Post by the Scribe on Nov 22, 2023 11:38:13 GMT
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https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/udupl1/appreciating_linda_ronstadt_an_oft_forgotten/
Appreciating Linda Ronstadt: An Oft Forgotten Queen of Pop (And Rock, Country, Big Band, Jazz, and Mariachi)
[DISCUSSION]
Linda Ronstadt doesn’t get mentioned here very often, and that’s understandable. Her heyday was in the 1970s and 1980s and she didn’t last long after that in popular memory. It’s time to rectify that.
To start off, Linda had a voice. The voice. Before Whitney Houston was called the voice, it was Linda Ronstadt. She belted songs out with power and control never before seen in rock or country, her two most successful genres. Linda’s voice was so powerful that her producer, Peter Asher, supposedly had to source different tape because she’d overload the stuff they normally used. She’s always said that she had no idea she was as loud as she was and that she just wanted to be heard over the instruments. Well, she sure did that.
Linda was also successful. With nearly 40 million certified units in one form or another (RIAA+SoundScan), Linda has outsold Adele, Britney Spears, Drake, Kanye West, and many others. If we go by her claimed sales of 100 million albums then we’ll see that Linda’s in the top 10 best-selling women in the United States. Being that her sales haven’t been certified since 2001 at the latest and many of her best-selling albums haven’t been certified since they came out, it’s fairly likely that the 100 million albums figure isn’t too far off.
But Linda Ronstadt was more than just a high-selling voice. She was a phenomenon. With her first #1 hit in 1974 (You’re No Good), Linda proved that women can be feminine and Rock at the same time. She simultaneously had a major #1 hit on the Country Singles chart with When Will I Be Loved, a rock-ified version of the Everly Brothers’ 60s hit. This was the first time anyone had had a #1 on both of those charts at the same time and was not the last record she’d break nor the last time she’d make history. The album these came off of, Heart Like A Wheel, was an eclectic mix of country, rock, and folk ballads that somehow worked perfectly together and managed to leave you craving for more. Well, more she gave!
1975’s Prisoner in Disguise continued the formula, providing country, rock, and folk ballads without caving to industry pressure to go deeper into rock. Her duet with long-time friend Emmylou Harris, The Sweetest Gift, brought Emmylou Harris to the top #15 Country Singles chart right when she was launching her solo country career and Linda’s solo single, Heat Wave, became a #5 Hot 100 hit for Linda.
1976 was a year of change for Linda, with a new backing band and a new sound! Hasten Down the Wind is essentially a vocal tour de force for Linda. The album starts off with Lose Again, which is one hell of a song to start an album off with and really sets high expectations for the rest of the album. Thankfully, Linda delivered! She continued on with The Tattler, a modernized version of a two-part song from a Black songwriter in the 1920s. That’ll Be the Day serves as the rock hit from this album, with it peaking at #11 on the Hot 100. It’s essentially a modernized version of the Buddy Holly song but with a bit of a harder sound. She also started showing her culture and heritage with Lo Siento Mi Vida, a Spanish song she wrote with her father to share her Mexican-American upbringing. This album contains one other song she wrote, called Try Me Again. Linda rarely wrote her own songs, with her only other English song being Winter Light (1993, we’ll get to this later). She always thought she was a terrible songwriter and that she should leave it to the pros. This song absolutely proves her wrong. A cover of Patsy Cline’s Crazy served as the country hit from this album, peaking at #6 on the Country Singles chart. To finish off, I’ll talk a bit about Down So Low. This was the only time in her singing that I can think of that she was a bit showy in her singing. Honestly, with a voice like that, who can blame her? It’s the closest she ever got to a Whitney Houston style of singing and damn does she do it well. There’s also one more great song from this album, Someone To Lay Down Beside Me. This is the only song I can think of that needs to be listened to live to really get. It’s incredible live and, for a Linda song, mediocre in the studio.
