03/17/2026
Happy 72nd birthday to American musician Nancy Lamoureux Wilson (born March 16, 1954). She rose to fame alongside her older sister Ann Wilson as guitarist and second vocalist in the rock band Heart.
Raised in Bellevue, Washington, Wilson began playing music as a teenager. During college, she joined her sister who had recently become the singer of Heart. Considered the first hard rock band fronted by women to achieve widespread commercial success, Heart released numerous albums throughout the late 1970s and 1980s; the albums Dreamboat Annie (1975) and Little Queen (1977) generated chart singles such as "Magic Man", "Crazy on You", and "Barracuda". The band also had commercial success with their eighth, ninth, and tenth studio albums, Heart, Bad Animals, and Brigade, which were released in 1985, 1987, and 1990 respectively. Heart has sold over 35 million records.
Wilson has been lauded for her guitar playing, noted for blending elements of flamenco and classical guitar styles with hard rock. In 2016, Gibson ranked Wilson the eighth-greatest female guitarist of all time. She is also an accomplished singer in her own right, being the lead vocalist in the song "These Dreams", which became Heart's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2013, Wilson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Heart
Wilson dated bandmates Roger Fisher and Michael Derosier during the early years of Heart. In 1981, Wilson's friend Kelly Curtis introduced her to screenwriter Cameron Crowe;[87] Wilson married him on July 27, 1986. After numerous failed fertility treatments, Wilson and Crowe conceived via an egg donor and surrogate, and the surrogate gave birth to twin sons in January 2000. The marriage ended in divorce in 2010, with the couple citing irreconcilable differences.
In 2011, Wilson began dating Geoff Bywater, who worked in music production on television shows for Fox. They were engaged in 2012 and married on April 28, 2012, in Mill Valley, California.
