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Post by the Scribe on Nov 24, 2022 13:06:27 GMT
Fall book preview: Cozy up with prestige authors, modern moments and Linda Ronstadt's recipes
kjzz.org/content/1811569/fall-book-preview-cozy-prestige-authors-modern-moments-and-linda-ronstadts-recipes
By Steve Goldstein
Published: Wednesday, September 21, 2022 - 12:43pm
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“Dinosaurs” by Lydia Millet, “The Last Chairlift” by John Irving and “Less is Lost” by Andrew Sean Greer
The summer book season has a particular feel, one that is typically filled with beach reads and a return of series and recurring characters.
But when temperatures cool down and the smell of autumn arrives, new book choices often lean more toward deeper concepts and highbrow literature and huge tomes that look good on the coffee table but are rarely opened.
To get ready for some of the most interesting and exciting books of the fall, The Show spoke with longtime critic Mark Athitakis, who began by explaining what truly makes the fall book season stand out.
Mark Athitakis
Here are Mark’s picks:
“The Last Chairlift,” by John Irving
“It's very much in keeping if you’re a fan of John Irving and you’re a fan of ‘The World According to Garp.’ There’s a lot of wrestling involved, and there’s a lot of coming of age.”
“Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver
“[Kingsolver] takes Charles Dickens ‘David Copperfield’ story and transports it to Appalachia in the present day to kind of suggest that some of the issues that Dickens was writing about in the 1800s haven’t changed a whole lot.”
“Feels Like Home,” by Linda Ronstadt
“It's not a tell-all book about the music industry. It's not even really an autobiography as such. But it’s a photo book. It has recipes. It’s [Ronstadt] getting in touch with her Mexican roots and her Mexican heritage.”
“Dinosaurs,” by Lydia Millet
“It’s dealing a lot with that sort of what do we owe each other? How are we going to live next to each other when we are living cheek-to-jowl with other people’s anxieties and concerns and fears — especially when you have this big glass window where you can really see what’s going on in other people’s lives.”
“Less is Lost,” by Andrew Sean Greer
“It’s very arch, very funny. It’s sort of a ‘Don Quixote’ tale that is repurposed for the current moment.”
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 30, 2022 12:18:44 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 5, 2022 23:03:51 GMT
Page-Turning Gifts
longislandweekly.com/page-turning-gifts/
Louis Ghiraldi
DECEMBER 1, 2022
Nothing says the holiday season is upon us more than a slew of new releases in the world of books. And this year is no different, so snuggle up with a cup of hot cocoa by the fireplace and get ready for the best holiday book and gift guide for 2022.
First off is the poignant and personal tome from music icon Linda Ronstadt. Feels Like Home: A Musical Memoir is just that, a trip to Ronstadt’s home from yesteryear. She proudly covers her history and heritage, through anecdotes, fact-based stories and recipes. Even though medical issues have robbed her of her singing voice, Ronstadt comes through loud and clear in this book. A true labor of love and a must-read.
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 23, 2022 6:58:39 GMT
Linda Ronstadt Talks About What Feels Like Home
www.nextavenue.org/linda-ronstadt-feels-like-home/amp/
Iconic singer Linda Ronstadt tells us about her new book and the importance of music, family and food
By Michele Wojciechowski|
December 19, 2022|
Living
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In 2013, Linda Ronstadt and journalist Lawrence Downes were talking a lot; whether it was in her home in San Francisco, while in Mexico, or driving along an Arizona highway traveling through the Sonoran Desert.
These conversations became the crux of the New York Times article that Downes wrote about the experience entitled "Linda Ronstadt's Borderland." But they became much more.
www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/travel/linda-ronstadts-borderland.html
Linda Ronstadt | Credit: Sam Sargent
That story led to the two of them working on a book together. "Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands" features stories from Ronstadt's family, recipes, songs, and photographs by Bill Steen.
www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/feels-like-home/
The two took more road trips through the Sonoran borderlands, which feels most like home to Ronstadt. They captured her memories and wrote about her history — family that came long before she was born.
