Linda Ronstadt - Classic or Dud?

Also we thank her/hate her for hiring Don Henley as her drummer...

Linda Ronstadt's version of "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me" is an exquisite gem of a song. I still haven't heard the original Karla Bonoff version, but I love the tune and the way Linda sings it.
My favourite Ronstadt song.

When I was about 8 years old, my friend's parents next door used to play this album, and I still say this is the one to have:

http://chartts.tripod.com/HISTORY/1977.JPG

Other favourites include her version of Tumbling Dice and that Warren Zevon cover...what was it? Ah yes, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me". My favourite thing to play at the end of an academic quarter. I like Linda. She can sing.

But she also made some clunky mistakes. I chanced to hear "It's So Easy" the other day; I never did like that song.

"Long, Long Time" is still devestating to me everytime I hear it -- especially when she betls out that last "'Casue I've done everythin I know/to try and make you mine"

Hm. Maybe. I'm a guy who digs upbeat Loretta and Dolly and New Wave Rosanne Cash, so, it's a coin flip.

"you're no good" >>>>> everything rosanne has ever done, with the single possible exception of "seven year ache."

California Mafia Faux PunkWave= Adorable

Understanding it's about rock and roll revival and not synths and safety pins = admirable

Ultrathick prog moog in a new wave context classic

I don't think I'd call her a rock singer, even if she sang rock at times. Way too AM radio, no apparent attitude other than challenging her own vocal cords. Much more a pop artist, moving through genres and styles.

http://www.vanguardrecords.com/listen.asp?idArtist=30

i love the harmonies. so beautiful to me. but it might not be for everyone. i've always loved her voice. it's a really pretty album.

Revive!

Re-discovery for me. My dad used to listen to her back in the early 70s so I have heard all the songs. But I didn't remember how great her voice is. Classic.

YouTube has some killer material up:

Long long time

You're no good

Love has no pride

Couldn't resist another. Damn, that voice is good.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore

I always thought of Mad Love as a response to the first two Pat Benetar albums, although its cover art was quaintly New Wave. If nothing else, it made Elvis Costello some cash at the beginning of his career.

Apparently she and Linda Thompson were drinking buddies on the Shoot Out The Lights tour as well.

I did get Simple Dreams at the beginning of the year and was surprised by much it rocked, in a stiff-jointed way.

Linda Ronstadt was generous in covering rock standards and budding songwriters. But then you hear the original "Blue Bayou," the original "When Will I Be Loved" and "Tumbling Dice," the Dave Edmunds cover of "Girls Talk," and especially the original "You're No Good," and you realize you've been cheated. It's like thinking you hate "Up On The Roof" and "What A Wonderful World" because you're sick of James Taylor's mellow brand of folk-rock, until you finally hear Sam Cooke doing them right. Like it or not, this is the way we '70s kids first heard these songs.

At the end of the early 90's movie version of The Secret Garden they play her "Winter Light" and it's awesome.

i'm listening to After The Gold Rush, and liking it

"hand full of thorns and you know you've missed it/lose your love when you say the word 'mine'"

COME ON SHE IS CLASSICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't care who wrote the song, okay?

IT'S SO EASY TO FALL IN LOVE

TUMBLING DICE

the love for mad love upthread is otm. i tracked it down and downloaded it a while ago because i remember my dad had it and it was one of my favorite records when i was about 10. she did faux-new-wave really well. (and ditto faux-country-rock, hand sown ... home grown is great.)

i also like this stone ponys clip.

"Hurt So Bad" is so classic - reminds me of some old Dusty Springfield gem. Nice screaming guitar solo too.

never heard her version of this until today. nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Sr2KK1oqs

I tell you, Evergreen Vol 2 by the Stone Poneys is utterly brilliant. So for that alone, I'd give her classic status.

t A Wonderful World" because you're sick of James Taylor's mellow brand of folk-rock, until you finally hear Sam Cooke doing them right. Like it or not, this is the way we '70s kids first heard these songs.

Really interested in someone expanding on this – her position as gateway drug.

He’s experiencing some kind of ILX Renaissance of late.

Pretty sure he got some love in this memorable thread

The Ubiquitous HIred Gun Session Veteran Shout-Out Thread

Wow, had no idea she ever put out a version of "Lies." Pretty good--wish she'd tried "A Public Execution" too.

Yeah, or "You're Gonna Miss Me".

If folks haven't seen that recent Linda Ronstadt doc, they can click this link to watch it between June 4 and June 10

https://www.brightfocus.org/movie/

Thanks!

Philip K Dick had some weird infatuation with Linda Ronstadt, and wrote characters based on her into a couple of his nuttier-than-usual later novels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Invasion#Writing

Both novels not only reference Linda Ronstadt,[5] but include fictional characters named Linda; in the case of VALIS, there is a character named Linda Lampton,[6] and in the case of The Divine Invasion, there is a character named Linda Fox.[7] In both novels, a character has a dream that conveys the notion that slippers need to be put on in order for said character to approach the dawn.