Linda broke records in 1977 with her Simple Dreams album. It spent 5 weeks at #1 and was the only album that could displace Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors after it’d spent 29 weeks at #1. It was also her 5th consecutive album to go platinum, extending her record from the old record (which she held) of 4. Not only that, but this album also shipped 3.5 million copies in the first year and had possibly up to 3 million pre-orders, though this number isn’t known for sure. She also had two massive hits on the Hot 100, with Blue Bayou peaking at #3 and It’s So Easy peaking at #5 at the same time. This isn’t that crazy these days, but back then it was a first for a woman and the first time overall since the Beatles did it in 1963. Linda also had her final solo (sorta) Top 10 Country hit, with the Dolly Parton duet I Never Will Marry. Linda continued her string of rock hits, with Tumbling Dice becoming an instant classic for Linda fans. Linda sang this in response to her boyfriend at the time, Mick Jagger, telling her she needed to sing more rock.
Skipping a few years (and a great album, Living in the USA), let’s jump to 1980. This year was huge. It was the first time she broke the formula she’d been following since 1974 with Heart Like A Wheel and it’s when she, as she puts it “learned to sing.” New-wave rock album Mad Love spawned Linda’s final solo top #10 hits in the Hot 100, with How Do I Make You climbing to #10 and Hurt So Bad reaching #8. This was Linda’s 7th consecutive platinum album and set a record for female artists by debuting at #5, a feat no woman had done before. There’s not a single country song on the album, with it all being new-wave/punk-rock songs from her favorite songwriters. Elvis Costello, the songwriter for some of those songs, believed Linda had jumped on the new-wave bandwagon just to follow trends. He’d soon learn that Linda was anything but a trend follower.
Another major development in 1980 was Linda’s move to opera. Yes, opera. The highest-paid woman in rock music would be in an opera. I’m sure you can imagine what her label thought of that development. Luckily for them all, it worked out spectacularly. Linda starred in The Pirates of Penzance, an operetta I can tell you nothing about because I have not seen it. What I can tell you is that this rock chick’s voice stretched perfectly and effortlessly to become the voice of a perfect opera singer. This is the event Linda says taught her how to sing.
1982 was a bit of a lull for Linda. Her final rock/country/folk album, Get Closer, was a huge flop. After a string of 8 consecutive platinum albums, this was her first to not go platinum. It sold 900,000 copies. It peaked at #31 and the singles didn’t do any better, with the title track Get Closer nudging its way to #29 on the Hot 100. The album was hastily assembled out of old tracks after an album of jazz and American Standards, Keeping Out of Mischief, was scrapped by Linda last minute. She’s since called Keeping Out of Mischief her most expensive practice session ever as it prepped her for her actual first jazz and American Standards album.
1983 brought great change for Linda, with the first of a trio of jazz and American Standards album being released that year. What’s New, arranged by Nelson Riddle, brought Linda back to commercial success. It sold 5 million copies and was locked in at #3 by Michael Jackson (Thriller, #1) and Lionel Richie (Can’t Slow Down, #2). By this point Linda was 37 and starting to age out of the pop scene, with divas like Madonna beginning to experience commercial success and stealing the spotlight from the previous generation of hit makers, like Linda. The singles received little airplay and barely cracked the Top 40, but that was expected of an album of this type. She continued this on in 1984 with Lush Life and 1986 with For Sentimental Reasons.
In 1986, at age 40, Linda proved she could still be a major draw to pop audiences. Her duet with James Ingraham, Somewhere Out There, climbed to #2 on the Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for many weeks. This showed the public thirst for anything except the oldies she’d been singing for the past 4-ish years. So, she gave them what they asked for! In 1987, Linda practically defined the Americana genre with her pals Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. They’d been meaning to do an album together since 1978 but conflicting schedules and contracts constantly kept it from coming out. It finally materialized in 1987, with them naming what was essentially their little baby, Trio. Trio was a massive success on the country charts and revitalized Ronstadt’s, Harris’, and Parton’s country careers after years of slumping and declining. It peaked at #1 on the Country charts and provided 4 top #10 hits on the Country Singles chart, and it sold 4 million copies worldwide. It wouldn’t be until 1994 that they recorded a follow-up and 1999 that they released it.
