Linda Ronstadt - Classic or Dud?

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.

There's an original "You're No Good?" I guess I fall into the category of a 70s kid who heard all those songs via Ronstadt (and apparently has yet to hear all the originals). Anyway, I like her but somehow have nothing by her (true of lots of 70s music I like a great deal).

can't follow the Nelson Riddle bashing.
theres a time where you need this ('Lush Life' & 'Whats New')

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/5e/de/87b4e03ae7a046124e67b110.L.jpg

never heard her version of this until yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e08siRDkfQ

holy cow!
Heart Like a Wheel is a complete classic and should be in every home

There's an original "You're No Good?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S1VmqyTUBk

Yeah, there's definitely something to be said for the "gateway drug" thing. Ronstadt's covers exposed me to a bunch of things I wasn't really listening to otherwise at the time: Motown, Everly Brothers, Hank Williams and Dolly Parton for starters, as well as 70s songwriters (Eric Kaz, Karla Bonoff, Warren Zevon.)

Holy cow indeed at that Playboy After Dark clip; they start soul-clapping about the 1 1/2 minute mark!

one great thing about linda is that you can go to most used record stores and get ten of her records for about $10.

even more original "you're no good"

<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9054360&;server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9054360&;server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9054360";>Dee Dee Warwick - you're no good</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user3023043";>Romagnolo</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com";>Vimeo</a>.</p>

oops.

even more original "you're no good":

http://vimeo.com/9054360

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRTplUpErRM&feature=player_embedded#!

This absolutely fucking kills me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD1LSxA24aU

She's 37 in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQss1HhYl8

I just heard Blue Bayou today...damn if there was ever a timemachine back to my childhood, it's her voice.

I LOVE that song.

Ned mentioned this upthread - worth posting

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

I heard "Hurts So Bad" on Sunday. Her voice cracks!

when her voice gets loud on Bayou I get all teary and goosebumpy

me too

Same for me on "Long, Long Time." That one just absolutely slays me.

Love her version of Love Has No Pride, just an incredible vocal (http://youtu.be/rN8YVVKPNC0). Bonnie Raitt also recorded a great version in the early 70s (http://youtu.be/S2QTdxXmd0k). I love me some Bonnie Raitt but I give the nod to Linda.

lollin @ some of the comments on these vids:

Wow! That black dress, black hair, sultry lips, tight little body, and those trade-mark mesmerizing eyes. Word cannot describe how sexy she was during the early-mid 80's I would have worshiped her back then.... gladly been her slave.....
Lindawatcher 3 weeks ago

lindawatcher jfc that's creepy

rondstalker

er, ronstalker

name: lindawatcher
job: lindawatcher
interests: linda, lindawatching
hobbies: lindawatching

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.