With the decline in Heart's popularity in the 1990s, its guitarist/singer/songwriter Nancy Wilson made a first, tentative stab at a solo career by scoring the 1996 film Jerry Maguire and appearing on the soundtrack album. While working on the score, she began turning up at the hootenannies at the folk club McCabes Guitar Shop in Los Angeles, and the result is this album, which represents a second toe in the water for her. Playing acoustic guitar and mandolin, and accompanied only by a couple of friends on background vocals, Wilson covers
Paul Simon ("Kathy's Song"),
Joni Mitchell ("A Case of You"), and Peter Gabriel ("In Your Eyes"), strips down some Heart hits ("Even It Up," "Angels," "These Dreams"), and, most interestingly, performs some new originals. Wilson sounds more confident on the covers, and the guitar is sometimes mixed higher than the vocals, but several of her compositions sound promising. Maybe the next step is a real solo album. ~ William Ruhlmann