Linda Ronstadt - Classic or Dud?

<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"

I think interpretation is something of a lost art. Too many singers gravitate toward "standards" but I wish they just cherrypicked their favorite stuff and made something fresh out of it, like LR. Like, there's a difference between a "covers album" and singers doing special with songs by other people, I think.

"Will Never Marry" has become one of my anthems.

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

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:07 PM (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:48 PM (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still true.

i love her spanish albums

She played Sun City!!

classic Simpsons/Linda R reference for the nerds:

http://www.technologytell.com/gaming/files/2013/12/geeky-cross-stitch-senor-plow1.jpg

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/linda-ronstadt-opens-up-about-losing-her-voice-and-living-with-parkinsons-1203126148/

<3

Great performance here, and I'd never heard the story she tells at the beginning about Lowell George.

https://youtu.be/kMP8JsV7wbg

Lots of good songs imo

Not counting Stone Poneys? "Different Drum" is of course beyond great.

This one may delight you.

:)

I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty

Aw man, I really love her "Back in the USA." And I'm not so hot on "Tumbling Dice."

I spent my teens eyerolling at my parents Ronstadt obsession, but eventually realized my affection for Hazelewood's ballad productions was rooted in the constant exposure to "Long Long Time".

"Different Drum" is an all-time favorite.

A really good New Yorker interview.

That was great, thanks!

Posted this recently on another thread because of the B-Bender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FiKHaSRMeg

Great interview! Yeah, Ronstadt, all things considered, sounds like she has it all figured out.

(B-bender derail: I saw Marty Stuart play not long ago, and I guess he is the current owner of Clarence White's b-bender, and he plays it every night. I think he also owns and uses one of Pops Staples' guitars. I think it's super cool when musicians have a piece of history and continue to use it the way it was intended. Iirc Neil Young owns and plays Hank Williams' guitar all the time.)

(Yeah, that came up on a Byrds thread and another guitar thread. Apparently he has so much memorabilia that he has to sell off some of it once in a while and there is a shop somebody told me about, can't remember where, that ends up with a lot of it)

Norman's Rare Guitars?

Maybe. Think it was in California. Also think it wasn’t just guitars, more like cowboy boots and Nudie suits, etc.

I just watched Marty tell the story of how he came by Clarence's B-bender Tele not long ago: http://youtu.be/r8H08Xs_w8A

Yeah, discussion was here and then further down Old School Guitar Pickin' And Strummin' Sick Chops YouTube Thread

Clarence had the first B-Bender, guy in the Linda Ronstadt video and all over some of her records, Bob Warford, had the second.

Walking down the road t'other day, what should come into my head but LR's ace version of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," followed by Kinky Friedman's cover of "My Shit's Fucked Up": kind of a natural succession, as nature goes (both r Zevon songs, decades apart). What else did she do by Zevon, besides "Rosalita"?

Re Marty and well-deployed vintage guitars etc, online relcis of this tour might be worth looking for---from Rolling Country 2018:

roger mcguinn, chris hillman and marty stuart & his fabulous superlatives, sweetheart of the rodeo full album show, los angeles, tuesday night. opening night of a short-ish tour. it was ragged, loose, occasionally awkward and more than occasionally great. they did one set of truncated versions of hits and deep cuts, and then the sweetheart of the rodeo set, played in full but out of order. i got the sense that stuart and the superlatives rehearsed thoroughly on their own and mcguinn and hillman maybe not so much. they missed cues left and right, were looking down frequently for chords and lyrics, and while hillman's voice was in good form, mcguinn was having a little trouble cutting through. but their instincts for harmony are still dead-on, and stuart fit right into that. i felt like i was watching a band still working out its sound, and as a result, when something gelled, when they hit a sweet spot, it was magical. like watching a band discover itself in real time. and that second set was way better than the first. it felt like having a piece of my own dna read back to me. maybe they felt the same.

encore: two byrds classics and three tom petty classics. i was wondering if maybe they would be able to coax david crosby (who i assume still lives here though i have no idea) onto the stage for a song or two. instead we got mike campbell, who joined for "american girl" -- after which they kicked him off and, strangely, played more petty songs without him. marty stuart did a bluegrassy take on "runnin' down a dream" (thumbs up) and hillman did a fairly faithful "wildflowers," which apparently petty produced for him for an album he put out last year.

they also told some stories. they're not particularly good storytellers. damn those harmonies though.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, July 25, 2018 9:08 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Was already hoping for an album from that tour, even more while reading your dispatch. Marty and His FS have the drive and expertise to keep those geezers functioning onstage for as long as possible.
-dow

Also I still need to check out LR's contributions to Escalator Over The Hill and Songs From Liquid Days.

I think you meant "Carmelita". Ronstadt also did "Mohammed's Radio" and "Hasten Down The Wind".

I skimmed that New Yorker interview but probably missed mention of the CNN documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDMYAsu5PvI

it's mentioned in there
also my childhood bff sent me a link to the trailer bc we were talking about the magic of linda ronstadt recently <3

Place with vintage clothing and memorabilia from Marty Stuart was Pioneer House in Knoxville: https://www.pioneer-house.com/events/2016/11/4/the-marty-stuart-collection

This is an excellent cover not often mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc128G3u61M

The new documentary is fantastic, it gave me chills over and over again. To hear her performing those songs on a big screen up close is an emotional experience.

Nothing groundbreaking about the form of it, but there doesn't seem to be a wasted moment in the whole 95 minutes.

The clips in the trailer were marvelous.

The audience applauded at the end, which can be a corny move but in this case felt right

loved this documentary

PBS is showing that unearthed '80 cable show as a pledge programming tonight. Her version of "Lies" is fun.

Knickerbockers or Stones?

The Former.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IaOn4NvrSc

Apparently a studio version was issued as a single in '82

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

Thanks. Yeah, saw that video. Bugging me that I can’t ID that Mick Fleetwood-looking drummer.

Linda really getting her inner-Debbie Harry on in the latter vid.

Kind of makes you wish there was someone in Ronstadt's crew had slipped her some Dwight Twilley or Go-Gos tapes for prospective covers.

Russ Kunkel, I guess.

Yeah, remembering the long ago battle between John Rockwell and Elvis Costello, when I wouldn’t have wanted to hear her versions of such songs, but have since changed my tune.