With
Heart only intermittently active in the early 21st century,
Ann Wilson took the opportunity to release her first-ever solo album, something her sister
Nancy Wilson,
Heart's other half, took care of back in 1999. But where
Nancy's solo debut was a live, acoustic effort comprised of both original material and covers,
Ann has gone the nearly-all-covers route for the
Ben Mink-produced
Hope & Glory; only one song, the album-closing "Little Problems, Little Lies," comes from
Wilson's own pen. Specifically,
Ann turns her attention toward songs that ostensibly deal with social and political hot-button issues, loaded with messages of war, peace, hard times and, mostly, imminent doom. It's a bleak album to be sure, undoubtedly inspired by the downtrodden national mood of the times in which it was recorded (that would be the George W. Bush era -- perhaps it's no coincidence that the album's release date fell on the sixth anniversary of 9/11).
Ann's voice is strong and convincing on these tunes, largely drawn from the '60s and '70s with a few exceptions, and she's joined by big-name collaborators on most, making
Hope & Glory a duets album as well as
Ann's first solo.
Elton John aids
Ann on the anti-war "Where to Now, St. Peter?" which first appeared on
John's 1971
Tumbleweed Connection album and remains as poignant a lyric today as it was then. The futility and stupidity of armed conflict is also the subject of
Neil Young's "War of Man," for which
Alison Krauss teams up with
Ann.
Nancy Wilson is present on three tracks:
Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky" and two by the sadly underrated
Youngbloods, the hopeful Summer of Love anthem "Get Together" (which also features
Deana Carter and
Wynonna) and the considerably more ominous "Darkness Darkness," from that group's stellar Elephant Mountain album. While
Ann pulls off the former cover admirably, her take on the latter is a clear example of a song whose original rendition has never been topped --
Robert Plant attempted that one as well in 2002 and came up short. Speaking of
Plant,
Heart always owed a lot to
Led Zeppelin and
Ann must have relished the thought of giving
Zep's "Immigrant Song" a shot. This one, too, though tailor-made for her throaty hard rock wail, only succeeds in making the listener want to break out the prototype. Ditto
John Lennon's "Isolation" -- who could ever hope to capture the desperation behind
Lennon's own reading of that one?
Ann fares better on
Lucinda Williams' "Jackson,"
the Animals' "We Gotta Get out of This Place" (also with
Wynonna) and, with
Gretchen Wilson (no relation), turns out a rocking "Bad Moon Rising," the foreboding
Creedence Clearwater Revival rocker. Of the covers, that leaves the obligatory
Dylan, and
Ann goes with the apocalyptic "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," with
Rufus Wainwright and
Shawn Colvin.
Wainwright's plaintive warbling may seem to be out of sync with such a stark lyric, but he saves the day here, bringing an appropriate dread to the tune that neither
Ann nor
Colvin are able to muster.
Finally, the
Ann Wilson original wraps things up. An acoustic-based, country-ish ballad, it's consistent with the mood of the record, part depressed and part cautiously optimistic. It also sports one of her most heartfelt and less derivative vocals on the set. Hopefully the next time around she'll find enough to say on her own to release a solo album of her own material. ~ Jeff Tamarkin