1987 also saw Linda finally honoring her culture the way she’d always wanted to, with a Spanish-language Mariachi album Canciones de Mi Padre, or Songs of My Father in English, being released that year. Now, think back to when I talked about the record label’s reaction to Linda doing opera. What I didn’t mention is that she asked to do this album and the American Standards album in the same meeting. She was able to (successfully) justify it with the massive success of Mad Love, and so this was allowed. It sold over 2.5 million copies in the US and is still, 35 years later, the best selling non-English album in US history. That’s impressive.
To finish things off, we’ll talk about her return to pop. 1989’s Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind was a vocal tour de force like nothing she’d made before. Every. Single. Song. was a massive vocal hit and each and every one of them could’ve been a massive hit on its own. It sold 3 million copies in the US alone and peaked at #7, providing two massive career-defining singles for Linda and Aaron Neville, with Don’t Know Much peaking at #2 and All My Life peaking at #11. All of this was done with Linda being 43 and Aaron being 48/49. Damn. This album also made Linda the second woman to have 10 top 10 albums, after Barbra Streisand did it first.
Unfortunately for Linda, this was her last major success. She followed it up with 2 more Spanish albums, causing her to lose the momentum she’d gained with Cry Like A Rainstorm. 1993 saw her Winter Light album, which was critically acclaimed and is easily in the top 5 for her best albums, but it barely cracked the top 100. 1995 brought Feels Like Home, the country-rock product of the aborted Trio II sessions. This was more successful for Linda, but because it wasn’t classified as a country album (it absolutely was a country album) she was robbed of a #1 Country hit (which it would’ve been, going by sales and airplay), instead barely peaking in the top 70. By this point, Linda was 49 and had two young children. She was also beginning to lose her health, first developing a thyroid disorder, then diabetes, and then, in 2000, the worst illness she’d ever face.
By 2000, Linda was 54. It’s normal for a singer’s voice to weaken as they age. Linda didn’t believe this. She’s said that during a recording session with Emmylou Harris in 2000, she felt her voice “clamp up” and that it felt like it was “something mechanical,” but nobody else could hear any issues. Note by note, Linda’s range started shrinking. She’s said that by 2004 she had to “totally recraft my voice” and that it was “yelling” instead of singing. By this point, other people were noticing. Not the audiences but the producers and musicians she worked with. Still, nobody had an answer. Doctors said it was mental nerves. Musicians said it was aging. Linda didn’t agree with either. Finally, in 2006, she released her final album, Adieu False Heart. It was a duet of Cajun songs with Ann Savoy. Linda’s since said that this was the most fun she had working on an album, but that she was “working on fumes” and that every note was a struggle. Even for die-hard fans like me, it’s noticeable. Her voice is different. Not bad, but different. She gave her last performance in November 2009, after which she burned her stage clothes and cancelled all appearances. Plans for a return to her country-rock roots with an album in 2012 were cancelled by a bombshell diagnosis: Parkinson’s Disease. Nobody can sing with Parkinson’s. Linda had been ignoring all the signs of Parkinson’s until this point, blaming her clumsiness on aging and her back pain and tremors on a shoulder surgery. She thought her voice loss was due to a pinched nerve. She continued doing limited amounts of work, including a memoir and a speaking tour. Unfortunately, this diagnosis would become worse. In 2019 she learned that her Parkinson’s was actually Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a disease with a much worse prognosis than Parkinson’s and no known treatments. She also participated in a documentary about her life in 2019, giving her final recorded singing (as of today) in this clip from the documentary. You can hear her struggling, but at a few points a bit of Linda peaks out and it’s just incredible. I’d kill for an album of easy duets from her, but she’d never do it unless she felt she could sing properly.
If there’s any more info wanted (such as her work before 1974 or a deeper dive into her work post-1989) I’d be happily to provide it in the comments. Sorry it’s so long, but this is such a long and storied career that I really couldn’t leave much out without losing the impact of her. I already cut out one of her biggest albums, 1978’s Living in the USA due to lack of space.