Ronstadt spoke with us about why she did the book, about her family, and how music and food have been such an important part of her life.
What follows is our interview, edited for length and clarity.
Next Avenue: In "Feels Like Home," you talk a great deal about your family — your grandfather, your aunt — and you bring up different people in your family who were musical, with music being so personal and often sentimental. What was it like for you to both cover these musical memories that you had, as well as those about people you either knew when you were a child or who had lived before you were even born?
"The first band I remember hearing, I was two. It was a woman called La Niña de los Peines, which means The Girl with the Combs."
Linda Ronstadt: My great-grandfather was musical, and he taught my grandfather how to read and write music and he could compose and arrange, so there was a pretty broad music gene. You know, in his life, you didn't become a professional, you sang in the parlor.
My grandfather formed a band in Tucson because there wasn't one. It doubled for military parades and for weddings and stuff like that. If you wanted music, you had to get my grandfather, who was a rancher. Because he was a rancher, he was allowed to get away with being a professional musician. I don't think he made any money doing it, it was just a hobby. They went on the road to California and did well, and people got the word. They would be standing at the railroad station on the way back when they stopped, and the town would come out.
www.nextavenue.org/love-grandparents/
It wasn't like he could carry a Walkman or iPod or iPad, and so he needed to go seek it out and hope to find people that knew how to play [the songs].
But people in my family think — the husbands all sing. They don't sing to be professional. They sing to enjoy singing, you know? They harmonize, and they play guitars together, and at every family gathering the guitars come out pretty fast.
www.nextavenue.org/leaving-a-legacy-to-the-grandkids-one-guitar-at-a-time/
What's a memory about music that when you think about it, it takes you back to that place in time?
Well, the first band I remember hearing, I was two. It was a woman called La Niña de los Peines, which means The Girl with the Combs. She was a Roma singer and she was the best singer that [the Romas] ever had. She was the Queen of Flamenco-style singing.
Book cover of 'Feels Like Home' by Linda Ronstadt. Next Avenue
They had just been through World War II, and the Romas were treated terribly. They were just about eliminated, exterminated, and she sings about that pain. It was so immediate and so urgent that I felt it, you know, and I was two. I was just a kid and was curious about something and then, I'd turn on the radio and get "(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window?" and I thought, 'Is this serious?' It didn't have anything about World War II in it.
It just made an impression on me. Shortly after that, I heard Lola Beltrán, who was a premiere diva of Mexico. She was a ranchera singer and I really liked that. I wanted to do it when I was three.
How do you want people around the country to relate to this book? For example, growing up in the Southwest as you did has its own flavor. How would someone in the Midwest, or East Coast or West Coast relate to this?
Well, I think of it as so regional. Everything in Mexico is regional. It's a very diverse country. You walk two blocks and people's clothes change, the music changes, and the food changes. So, [the book] is not relating to general Mexican food. It's relating to the music and to the food of the Sonoran Desert.
The Sonoran Desert is a tough environment to live in, but it's very productive if you know what you're doing. The Indians lived there for centuries successfully because there's a river, and they knew how to irrigate the river. It's like the Nile Valley. The soil is amazingly rich. It's the richest soil in Mexico. But it's in the middle of the ferocious desert.
The flavor of food is totally different. Like a tortilla, which is actually on my list of foods that I can't live without. They're so good, the tortillas they make there. Tortillas are made of wheat flour. The ones they know how to do, they pat them out to be as big as steering wheels, and you can see through them, actually. They're tissue-thin, and they're flaky. They have a beautiful taste, the wheat tastes good, and they're made with lard — flour, lard and salt. Lard has less cholesterol than butter.
"The flavor of food is totally different. Like a tortilla, which is actually on my list of foods that I can't live without."
I read that in your book.
