The Wilson sisters grew up in Southern California and Taiwan before their Marine Corps father retired to the Seattle suburbs. After attending college they returned to Seattle, with Nancy working as a folksinger and Ann joining a hitherto-all-male local group in 1970. (This group was formed in 1963 by Steve Fossen and Roger and Mike Fisher as the Army. They later changed their name to White Heart, and shortened to Heart in 1974.) Upon joining, Ann became Mike Fisher's girlfriend, and when Nancy joined in 1974, she became involved with Fisher's brother, lead guitarist Roger.

The band moved to Canada.^[2] After many one-nighters around their new home of Vancouver, they attracted the attention of Mushroom Records in 1975, a Vancouver-based label run by Shelly Siegel. He had them cut Dreamboat Annie, which upon release in Canada sold 30,000 copies, no doubt benefitting from Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Canadian content regulations. In the US Siegel released the album first in Seattle, where it quickly sold another 25,000. With two hit singles - "Crazy on You" (#35, 1976) and "Magic Man" (#9, 1976), - Dreamboat Annie eventually sold over a million copies.

By early 1977, Heart had broken its contract with Mushroom Records and signed with CBS' subsidiary Portrait, a move that resulted in a prolonged legal battle with Siegel. In retaliation, he released the partly completed Magazine at the same time that Portrait released Little Queen. A Seattle court ruled that Mushroom had to recall Magazine so that the group could re-mix several tracks and re-do vocals before re-releasing the disc. (They had wanted the album taken off the market completely.)