Not since Robbie Robertson's "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down" had anyone written and sung ( in the first person, no less ) about the American antebellum South so richly, so believably as Neil Young and Crazy Horse with "Powderfinger", originally…

I spent part of my Christmas holiday 1991 in an A-frame cabin with a woodburning stove in the still snow-covered woods among the hills and "hollers" of Central Indiana's Brown County . But we weren't there for skiing or even simply to chill out . Instead , I was there to record the private rehearsal for the upcoming John Mellencamp tour .

On Ann Wilson's birthday in 2007, here was a present from her : a highly personal solo album of carefully chosen covers, Hope and Glory,  at a time when US wars were raging in two separate countries with no end in sight. And the "A" guest list of performers with whom Ann duets  include no less than Elton John, k.d.lang, Alison Krauss, Wynonna Judd, even sister from Heart, Nancy Wilson.