The only thing about lard is you have to have it from a healthy pig or else it's going to taste [bad].
There's a lot of nostalgia throughout this book. Was that difficult? Was it wonderful? Was it bittersweet? What was it like for you?
To me, writing is just hard work and staying at it. I fortunately had Lawrence, who is such a wonderful writing partner. He has infinite patience, and he knows how to walk into a library and do research. I'd rather read at home and get my own education, so I don't know how to use any of those research facilities. He knows how to do all of it. He even found an article about my great-aunt and my dad. There were articles in the New York Times.
Oh, wow.
So, he's good. The way it worked is that I wrote the first couple of pages just about being in the book and my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and then he started writing to talk about the history of my grandfather, military history, and stuff like that, and we put it together. Then I worked from the sentences that he did, but sometimes we needed the extra modifiers.
So, he added and I added. He added good things. And we sat side by side in my living room, and he'd write a section, and I'd be writing another section. I'll give you an example.
I was writing a section about my friend who died at 101. She was a sort of fashion maven of Tucson. She had a dress store. It was beautiful. I was writing about her daughter, and in describing her, I described her as having hair that was crinkled. And so, Lawrence sent me some things and he described something as crinkled, but it wasn't hair. I wrote him back — I used 'crinkle,' can't use 'crinkle.' I come before you. [she laughs] So, he got rid of 'crinkle.'
And then the editors said we don't think you can use 'frock' here. I said, 'No, we're using 'frock.' So, he got to have frock and I got to have crinkle.
Is there any instrument, within the kind of music you grew up with, that you never learned to play, but wish you had?
The jarana. You usually use it as a rhythm instrument. It's shaped like a narrow guitar with a long neck, has double strings. It's like nothing else.
In the book, you talk a lot about your own heritage. What would you say to encourage others to look into their own personal heritage?
We're a product of the people that came before us, and they know now that memories, emotions, experiences come down in your DNA. If your great-grandfather was an organ player, but he played the pipe organ, you might get from his yearning for that, or if your grandfather wanted to be a professional singer, you might get that.
"We're a product of the people that came before us, and they know now that memories, emotions, experiences come down in your DNA."
My dad was offered a job with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, and he didn't take it because the Depression was on and my grandfather needed him at the ranch. But he had a beautiful voice. He might have been a professional someday — but it might have ruined his life. I'm sure he did much better off staying home in Tucson with us. He might have had that wish and I might have inherited it, I don't know.
If you could relive one experience that you had that took place that you wrote about, what would it be?
Oh, singing with a Mariachi group that toured with me.
If you could meet anyone in your family who had passed away before you were born, who would it be and why?
It would be my great-grandmother because I'd be curious about what happened. They were around in a significant point in history for USA-Mexican relationships because they went through the 1910 Revolution, and they went through the Indian Wars. My great-grandfather was a colonel in the Army. They had been trying to kill the Apaches for 100 years. They didn't stop until 1946, the year I was born.
I don't know how much my grandfather and my great-grandmother had to do with it. I know he didn't want to be in the Army anymore, at some point. There was a genocidal campaign against the Apaches, and unfortunately a lot of the other [American] Indians joined in; the Apaches had come down pretty recently — only a hundred years before in the North. They got in a lot of fights with the local Indians. It's a pretty tough world out there in the Sonoran Desert.
But it has amazing comforts, and people band together and they help each other out. In Mexico, they build a village. They all live in the village, and they help each other, and it's a very different from the entitled kind of society we have now. They're really nice people and smart. They know how to fix anything or build anything.
There's one other thing I want to say. In the back of the book, there's a playlist. It has a description of what all the songs are because some of them are not meant to be for professional use. That's just stuff we did. And some of it is [from] other artists. It wasn't a complete list.
Why would this book make a great gift, Linda?
Well, there's a lot of pictures. You don't have to read it. There's a lot of pictures.
