Hear Nancy Wilson Team Up With Duff McKagan, Taylor Hawkins on New Album
Ahead of her solo debut You and Me, Nancy Wilson released her cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” a tribute to Eddie Van Halen, and the title track about her late mother. It doesn’t arrive until Friday, but you can hear the whole album exclusively in the video above.
At the 16-minute mark — following her cover of Pearl Jam’s “Daughter” — Wilson teams up with Duff McKagan and Taylor Hawkins for “Party at the Angel Ballroom.” The Foo Fighters drummer backs her on vocals along a fiery riff, having a blast because “It’s a party in heaven so we can party like hell.”
“I had previously come to Taylor Hawkins’ home studio to sing vocals on his great solo album Get the Money,” Wilson tells Rolling Stone. “When I later asked him if he had any jams in his back pocket, he sent me the jam he’d recorded with Duff. Such a great energy. So I rearranged it and finished it. Then Taylor added his great background vocals.”
The track sequencing gets even better from there, with Wilson covering Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” with Sammy Hagar. “I sang [it] through the last big Heart tour and the response was so big,” she says of the tender rendition. “So when I asked my buddy Sammy to lend his voice to the album, he wisely picked ‘The Boxer.’ Having been a boxer himself, it’s no surprise how he embodies the energy of the character of the song.”
Other highlights from the album include a cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” with Liv Warfield and the Paul Simon-inspired “We Meet Again.” The slow-burning “Dragon,” located at the 35-minute mark, was written for Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley in the Nineties.
You and Me, which Wilson originally titled The Lab, was made spontaneously in lockdown. “It feels wonderful and honestly a bit freeing to finally have had the chance (and the time off the road) to woodshed and reunite with singing, writing, and playing in a whole new context,” she says.
You and Me Tracklist
1. You and Me
2. The Rising
3. I’ll Find You
4. Daughter
5. Party at the Angel Ballroom (feat. Duff McKagan & Taylor Hawkins)
6. The Boxer (feat. Sammy Hagar)
7. Walk Away
8. The Inbetween
9. Dreams (feat. Liv Warfield)
10. The Dragon
11. We Meet Again
12. 4 Edward