were in Los Angeles at the time and we discovered that in Hollywood we could rent anything, including a gypsy wagon and a goat. We shot the album cover in Elysian Park in Los Angeles. The guys in the band had fun doing it because it was different from how they usually dressed on stage. With their beards and long hair, they looked like they already belonged to a different century. Nothing that we rented looked good on Ann, so she just wore her own clothes. We wanted it to be completely authentic, but there is one place where you can see a zipper on Ann's boot. And though the cover looked "back to nature," Elysian Park surrounds Dodger Stadium, so our gypsy camp was right next door to the ballpark." Having already extensively toured for years, '78 found them playing big festivals and shows with big name male-dominated bands. Cal Jam 2 on March 18, 1978 was attended by ~250k-300k people, and other bands such as Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Santana, etc. were there. On July 4th weekend in 1978 they played at Texxas Jam at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, again with some of the same bands and the popular newcomers Van Halen. Another feature of Heart's live shows were their covers of Led Zeppelin songs, probably more of a variety of Led Zeppelin songs than any other popular rock band. Ann says Robert Plant was an influence on her singing, and I'd say she was a great female counterpart to Plant. Gypsies Indeed: Ann and Nancy lived in Seattle but because their father was in the military they moved all over the world to more than 20 homes before finally coming back to Seattle. Perhaps all this picking up and moving, changing schools, and finding new friends helped them adapt to their constant touring and changes in scenery. As teens they saw the Beatles in Seattle and wanted to be like them. They honed their instrument skills and played at any place they could, whether a church function or local festival. Their parents were very supportive too. Their story to success is like many other bands of the 70s who began playing at clubs, school gyms, fairs--wherever they could get paid, if they did get paid. They traveled across Canada building a following and got a great break opening for Rod Stewart up there. Since they formed in 1972 (when Ann joined and it was called Hocus Pocus) and then officially became Heart in 1973, they have gone through several personnel changes. Founder and lead guitarist Mike Fisher began focusing on the management side of the band in 1974. Nancy joined them in 1974. The 1977 the line-up here is Roger Fisher (lead guitar), Steve Fossen (bass, percussion), Howard Leese (guitar, bass, keyboards, etc.), Michael Derosier (drums), and Ann and Nancy. Heart was a band, and though Ann and Nancy wrote a majority of the songs as far as lyrics and melody, the charging intro to Barracuda, for example, was a creation of Roger Fisher and Mike Derosier. Heart's success was built by all their members. Ann and Nancy are both multi-instrumentalists which includes the flute, harmonica, various string and percussion instruments, and piano. After a career lull in the early 1980s, Heart recovered with another string of Top 40 hits and Grammy nominations. In 2013 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Check out their qutobiography Kicking Dreaming: http://tinyurl.com/pw5b9g6 See Heart's site for more info: http://www.heart-music.com/about.html