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Contributor Michele Wojciechowski
Michele Wojciechowski Michele "Wojo" Wojciechowski is an award-winning writer who lives in Baltimore, Md. She's the author of the humor book Next Time I Move, They'll Carry Me Out in a Box. Reach her at www.WojosWorld.com. Read More
www.nextavenue.org/writer/michele-wojciechowski/www.nextavenue.org/?s=Linda+Ronstadt&sort=relevance |
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 28, 2023 11:39:00 GMT
From Motown To Haz-mat / The Bay: High Pressure High School / New Arrivals: Linda Ronstadt
Listen: www.kalw.org/podcast/crosscurrents/2023-01-24/from-motown-to-haz-mat-the-bay-high-pressure-high-school-new-arrivals-linda-ronstadt
Published January 24, 2023 at 6:13 PM PST
Earl Thomas
Today, we’ll meet an environmental safety consultant who years ago walked away from a job with a legendary Motown trio. We hear how he stepped off the stage and into toxic waste management. Then, we learn about the intense pressure to excel at elite Silicon Valley high schools. And, we listen to a reading from a book co-written by Lawrence Downs and singer Linda Ronstadt.
One man's journey from Motown to haz-mat
www.kalw.org/arts-culture/2023-01-25/one-mans-journey-from-motown-to-haz-mat
The Bay: High School in the Shadows of Silicon Valley
www.kqed.org/news/11922427/high-school-in-the-shadows-of-silicon-valley
New book chronicles Linda Ronstadt’s deep roots in Southern Arizona, Northern Mexico
www.kalw.org/newarrivals/2022-12-16/new-book-chronicles-linda-ronstadts-deep-roots-in-southern-arizona-northern-mexico
New book chronicles Linda Ronstadt’s deep roots in Southern Arizona, Northern Mexico
www.kalw.org/newarrivals/2022-12-16/new-book-chronicles-linda-ronstadts-deep-roots-in-southern-arizona-northern-mexico
By Lisa Morehouse
Published December 16, 2022 at 10:54 AM PST
LISTEN • 2:04 www.kalw.org/newarrivals/2022-12-16/new-book-chronicles-linda-ronstadts-deep-roots-in-southern-arizona-northern-mexico
NPR One
Copy of New Arrivals
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Linda Ronstadt lives in San Francisco. She and Lawrence Downes co-wrote the book, “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands,” which came out on October 4th, 2022. Downes will do the reading.
www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/feels-like-home/
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Post by chronologer on May 10, 2023 5:38:51 GMT
TFOB: Feels Like Home Interview w/ Linda Ronstadt
Digital Futures Bilingual Studio
10 May 2023
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 18, 2024 9:28:50 GMT
How Linda Ronstadt Found Her Purpose After Losing Her Voice
iloveclassicrock.com/how-linda-ronstadt-found-her-purpose-after-losing-her-voice/
Published Sep 26, 2023 By Dowell De Los Reyes
via Linda Ronstadt / Facebook
Linda Ronstadt, no longer gracing the stage with her voice due to a neurological disorder diagnosed in 2019, remains deeply involved in the realms of music and culture. Even with her senses leaving her, the rockstar remained unstoppable.
The spunky singer behind “You’re No Good” and “Blue Bayou”, always proud of his Mexican heritage, had recently forged a substantial partnership with Los Cenzontles, a Mexican cultural arts academy nestled in San Pablo, California. She has also embarked on a live retrospective conversation tour, produced a documentary film, and earned a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor.
But her most notable recent undertaking was being an author, a new facet to her illustrious career.
The project, Feels Like Home: Songs from the Sonoran Borderlands — Linda Ronstadt’s Musical Odyssey, started as a way to share beloved family recipes from her childhood when she was still living in the borderlands between Tucson and the Rio Sonora region of northern Mexico.
“I don’t cook, so I suppose I didn’t have anything particularly earth-shattering to contribute,” the influential singer shared.
