Dreamboat Annie

Dreamboat Annie
Studio album by Heart
Released	February 14, 1976
Recorded	July - August 1975 at Can-Base Studios, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Genre	Hard rock, folk rock
Length	40:02
Label	Mushroom Capitol
Producer	Mike Flicker
Heart chronology
Dreamboat Annie (1976) Little Queen (1977)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Robert Christgau	C+
This table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information.

Dreamboat Annie is the debut album by American rock band Heart. It was released in the United States 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.

Background

Heart's first single How Deep it Goes b/w Here Song (M-7008) received little attention when released in Canada by the small Mushroom label in 1975. The second single Magic Man b/w How Deep it Goes was first picked up for radio play by CJFM – FM 96 in Montreal while the band was on tour playing small club dates.

The album

Dreamboat Annie was released following the success of the second single. Heart's first radio success earned them a spot opening a Montreal concert for Rod Stewart in October 1975. More Canadian airplay soon followed, due in part to the fact that Heart's recordings qualified for Canadian content broadcast requirements. The album sold an impressive 30,000 copies across Canada in its first few months.

Mushroom then formed a US 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 Western Recorders) 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.

Track listing

All songs written by Ann & Nancy Wilson except where noted.

Side one

1. "Magic Man" - 5:28
2. "Dreamboat Annie (Fantasy Child)" - 1:10
3. "Crazy on You" - 4:53
4. "Soul of the Sea" - 6:33
5. "Dreamboat Annie" - 2:02

Side two

1. "White Lightning and Wine" - 3:53
2. "(Love Me Like Music) I'll Be Your Song" - 3:20
3. "Sing Child" (A. Wilson, N. Wilson, Steve Fossen, Roger Fisher) - 4:55
4. "How Deep it Goes" (A. Wilson) - 3:49
5. "Dreamboat Annie (Reprise)" - 3:50

Singles

The following singles were released from the album, with the highest charting positions listed.

#	Title	Release Date	Hot 100
1.	"Crazy on You"	1976	35
2.	"Magic Man"	1976	9
3.	"Dreamboat Annie"	1976	42

Personnel

• Ann Wilson - lead and backing vocals, flute, acoustic guitar on track 9, violin
• Nancy Wilson - guitar, twelve string guitar, backing vocals, piano
• Roger Fisher - guitars
• Howard Leese - guitars, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals
• Michael DeRosier - drums on tracks 6 and 8
• Steve Fossen - bass guitar

Additional musicians

• Dave Wilson- drums on track 1
• Kat Hendrikse- drums on tracks 3, 4, 5, 7, and 10
• Duris Maxwell- drums on track 9
• Brian Newcombe- bass guitar on track 9
• Ray Ayotte- percussion
• Rob Deans- keyboards
• Geoff Foubert- banjo, backing vocals
• Mike Flicker- timpani
• Tessie Bensussen- backing vocals
• Jim Hill- backing vocals, guitars

Production

• Patrick Collins- mastering
• Rofl Henneman- engineering

Chart performance

Album

Chart (1976)	Peak position
Australian Albums Chart[citation needed]	9
Canadian Albums Chart	20
Dutch Albums Chart	7
UK Albums Chart	36
U.S. Billboard 200	7

Album certifications

• US certification: Platinum (1,000,000 as of Nov. 1976) - RIAA

Trivia

The album cover was designed by current Emily Carr Institute communication design instructor Deborah Shackleton.^{[citation needed]}