'2026 should be a Heart year': Guitarist Nancy Wilson talks of sister's health, future of band coming to Allentown Fair

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — For Nancy Wilson, guitarist for Hall of Fame rock band Heart, its latest tour represents triumph on many levels.

First and foremost, Wilson, 71, said the tour shows that her sister, Heart singer Ann Wilson, 75, has fully recovered from a July 2024 cancer diagnosis.

"It’s pretty remarkable how Ann is doing," Nancy Wilson said in a phone call from a tour stop in Kansas City, Missouri, before a grandstand show on Allentown Fair's opening night Wednesday, Aug. 27.

"She kicked its ass. She kicked the ass of cancer, and we’re back out here. ... And it’s just been rolling along just swimmingly."

Wilson said the tour also shows there's an appreciation for real, live "human" rock 'n' roll — and that appreciation now spans multiple generations.

"We’re one of the last authentic rock bands out there that’s 100 percent live performances — all human music," Nancy Wilson said.

"Human music made for humans — there’s no pre-record; there’s a couple of guitar pedal effects, but that’s it.

“I think people really know the difference, especially these days, when it’s the real deal that you’re seeing. ... People are really appreciative of the fact that we’re completely a human, 100-percent-skin-in-the-game live rock show.

"And we’re among the last to roam the earth," she said with a laugh."

And these days, those audiences span generations, Wilson said.

"Every age is coming out — the whole family is showing up," she said. "The original fans, our die-hard fans, and new college-age people that probably hooked up to us in the ‘80s.

"And grandchildren-age, like 9- and 10-year-old kids that are playing air guitar when we play [the song] ‘Barracuda.’

"Which makes it even more sweet. It’s just a sweet lineage scene that we’re seeing about it now. And how the songs really translate over the age groups.

“It’s really cool. You know, we’re doing songs like ‘Magic Man’ and “Dog and Butterfly’ and, obviously, ‘Barracuda,’ ‘Crazy On You.'

"You see all these people in the new age groups that are connecting to the same songs that we started out with. I think that’s one of the more beautiful aspects of how this tour is going now.

"People are singing along and it’s really cool — ‘Wow! They know the words we wrote 50 years ago.’”

But just as significant a triumph for the band is that the new tour shows Heart, after 50 years together and a tenuous hiatus that saw each Wilson sister tour on her own, has a future, Nancy Wilson said.

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'She is so on her game'

Heart's show at Allentown Fair originally was scheduled last year — part of a reunion tour after Ann and Nancy Wilson took a break in a well-publicized 2016 dispute in which Ann's husband was charged with physically assaulting Nancy's teen-age sons.

But the reunion tour was canceled after Ann Wilson was diagnosed and began treatment.

"It’s just more special to get back out here knowing that we can — ‘cause we weren’t sure we could for a little while there," Nancy Wilson said in the call.

"And we were all nervous that she wasn’t going to be OK, mainly, but that we’d even be able to do this. But she’s back with flying colors, and we are kicking some ass.”

Asked about any lingering effects of the cancer, Nancy Wilson said her sister these days sings while "sitting on a pillow ... instead of standing and delivering it."

"But she’s one of the world's premiere rock singers, and so it’s just really great to see her with her talent that is just so formidable — she just brings it every night.

“She is so on her game. And people around here are pretty amazed. I mean, she was born to sing."

Nancy Wilson said fans seem to appreciate it, too.

"People are so glad to see it," she said. "They’re just rooting for her.

"Just everyone everywhere now has someone in their family, probably most likely had to deal with a situation like the cancer that our family had to deal with, and our band family, too.

“It’s really great to see when it goes perfectly right.”

Film in the works. And new album?

The recent success comes as Heart prepares to observe next month the 50th anniversary of its 1975 debut album, "Dreamboat Annie."

The disc, which produced hit singles "Magic Man," "Crazy on You" and the title track, sold double-platinum and put Heart on a career track that has seen it sell 25 million albums and have 18 Top 30 hits.

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Fame in 2013 and given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2023.

"This whole year has already been sort of a celebration of the 50th year of ‘Dreamboat Annie’s’ release," Nancy Wilson said.

"And we’ve done a lot of retrospectives as far as documentary-type stuff and just collecting archives and putting stuff together for a documentary."

But there's also a dramatic film in the works that will tell the story of Heart, Wilson said.

"We’re just about to get the casting part of it started, so it will be awhile until the script is all ready — the script is in progress," Wilson said.

"And I can’t wait to score music for it."

Nancy Wilson has experience scoring films — she wrote for the 2000 drama "Almost Famous," and 1996 comedy-drama "Jerry Maguire."

"But I love doing scores for movies. I saw ‘Vanilla Sky’ [which she also scored] last night, I was, like, ‘Oh, that was some pretty cool stuff.’"

Nancy Wilson also has released solo discs, but says she likely will again.

"Because everyone’s like, ‘Why did you never put out ... a solo acoustic guitar album?’ And I’m, like, ‘Oh, well, I’ve been asked to do that for a couple of decades now,'" she said with a laugh.

She said that on her current tour, she plays her instrumental song "For Edward," and tells the story behind it: She wrote it for Eddie Van Halen.

"Heart used to open for Van Halen in the ‘80s, and Eddie wrote me a little song, an acoustic song, so I wrote one back for him," she said.

So, she says, “I could do an acoustic album with not entirely instrumental, but be some singing, obviously."

Nancy Wilson also has sung on Heart hits — most notably 1986's "These Dreams," Heart's first No. 1 song.

“That in a way was a fluke because I’m not the lead singer, obviously. I’m a guitar player who loves to sing, you know?

"But it was really cool, ‘cause it was a song that nobody thought was, like, a Heart-type song except that I went nuts for it when I heard it, and I really fought to get that song recorded.

"But I’m not born to sing the way Ann is — the gift-from-above type singer."

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'2026 should be a Heart year'

That's why the new tour has persuaded her that Heart has a future, Nancy Wilson said.

“As a matter of fact, these shows have been so inspiring and this lineup of players are so damn good and they’re also songwriters — some of those guys are pretty good songwriters in their own right," she said.

"Ryan Waters, whom I’ve worked with outside of Heart, who came to Heart with me from the Roadcase Royale Band that we had together.

"And the Tripsetter band that Ann works with — she’s got a new album coming out soon with them. She released another album before with that band, who’s also in Heart right now.

“So we’re all kind of songwriters, players that have such a groove going on that I’m putting it out there: I told Ann, I think we should write together after this tour’s done and make a Heart album.

"And she said, ‘I know the guys want to do that.’ So it’s pretty inevitable, I think, that’s our next project after this tour.

“We’ve got a tour to finish, probably into next year." And she said there's been discussion of touring Europe with Stevie Nicks.

“The film, the documentary, there’s a book — there’s a lot of stuff.

"I think 2026 should be a Heart year."

HEART, 7 p.m. Aug. 27, Allentown Fair grandstand, 302 N. 17th St., Allentown. Tickets: $119.75-$140.20, www.allentownfair.com.