Heart ~ Straight On 1978 Classic Rock Purrfection Version

The first time I heard from Heart was from "Dremboat Annie", there were three versions of that song and I loved all three because of Ann Wilson's pipes...there has never been one like it before and never will again. What a power house!

However the MOR rock of that song was in good company with Magic Man and Crazy On You rocking out totally! Their next album had Barracuda, where they were called out for copying the guitar work of Led Zeppelin particularly Immigrant Song. I didn't hear it so I just disregarded it as misogyny but these two sisters have rock in their DNA.

Dog & Butterfly was a concept album one side dog and the other side was butterfly and was more mellow than side A. I remember hearing this one near the end of September 1978 right after I moved to Canada. The album and title track the single "Dog and Butterfly" was like Heart's shot back at Mushroom Records who released Magazine, an unfinished album not suitable for release until Heart said it was ready to go. A judge agreed that "Dog and Butterfly" was already in the can and had a release date.

"Straight On" had some disco elements to it, the 4/4 beat and that slinky bassline sure kept me on the dancefloor, one of the few times that a rock song really did a good job for the dance crowd. I thought that since I liked it, you might too just to change things up a little and to hear one of the greatest voices in rock and roll, up there with Stevie Nicks and Linda Ronstadt.

They had four consecutive platinum albums from 76-78 and then two gold albums in 1980. The slide continued when there next two releases barely made half a million copies and this is when producer Ron Nevison stepped in. The women were not really open to songs written outside of the duo and Nevison questioned "When was the last time you wrote a hit" that the band decided to go along with his suggestion.