Great Moments on Video №10: Heart - White Lightning And Wine

(Washington State University, filmed by KWSU-TV; sometime in early 1976)

Heart – White Lightning And Wine

(Washington State University, filmed by KWSU-TV; sometime in early 1976)

Despite the fact that outstanding performers can offer their fans decades and decades of solid live performances without sacrificing professionalism or energy, I would insist that the «window of perfect opportunity» is really quite tiny by logical definition, particularly for commercial superstars. To offer us their very best, they first have to find their groove — write some original material, develop and tighten up their stage act, build up the confidence — but what is just as important, if not more so, is that they have to NOT act like superstars. Stardom is a bitch; it often brings out the worst in people, and even if it doesn’t, it is still not only a burden, but also a sinful temptation. When you go out on stage knowing that you’ve already made it, that the thousands of accumulated fans will be adoring you no matter what you do, that you have absolutely nothing left to prove — exactly how much of a stimulus is that to keep yourself in control, to try and improve, to make sure that discipline remains a priority over grandstanding? Check out the Rolling Stones live in 1969 against the Rolling Stones live in 1975, or Led Zeppelin live in 1970 against Led Zeppelin live in 1973, or even Elton John live in 1970 against Elton John live in 1975 — all of these are good examples of contrast between the young, fresh, inspired, and dedicated versus the... well, no, not exactly «old, fat, lazy, and tired», but rather «self-contended, narcissistic, and sloppy», which can still be enjoyable on its own terms, but it would be useless to deny that there’s been some serious change in the interim, and it’s usually not the kind of change that benefits the music.

Unfortunately, we’re in a real dump here because 99% of the time, we have precious little evidence from the true peak periods of such artists — and even when we do, it usually comes in the form of (often poorly recorded) audio tapes rather than video footage. I would gladly trade in 80% of my rather vast collection of late-period Stones DVDs, for instance, for a single well-made video recording of a single concert from the 1969 tour (as opposed to the precious, but scattered footage captured on Gimme Shelter) — but that’s just wishful thinking. Young and aspiring artists simply did not get captured on film in those days, and this is why almost every minute of such footage, whenever you can find it, really really counts. Because it’s not just history — it’s genuine inspiration, a brief glimpse into the souls of people who actually have to struggle and perspire to make themselves count and do something, rather than hedonistically bask in the glory of their already accomplished achievements. (Okay, that last one may be a bit over the top as a generalization, but not when I remind myself of Jagger’s abysmal off-key barking on the 1975-1976 world tours).

This is precisely the framework that springs to mind whenever I fall upon bits of truly unique footage from the first year of Heart as a properly functional, touring and recording band, salvaged from a show they gave us sometime in early 1976 (various sources conflict as to the date, but the Washington State University timeline website indicates it as having been February 1). At the time, Dreamboat Annie, Heart’s first and possibly best (though it would have some strong competition from the next two) album had already been released in Canada, but not yet in the States; US citizens had yet to wait for being properly exposed to the delights of ‘Magic Man’ and ‘Crazy On You’. It was precisely that very moment — the band had only just firmly settled on its mixture of pop, folk, and hard rock; understood what could make them stand out from the rest of the competition (the joint talents of the Wilson sisters); and knew that they had to go all the way, bringing 100% commitment, energy, discipline, and theatricality to the table if they ever wanted for a pack of girl-led Canadians to break it big in the States. And it was FILMED!

The entire show, which is essentially most of Dreamboat Annie along with a couple extra outtakes that would later land on the Magazine album (‘Heartless’, ‘Devil Delight’), was recorded on the campus of WSU by the local KWSU-TV and then, after presumably being broadcast, remained in the archives until it was found, extracted, cleaned up, and included on the retrospective Heart boxset called Strange Euphoria, released in 2012. All of it, from top to bottom, is first-rate Heart and heart-ily (sorry) recommended, but, in order to be a little more original... nah, not really, rather in order to concentrate a little more on Heart’s bad-assery which I’ve always found more thrilling than their romanticism, I decided to choose, as an example, this relatively less-remembered hard rocker from Dreamboat Annie, a perfect battering-ram symbol of what it was, exactly, that turned them, for a while, into the single best woman-led rock band in the entire Western hemisphere.

The thing is, when we don’t know too much about Heart other than the hits and the average press coverage off the pages of Rolling Stone and the like, we might form an impression of them as two slightly ridiculous chicks who wanted to be the female Led Zeppelin, wore medieval gowns and sang about brave knights in dark forests to lumpy heavy rock riffage — then, when the time came, frizzed up their hair, put on a lot of makeup and started singing embarrassing power ballads. And hey, all of that is true! (Well, roughly true). BUT — and it’s an important but — that is also only a part of the story, and if that were all there was to it, I wouldn’t even bother hunting for this material. The other part of it was that the Wilson sisters had real integrity, and even while wearing their influences on their sleeves, would always add a bit of their own personalities into the material — personalities that were quite firmly balanced between fantasy and reality, romantic imagination and bitter-cynical reflection of true-life experience. At least, as long as they relied on stuff they wrote themselves, rather than have Diane Warren shit it out for them.

