Linda Ronstadt - Classic or Dud?

Good bit on the memoir:

By “all this” she meant not her health, but the book, which was completed before doctors confirmed that she has Parkinson’s. “I never wanted to write a book,” she said. “I never wanted anyone else to write a book. I thought, ‘Let it end when it ends.’ ” She also wasn’t sure she was up to the task. A voracious reader who can quote Henry James verbatim, Ms. Ronstadt has, if anything, too much respect for the written word. But at dinner one night, Mr. Pollan, the journalist and author, urged her to reconsider. She told him: “I don’t have any craft. I don’t have any skill. And he said everybody has at least one good story in them that they can pull out.”

There was another fact to weigh, her dwindling savings. Ms. Ronstadt released many albums but wrote very few songs, so her royalty checks are small. “Writers make all the money,” she said. Her most memorable hits — “You’re No Good,” “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Blue Bayou” — were written by others. “I was making good money when I was touring,” she said. But now “I just can’t do it.”

“I can’t make one note,” she said. “I have a hard time calling the cab at night.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/arts/music/linda-ronstadt-discusses-her-memoir-and-parkinsons.html?ref=arts

ugh

Later, she perched on her front stoop, awaiting the taxi she had summoned via an iPhone app for a quick tour of her neighborhood and her favorite spots on the Presidio, where she still walks, though her limit is now 30 minutes. She suddenly remembered that Ms. Harris was coming to town and had invited her to join her on at least one song. Ms. Ronstadt had to say no, because of the Parkinson’s.

“Every time Emmy comes to town, I wish I could get up on stage with her,” Ms. Ronstadt said. “I know I’d be allowed to, but I can’t do it.” Instead she will sit in the audience “and think the notes I’d be singing” in earlier times.

“I have no choice,” she added, withheld passion at last surging to the surface, just as it does in the songs she made her own. “If there was something I could work on, I’d work on it till I could get it back. If there was a drug I could take to get it back, I would take the drug. I’d take napalm. But I’m never going to sing again.”

So sad. I imagine she doesn't get much in the way of airplay royalties, as most of the formats that would still play her (Oldies, Easy Listening) have gone by the wayside, and she's one of those people that never really got accepted on Classic Rock radio even though I imagine she had alot of AOR success in the 70s. As we know, the places were her audience can find her now, like Pandora and Spotify etc. aren't really helping pay anyone's bills.

then again, as she herself notes in the interview above, she never got airplay royalties worth writing home about because she didn't write her own hits. she would get more from a play on pandora or spotify than from a thousand plays on every radio station in america. which is sad.

Just finished watching the two episodes of Tavis Smiley that she did this week. I just love her.

Riding with Linda through Arizona and Mexico (says most people have a family tree;"We have an anthill"). Reporter says she "softly" sings with the car radio;emails she him, mentions recently breaking into three-part harmony with brother and niece, while they were looking at early photos for use in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/travel/linda-ronstadts-borderland.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&rref=travel&hpw

"later she emails him"

Did anyone catch her interview at the Commonwealth Club last night? It was charming and notably weird to hear her interviewed by a woman who is her peer in age, but not someone who had musical experience. Her name was Barbara something, I forget. It was kinda cute to hear them giggle about how cute Jackson Browne was. I only heard about half of it -- did anyone hear the end?

brilliant singer who I've tried many times to get into and can't, always just sounds a little too perfect for me

i didn't know about her parkinson's :(

i know that singers can make much less in royalties than writers, but she sold so many millions of albums in the 1970s through the early 1990s that it's hard to believe she's running low on cash. i guess she didn't invest her earnings well?

Yeah I could definitely see her lack of songwriting credits hurting her, but still

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Ronstadt#Highest-paid_woman_in_rock

if you make $12 milliion in a single year, you /should/ be able to put enough away for quite a while. maybe she had bad financial advice.

this from the wiki page was pretty funny:

"Rampant eclecticism is my middle name."

—Linda Ronstadt

wouldn't that actually be two middle names? Linda R.E. Ronstadt.

It's hard to explain how big she was in the late seventies. She was Elton John big in the United States: top five album debuts at a time when these things rarely happened, two singles in the top five, every writer lining up to work for her. And although her eighties profile was smaller she still sold millions of records off those Nelson Riddle things. Sad.

yeah and she had that late-1980s comeback album with aaron neville that must have sold a zillion copies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Like_a_Rainstorm,_Howl_Like_the_Wind

wiki notes:

In 2009, the album was taken out of print, twenty years after release.

:(

where does it say she's hurting for cash?

There was another fact to weigh, her dwindling savings. Ms. Ronstadt released many albums but wrote very few songs, so her royalty checks are small. “Writers make all the money,” she said. Her most memorable hits — “You’re No Good,” “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Blue Bayou” — were written by others. “I was making good money when I was touring,” she said. But now “I just can’t do it.”

i mean, "dwindling savings" technically could mean "dwindling from $200 million to $100 million," or it could mean, "i need to take out a 3rd mortgage." who knows.

Seems a little quid/ag for someone like her to say "writers make all the money."

those celebrity net worth sites say she has $115 million but god knows how they come up with that

big NYT profile in fall '13 previewing her memoir.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srpwqf2MWAw

"quid/ag"?

also, god love linda ronstadt, but that warren zevon cover makes pretty plain why people accused her of being the pat boone of the long-hair set.

which one? I love "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" but am eh on "Carmelita."

yet I love her "Tumbling Dice."

lol @ her tumbling dice cover, that's quintessential mush-mouthed mick but ronstadt is such an /enunciator/

but it's not a bad cover nonetheless

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lalo90aXXq1qd0imf.jpg

Jonathan Schwarz last weekend played her Spanish version of "Blue Bayou," which I don't think I'd ever heard. Gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TnR4IsoC_0

(Schwartz, I mean)

Damn. This is gorgeous.

Wow

Senõr Plow to thread :)

benefit for Michael J. Fox Foundation:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7534407/linda-ronstadt-tribute-concert

What a career: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/they-say-that-loves-a-gentle-thing-the-best-of-linda-ronstadt/

loving linda these days
her outfit is so cool + she (always) sounds great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd2_LKoTYKw

also let's hear it for rhyming gender & blender

classic

Linda is magic

It's so easy
It's so easy
It's so easy

iiiiiiiiiiiiive been cheateeed

my father loved linda ronstadt and i always have too. there’s a small windy intersection by an ugly little bridge near our childhood house that always makes me think of ‘blue bayou’ (and hearing the song always makes me see the intersection, which could not be less bayou-like.) i suppose we must have been singing it in the car driving through there once. my friend has moved to that part of town and a couple of weeks ago i drove over to visit her and the memory turned up as usual, it’s a fixture.

also let's hear it for rhyming gender & blender

Well, Warren Zevon.

take it to the Zevon thread buddy, this is LindaTown

lol yes

the way she rhymes them is all her

ps estela whenever i hear blue bayou i think of watching her sing it on the muppet show, fresh out of the bath sitting in front of the heater so my hair would be dry before bedtime <3

<3 that is darling

Classic!

Three things I love:

1. Her first solo record, "Dolphins," written by Fred Neil ("Everybody's Talkin'")

2. "Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water," Stone Poneys single from 1968

3. "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," single from 1973, previously recorded by many other people including the Springfields (UK) and the Cowsills but hers is the best

VG & estela otm -- Linda gamely makes those corny lyrics sound charming
I can't stop singing "WoooooooOOOHHHHooooe is me"