The 2000s
In 2002 when Nancy was open to touring again as Heart, it became a family affair with 4 kids and nannies added to the mix of musicians, technical staff and roadies. It was only an eight week tour but it ended a 10 year hiatus from tours. The "Summer of Love" tour ended in Seattle and that performance was released as the "Live in Seattle" DVD, which achieve Gold status without an associated new album in 10 years. Each of their children are listed in the end credits.
The sisters decided to record a new Heart studio album, Jupiter's Darling, the first since 1993. Nancy was co-producer along with guitarist Craig Bartock, who had joined the band. They wrote all the songs for the album except one. To punch up the guitar parts, Nancy got friends Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready to contribute.
The album made it to the Billboard Top 100 but sold only 100,000 copies. Nancy and Ann had total artistic control and found it rewarding that critics and fans saw it as one of their best albums. The album was released by Sovereign, who filed for bankruptcy still owing the band thousands of dollars, according to a past entry on the band's website.
Nancy and Ann were now starting to receive recognition for their body of work. As one of a very few bands from the 1970s or 1980s to still be together and performing, they were also in demand for tributes, benefits and retrospectives. These include VH1's "Behind The Music" and Decades Live, 2007's Country Music Awards where Ann (along with Nancy) performed "Crazy on You" with Gretchen Wilson, and a tribute to Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys . They would also appear in Moms Who Rock and 2010's We Are the World 25 for Haiti. "Crazy on You" would be used in Guitar Hero II and "Barracuda" in Guitar Hero III. VH1, who likes to make 'Top 100' lists, would rank Heart as #57 among hard rock artists, but omit them from their 2012 list of "100 Greatest Women In Music (a 1999 version ranked them as #40)".
Read more about this topic: Nancy Wilson (rock Musician)