I tell you, y'all are sleeping on the Pirates of Penzance soundtrack (Linda Rondstadt, Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, Rex Smith).

She is a gem and a treasure

Planning to watch that doc soon.

Please forgive the facile comparison but I feel like I bought into the common dismissal of another pretty voice and pretty face singing songs they don’t really understand the same way I bought into it when it was said about the other Elvis, the one from Tupelo, which I long ago got over, and I guess I got over in this case too, only haven’t taken a deep dive into the discography yet.

She date Jerry Brown while he was governor. Still a wild thing to consider.

Yeah, think about that every once in a while.

That and the Eagles breaking up for the first time at an Alan Cranston fundraiser is the cool hilarious underbelly of late 70s/early 80s politics.

Willie Nelson says he smoked a joint on top of the White House after Carter was elected.

My dad claims he ran into Neil Young at a Democratic campaign HQ in Ohio in the 70s

Just watched the doc, still processing, goes pretty deep. All I have now is a a nerdy question: is that Renee Fleming dancing in the audience during the tribute concert at the very end?

Rock and Roll HoF induction ceremony and not the Kennedy Center so maybe not.

I'll have to check out the documentary. I'm not exactly a huge fan of her work, but from the interviews I've read, she always struck me as thoughtful and very modest (not to mention self-critical). It's kind of frustrating that her work isn't better, something she has said herself.

"Heart Like a Wheel" is an excellent LP, and I like a few other singles - the ones that come to mind generally pre-date "Heart Like a Wheel" - but whenever I've ventured beyond that, it's been disappointing.

Documentary is really well done.

If this is her show w Byron Berline and Country Gazette I heard (could have sworn it was a live broadcast from a studio), it's amazing---she mentions how much better this is than her tour (the early one w Neil Young, I think), where the audiences were more interested in tossing beach balls around. Digs deep into the olde roots and lets fire----scroll down for link to original post of whole show (variously labelled '72, '74, maybe others, on YouTube posts, as you can tell by their having the same setlists). Also see links to songs from a '75 set w Byron & CG, which poster says has better sound than the first show---haven't listened to much of it yet, but most of the links still work: https://ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/1431/ronstadts-bluegrass-country

On the Midnight Special, with a very special band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SOosWH6_M

And then again, later that Rockin’ Eve, after midnight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c41embg2Bfg

https://www.billboard.com/pro/linda-ronstadt-last-of-us-sync-wont-make-money-very-glad/

Oh, I fuckin hope this does a Kate Bush for her. I have so many Ronstadt albums I can’t even sell for a buck.

Outside of Heart Like a Wheel, there's only a few singles that I like, and that's definitely one of them.

When Capitol released that two-disc anthology of her complete recordings for them, they included a live recording from the Troubadour as a bonus - it's even better than the single IMHO. (More intimate, it isn't overpowered by an orchestral arrangement.)

https://open.spotify.com/track/6BNYxL2ss2yXfaq549uLD1?si=0cf4cf3a0f3844a7

She's only on four tracks of 2022's Putamayo Presents----Songs from The Sonoran Borderland---Feels Like Home: Linda Ronstadt's Musical Odyssey. which goes with her book of almost the same name, but they're the best on first listening, along with one I just linked on the main Los Lobos thread): "El Sueño," with blurry, unsettling, somewhat VU-ish acoustic guitar, has her waking up alert and foreboding---Springsteen's "Across The Border" (tune not as faux-Mexicali-solemn as I feared, though maybe she's keeping a lid on it) incl. Emmylou's maybe double-tracked, still thin intrusions on chorus, but LR always restores the vibe of verses---also good, if maybe a little too-drawn-out, on the thoughtful "I Never Will Marry" (Dolly v. effective on choruses)--then this one gets me right off, with the only piano (and it's a good piano) on the whole collection, and new instruments, male backup vocals keep appearing, vaya con Linda:

After a sweeping tour of the music of Mexico and the borderlands which inspired her, “Piel Canela” sees Linda and her band interpreting another Latin musical style that was ever-present in her childhood home: Cuban mambo.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1693140166_10.jpg

Some of the other artists' singing and songs seem blah and predictable so far, though picking is always good, and would like to hear more from her folkie relatives P.D. Ronstadt & The Co---oh yeah, also on "On The Border," notes say it's Neil Young playing that good harmonica, uncredited steel, bass, drums all effective too, one of the most robust tracks overall.

Classic voice, good material, usually rendered in a mediocre fashion.

Was listening to some Mike Nesmith yesterday for his birthday while remembering his passing three years ago, which now just led me to the Stone Poneys version of “Some of Shelly’s Blues” from their third third album, all of which seems good.

Only one third