Do You Remember Heart’s Stunning Rendition of “Stairway to Heaven?”

There are few vocalists that can rival Robert Plant. His soaring vocals helped to create a number of timeless – not to mention hard to sing along to – hits for Led Zeppelin. In the years since Zeppelin formed only a few vocalists have gotten close. One of the best renditions of a Zeppelin song comes from Heart’s Ann Wilson.

During Led Zeppelin’s Kennedy Center Honors performance on December 2, 2012, Heart and Jason Bonham (John Bonham’s son) came out to play the 1971 classic. Very quickly, Wilson’s vocals brought a tear to Plant’s eye.

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Nancy Wilson came out onto the stage toting an acoustic guitar, setting the tone for the song’s somber opening. Ann then delicately sang the first few verses: There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold / And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven.

Toward the middle of the performance, a chorus comes onto the stage, rounding out the rich bridge of the song with Ann: And as we wind on down the road / Our shadows taller than our soul / There walks a lady we all know / Who shines white light and wants to show.

Ann made hitting Plant’s high notes look easy, belting out the chorus from deep in her soul. “It’s just a magnificent performance to watch and it kills me every time,” according to Plant. “It kills me in two or three different ways. It’s just like, ‘Oh my God.’

“Some people are completely trapped in their achievements, and that must be real hell,” he continued. “But perhaps one of the things about ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was that the development of the song was exactly that. Somehow it was something very, very special, which I don’t really have a great connection to.”

He later added: “But that night at the Kennedy Center, it made me remember that I had some responsibility, for better or worse, for that song. It wasn’t really about who did a great job, although Ann’s a spectacular singer. The whole choreography of it was blindingly sort of a, ‘we’re not worthy’ moment.”

Revisit the performance below.

Photo: Courtesy of Ann Wilson / ABC PR