Not Your Typical Recipe Book
Ronstadt added that she wanted to write about her great-grandmother but she “didn’t know anything about her from [her] grandmother”.
“So it just became complicated,” she explained. But, of course, that did not stop the singer from accomplishing what she wanted.
To bring her vision to life, Ronstadt collaborated with former New York Times journalist Lawrence Downes and photographer Bill Steen.
Jerry Brown, the former governor of California and Ronstadt’s partner for many years, described the book as “personal and revealing” in a statement. He pointed to the rich collection of photographs, family letters, and recipes that make up the book.
“This is quintessentially an American story — touching, and well worth reading,” Brown revealed.
Feels Like Home is a multifaceted work that blends memoir, a tribute to the desert landscape, a political commentary, and, intriguingly, an instructional guide for creating “albondigas de la Familia Ronstadt.” The book even includes its own musical accompaniment, Feels Like Home: Songs from the Sonoran Borderlands — Linda Ronstadt’s Musical Odyssey, released by the New Orleans-based Putumayo record label.
“I Can Sing In My Brain”
Sadly for her fans, and every music fan around the world, Linda Ronstadt has stopped singing, in the conventional sense, that is. It’s now impossible for her fans to enjoy her vocal talents as they once did.
“I can sing in my brain,” the influential rock singer shared during an interview with TODAY‘s Maria Shriver.
www.today.com/health/linda-ronstadt-rare-brain-disorder-rcna55208
In 2013, after grappling with vocal difficulties for an extended period, Ronstadt received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. However, she later discovered that she was actually dealing with a Parkinson’s-like ailment known as progressive supranuclear palsy.
This rare condition is caused by the degeneration of brain cells responsible for regulating cognitive functions, movement, and coordination. It exhibits many of the same symptoms as Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and these symptoms typically worsen over time.
www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/progressive-supranuclear-palsy/symptoms-causes/syc-20355659
“It’s not quite the same,” she lamented about singing within her mind. What adds an additional layer of complexity is that she doesn’t always get to choose the tunes playing in her mental jukebox.
“Sometimes, I select the song, and sometimes it’s my brain that selects the song,” Ronstadt disclosed to Shriver.
Not Your Typical Rockstar
She might not be able to sing anymore, or worse, she would lose all control of the songs inside her head, the generations she influenced will always remember her beautiful spunky mezzo-soprano.
The rock goddess will continue to work and spread her legacy as long as she has the ability to do so. Writing a book isn’t even something new in her long, accomplished career.
Born on July 15, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona, Linda is the third child among four siblings, born to parents Gilbert Ronstadt, a prosperous machinery merchant, and Ruth Mary (née Copeman), a homemaker. The family resided on a 10-acre ranch, sharing the space with her siblings Peter (who later served as Tucson’s Chief of Police for a decade), Michael, and Gretchen.
Linda Ronstadt’s journey in the music industry started in the mid-1960s, coinciding with California’s folk rock and country rock movements. She made her debut as the lead singer of the Stone Poneys, alongside Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards.
In 1969, Ronstadt released her first solo album, Hand Sown… Home Grown – a seminal work often recognized as the first alternative country record by a female artist.
Her career soared to unparalleled heights with chart-topping albums like Heart Like a Wheel, Simple Dreams, and Living in the USA, establishing her as the first female rock star. She emerged as one of the highest-grossing concert artists of the 1970s, earning monikers like the ‘First Lady of Rock’ and the ‘Queen of Rock’.
In the 1980s, Ronstadt underwent a transformative phase, expanding her artistic horizons. She graced Broadway stages and earned a Tony nomination for her role in The Pirates of Penzance.
Collaborating with composer Philip Glass and exploring pop music, she continued her reign as one of the decade’s best-selling artists, delivering successful albums such as Mad Love, What’s New, Canciones de Mi Padre, and Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind.
In 1986, she joined forces with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris to form the country pop supergroup known as Trio, cementing her status as an iconic figure in music history.
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