Heart began their mid-Seventies success with this single, Magic Man, about the time Ann Wilson met and fell in love with Mike Fisher.
I can’t say Heart’s music was ever in my life but I remember them well, with their unusual line-up for a rock band at the time, fronted by two big-haired sisters – and, briefly in the early days, including two brothers.
Adding spice to the story, Ann and Nancy Wilson were in relationships with Mike and Roger Fisher respectively, though Mike’s musical contribution ended soon after the band began performing as Heart, when he stepped aside to become their manager.
It was Mike who inspired the Seattle band’s first hit – the Magic Man who swept Ann off her feet and took her across the border to Vancouver, where he had settled after dodging the draft for Vietnam.
I don’t remember much of Heart’s music but this song passed through my life in 1975 with its powerful vocal, crunchy riffs and pleasingly Seventies squalls of squealy guitar.
Listening now, the rhythm section of Steve Fossen and Mike Derosier is equally strong, but it’s Ann’s vocal and the lead guitar of Roger Fisher that stand out.
By the time they recorded Magic Man for their debut album Dreamboat Annie, Mike had already stepped back from the band that Roger and friends first formed in Seattle in 1967, originally named The Army.
Ironically, it was when the US Army came calling for Mike to be conscripted for Vietnam that he inadvertently lit the flame of Heart, escaping from a window of his home and crossing the border into Canada.
A year or two later he sneaked back to see a gig by his brother’s band, now named Hocus Pocus, and fell in love at first sight with Ann Wilson.
She followed him back to Canada and was soon recruited as lead singer of the band, now renamed White Heart – later shortened to Heart – with Mike added to the line-up on guitar.
But he dropped out again when Ann’s sister Nancy joined the band on guitar and, as Nancy began a relationship with his brother Roger, Mike stepped back from performing to manage the band.