Heart got the Led out with a performance of Led Zeppelin classic “Going To California” on The Howard Stern Show last week. Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson‘s appearance on SiriusXM follows Heart’s recent addition of 30 new dates to its Royal Flush Tour, the band’s first tour in five years.
Ahead of the Led Zeppelin IV favorite, Ann and Nancy offered up a few of their Led Zeppelin bona fides. As Stern pointed out, the sisters used to have a Zeppelin cover band, and even after finding success with their original music the sisters kept some Zep in their live repertoire including covers of “Black Dog”, “Battle of Evermore”, “Rock and Roll”, and more. In 2012, however, the Wilsons got called up to the big time to perform at the Kennedy Center Honors for Led Zeppelin and were tasked with covering one of the most iconic rock songs of all time in front of its authors.
Of course, now we know that they were certainly up to the challenge of playing “Stairway to Heaven”, with the performance becoming a YouTube video as ubiquitously praised as Prince‘s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” solo. But at the time, things weren’t as certain. As Nancy Wilson recalled, the frigid December air in Washington, D.C. froze up her fingers ahead of their very limited rehearsal, prompting the show’s producers to ask if she wanted somebody to “shadow” her as she played—essentially the guitar equivalent of lip-syncing one of rock’s most famous intros. Obviously, she declined, with Stern pointing out, “Jimmy Page would’ve known in a second.”
The Wilson sisters ended up pulling off a historic performance of the song accompanied by John Bonham‘s son Jason Bonham on drums, a choir, and orchestra, and visibly moved singer Robert Plant nearly to tears. Following the performance at the post-show dinner, the Wilsons got their kudos from Page and Plant.
“So at that dinner, Plant actually let us know that he usually hated peoples’ covers of ‘Stairway’, but he liked that one. He said ‘You guys pulled it off,’” Ann recalled, with Nancy jumping in, “And then Jimmy Page goes ‘Wow, you kind of nailed the guitar part,’ and I was ‘Oh my god! Oh my god! I just heard that from him, I could die.’”
For the band’s in-studio performance, Heart stuck to the softer side of the Zeppelin songbook with the acoustic “Going to California”. As Ann explained, the song opens up unique avenues for her as the singer and allows her to tell a story, more than the band’s more hard-hitting compositions.
“A song like ‘Going to California’ can’t be underrated just because it’s acoustic. It takes so much skill and discipline to play these acoustic guitars and the mandolin,” Ann said, later adding, “It’s challenging because it’s so spacious, and there’s so much room to tell a story with it. It’s a storyteller song.”
Watch Heart cover “Going To California” and discuss honoring Led Zeppelin on The Howard Stern Show along with the “Stairway” cover from 2012. The band’s Royal Flush Tour will kick off on April 20th in Greensville, SC and features special guests Cheap Trick, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening. For tickets and a full list of tour dates visit Heart’s website.
Heart Reveals How Its Famous “Stairway to Heaven” Performance Happened
Heart – “Going To California” (Led Zeppelin)
Heart – “Stairway To Heaven” (Led Zeppelin) — 2012
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