Ann Wilson – Straight On (Live)

As disco took over the charts in 1978, the Wilson sisters answered with a song that borrowed its hip-swinging groove but never surrendered its rock muscle — and decades later its singer can still summon every ounce of it on a stage.

By 1978, disco was rewriting the rules of the American chart, and plenty of rock bands either resisted it or caved to it. Heart did something smarter. Straight On, the first single from their album Dog & Butterfly, took the sleek, hip-swinging pulse of the moment and welded it to the band’s hard-rock backbone — a groove you could dance to, fronted by one of the most powerful voices in rock. More than four decades later, Ann Wilson still performs it, and the version captured on her solo tour proves the song lost none of its strut.

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Straight On was written by Ann Wilson, her sister Nancy Wilson, and their frequent collaborator Sue Ennis — the songwriting core behind much of Heart’s late-’70s run. Released as a single in September 1978, it became the band’s third single to crack the Top 20, climbing to No.15 on the Billboard Hot 100. Built on a loping, funky bassline and a coiled rhythm guitar figure, it was a deliberate stretch for a band best known for the thunder of “Barracuda” and the acoustic-to-electric drama of “Crazy on You.” Nancy Wilson has spoken with pride about the songs from Dog & Butterfly, feeling the band contributed something genuinely fresh — and Straight On, with its confident swing, is a prime example.

A groove that didn’t sell out

The trick of the song is balance. Where many rock acts treated disco as either an enemy or a costume, the Wilsons absorbed its rhythmic confidence without abandoning who they were. Ann’s vocal is the anchor — direct, commanding, equal parts come-on and challenge — and the band keeps the low end funky while the guitars stay sharp. The result was a hit that worked on rock radio and on the dance floor at once, helping push Dog & Butterfly to platinum and cementing Heart as arena headliners. It remains one of the more underrated songs in their catalog precisely because it does something difficult so casually.

The voice, still straight on

The performance featured here comes from a very different chapter. In the summer of 2021, Ann Wilson took to the road on a solo tour backed by her band The Amazing Dawgs — Tom Bukovac on lead guitar, Tony Lucido on bass, Paul Moak on guitar and keys, and Sean Lane on drums — playing intimate theaters and casino ballrooms rather than arenas. On August 18, 2021, the tour reached the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire, a storied seaside room whose close quarters reward exactly the kind of dynamic command Wilson has always had. Her performance of Straight On that night is a reminder that the voice which cut the 1978 original is still very much intact — still able to ride that groove and lift it. Ann Wilson was born on June 19, 1950, and turns 76 in June 2026; Straight On, written nearly half a century ago, still sounds like a dare she’s happy to keep making.