Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976) [1994, DCC GZS-1058] REUP

×

Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976) [1994, DCC GZS-1058] REUP

Close

Dreamboat Annie is the debut album by the American rock band Heart. It was released on February 14, 1976 through Mushroom Records. It contained three hit singles which became staples on FM radio. Producer Mike Flicker helped the group to polish their sound and obtain a recording contract with the label.

The album

The album was first released in Canada by the small Mushroom Records label. It was first picked up for radio play by a station in Montreal while the band was on tour playing small club dates. The group's first radio success earned them a spot opening a Montreal show for Rod Stewart. More Canadian airplay soon followed, due in part to the fact that the album helped stations to fulfill their Canadian content broadcast requirements. The album sold an impressive 30,000 copies across Canada in its first a few months. Mushroom then formed a U.S. division and released Dreamboat Annie on Valentine's Day 1976 in the Seattle area, where Heart's members had lived and played before relocating to Canada in the early 1970s. The album was played by Seattle stations KISW and KZOK and promptly sold another 25,000 copies in the local area. The group and their label then began working together to build success for the album city by city. According to Flicker, this was part of a plan to convince record distributors that Mushroom had a hit record, so that the album would get national distribution.

Subsequent events

However, the group's relationship with the label began to deteriorate. Mushroom paid for an advertising campaign celebrating the sales of Dreamboat Annie which read "It was only our first time" and showing a photo of Ann & Nancy Wilson leaning up against each other with only heads and bare shoulders visible, as on the cover of the album. The band had not been consulted and was furious with this. Hence, relations were already strained when the group and the label tried to re-negotiate their contract. With the success of Dreamboat Annie, the group expected the label to raise their royalty rate substantially. However, Mushroom refused to pay more money and said it did not want to release a second Heart album.

Placed in the position of presenting this unacceptable offer to the group, Flicker broke off negotiations with Mushroom. The group left the label, believing that their contract allowed them to do so as long as Flicker was no longer working with the label.

Mushroom decided that the contract allowed it to release a second Heart album anyway, so it created and released Magazine using material created prior to the band leaving the label. Meanwhile, Heart were in the process of releasing Little Queen with their new record company Portrait Records. Heart took Mushroom to court over Magazine, wanting the album taken off the market. The court ruled that Mushroom had to recall Magazine so that the group could remix several tracks and re-do vocals before re-releasing the disc. Hence, two versions of Magazine were released, one before the release of Little Queen, and a remixed version after the release of Little Queen. See Magazine for information about the differences between the two versions.

In 1980 Mushroom Records went out of business. Heart's two albums from the label were re-released by Capitol Records in 1985 after the band moved to that label.

Technical

The album was recorded on an Ampex MM1000 16-track tape recorder (which formerly belonged to United Artists) at the Can-Base Studios in Vancouver, BC, which were later renamed to the current Mushroom Studios. It was the first major hit album recorded there.

×

Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976) [1994, DCC GZS-1058] REUP

Close

×

Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976) [1994, DCC GZS-1058] REUP

Close