Anyway, ‘White Lightning And Wine’ is one of my favorite Heart songs, and this performance is the very best live version of it ever released, no two opinions about it. Forget brave knights and dark forests and little queens; this is a tune about getting completely and utterly wasted, fucking some pitifully sympathetic stranger to complete the evening, then sending him on his merry way once he’s outlasted his usefulness. It’s a song every bit as «empowering» as anything done by, say, The Runaways at the same time, except that Heart never tried to consciously market themselves as a «socially active» group — even here, Ann just introduces the tune as "a song that was written to be listened to under the influence of alcoholic beverages, during consumption!" More likely, after consumption — it is really more of an anthem to hangover than an actual drinking song, if you ask me.

If you are familiar with the studio original, you’ll clearly see how the live version differs from it in all the right ways a rough-and-raw live version can differ from a more polished and polite studio original. The tempo is slightly faster, and it’s fun to watch Nancy spending a few seconds finding her groove (starting at about 0:35) and then getting into it with restrained, but clearly visible physical verve. Lead guitarist Roger Fisher, in his «I was Luke Skywalker before Luke Skywalker was cool, except I fucked up the colors!» outfit, looks more dashing, confident, and important than he’d ever be on any other Heart video I saw him in before being booted out of the band in 1979. (I’ll try to omit the obligatory jab everybody always makes at bassist Steve Fossen’s «free-the-nipple» top, though... oops, have I failed already?).

But right from the moment she first opens her mouth (some might even go as far as to say from the moment she starts strutting on stage and clapping her hands at around 0:25), this particular show, hands and feet and everything, belongs to Ann Wilson. I don’t know how many times I’ve rewatched her delivery of the song’s two verses on here — every turn of phrasing, each facial expression, every element of her body language has something thrilling or fascinating about it. Hear the sexy breathiness of the "I’ll chew you aaahhhp and I’ll spit you ohhw-t!" bit. Enjoy the seduction and the despisal in the "take me — or leave me alone!" phrase. Witness the actual nastiness in the articulation of "turn around, you are a nasty joke". Watch out for the little wife-wolf howl before "we all laugh, oh what a gas!". Don’t miss the little dismissive hand gesture at 2:25 that accompanies the final burn of "in the morning light, you didn’t look so nice, guess you’d better hitch-hike home" bit.

And, of course, there are the almost literally climactic bits that make the end of each verse so much more head-spinning than the actual chorus. Neither the studio version nor any other live performance of the song I’ve heard ever had Ann tearing up her larynx to bit as much as she does on the blushingly triumphant "NEVER WILL FORGET I CAME!" (Clearly, she would soon realize that using her vocal chords up like that every evening would wear them out much faster than white lightning, so on subsequent tours she would sing it lower and without the rasp). It turns the song into a ferocious battle cry well on the level of, say, Roger Daltrey on ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, and on some level, really makes Robert Plant feel like a little scaredy-pants boy in comparison. Damn.

One might argue that the instrumental section before the final reprise of the chorus is just a tad overlong — after all, Roger Fisher is no Clapton or Hendrix when it comes to long guitar solos, and hearing the Wilson sisters shout WHITE LIGHTNING! WHITE LIGHTNING! for nearly two minutes without stopping can get a little tedious (which explains why they would subsequently cut this part short on the 1977-78 tours). But I am still impressed how they can keep up the intensity for all of those two minutes and still leave Ann unscathed to emerge with one last perfect chorus at the end (where she even briefly dips into a perfect Janis Joplin-ism for a moment — quite appropriate, I’d say, and I’m sure Janis herself would love to have covered the song had she lived long enough, what with the subject being totally up her alley).

Now here’s the interesting detail: if you compare this outstanding performance with the way the song looked and sounded just one year later (here’s a version from the 1977 tour), there are already some cracks showing up — for instance, Ann’s phrasing is not as perfect, as she keeps getting off rhythm (probably intentionally, out of boredom), overscreaming and slipping into unnecessary baby-baby-baby Plantisms. However, it is still much better than the 1978 Largo version, by which time the Wilson sisters are already in full-on superstar mode, and the usual side effects (sloppiness, chaos, arrogance, etc.) are firmly in place. (For the sake of completion, they also resurrected the song decades later as part of the Dreamboat Annie Live project — but the 2007 live version, heavily truncated and rather perfunctory, is only for those who want to ascertain themselves of Ann Wilson still capable of playing a badass bitch at 57, which sort of goes without saying).

One might say that all of this simply represents the natural life cycle of a song — it’s much healthier for it to grow, change, experiment, and even die than just stay the same for ever — but sometimes a song is like a gymnast, hitting its peak early on and never hoping to regain the same kind of physical thrill after freshness has been replaced by professionalism. And this particular song is quite symbolic of how Heart, as a band, never really looked and sounded better than in that short time period before they got all caught up in the music business machine and ended up chewed up, spat out, and looking pretty pathetic "in the morning light", some of which was their own fault and some of which wasn’t. Thank God for this kind of documental evidence — just don’t forget to put a copy in each of the Wilson sisters’ graves when they go, because they sure as heck are going to need something to stop themselves from being dragged into the pits of Hell where they already put ‘These Dreams’ and ‘Alone’ on constant rotation in the ninth circle.