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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 8:37:49 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 15, 2021 10:58:35 GMT
January 28, 1991
Vol. 35 No. 3
The Insider
By Mitchell Fink
RONSTADT STILL SINGLE
Ah, the wisdom of hindsight. Last fall some of Linda Ronstadt's closest friends told us that the singer and Quint Davis, 43. the New Orleans music impresario who has been her beau since 1989, would marry over Christmas (PEOPLE, Sept. 24, 1990). Well, the couple indeed spent the holidays together, in Tokyo, where Ronstadt. 44, performed at a John Lennon tribute concert, but they didn't get married.
Although fellow songstress Bonnie Raitt, 41, announced last week that she is soon taking her first marital plunge, with actor Michael (Against the Law) O'Keefe, 35, apparently the never-married Linda just isn't ready. One of the same Ronstadt pals we talked to in September says the singer's decision not to wed Davis at this time "follows a familiar pattern. She has been proposed to many times," says the source. "[Singer-songwriter] J.D. Souther wanted to marry her. and [ex-California Gov.] Jerry Brown is said to have brought marriage up too. And each time, Linda thinks about it and then chickens out. I guess she got cold feet again."
And she met Ann Savoy through Quint:
www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/04/06/linda-ronstadt-ann-savoy-friendship/7403135/
(nice video at the above link)
As Linda Ronstadt is about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she and her friend Ann Savoy, a Cajun singer, talk about music and friendship. Dominick Cross, Leslie Westbrook and Sundra Hominik, The (Lafayette, La.) Daily Advertiser
LAFAYETTE, La. — It may have been the similarities found in cultures that revolve around family, music and food.
Or it may have been her immediate personal and musical connection with Cajun musician, Ann Savoy — a connection that continues more than 20 years later.
When Linda Ronstadt stepped off a private plane at the Eunice Airport in 1989, the foundation for a decades-long friendship with Savoy was set.
"I just fell in love with Ann immediately. I just loved her," said Ronstadt, who will be inducted Thursday into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "We were wearing matching shades of red lipstick. I loved her children."
Back then, Ronstadt was hanging with Quint Davis, producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. On that particular day, Davis had the envie to visit his friend Marc Savoy, accordion maker and Cajun musician in Eunice, La.
"He said, 'Ah, there's this boucherie. We could go. My dad's got a plane. We can fly there. It'll take us an hour to fly,' " said Ronstadt. "So I said OK. We jumped into this private plane and we flew down there and it was amazing."
The boucherie — or communal slaughtering of animals — was at Marc and Ann Savoy's place.
STORY: Linda Ronstadt sings, if briefly, for USA TODAY
STORY: Voices: Linda Ronstadt's biggest gift
"It reminded me of the pachangas that we used to have in Mexico, which always is an all-day affair of cooking different kinds of meat and sausages and cheese and local food," Ronstadt said. "Whatever there is in the neighborhood, what people are growing, what the ranchers grow down there.
"Comfortable seats are found for older people, and there's a place to dance and people bring along their instruments and they play music," she said. "That's where I grew up."
So it wasn't a stretch for Ronstadt to be taken by the Cajun culture.
"It was so similar to the way I grew up that I felt at home right away. It was great. We had a fabulous time," Ronstadt said. "Of course the music was just fabulous. What I loved the best was that they didn't use a sound system.
"I went, 'This is real. This is a dance. Let's dance,' " she said. "And the food was divine. It was beautiful."
It was the beginning of a friendship that bridged Ronstadt and Savoy's personal and professional lives. The two wrote letters to each other. They visited each other. They played music together.
“I mean, it's a very hard combination of voices because I'm so loud and she's so soft. But I worked around that and I just loved what she was digging for.”
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"The way Linda and I have always hung out is playing music together," said Savoy. "We would just hang around our house with our guitars, singing. I'd bring songbooks and we'd sing together and that's how it all started developing. We'd work out all these cool arrangements to lots of songs."
Savoy said about that time, music producer Steve Buckingham, then at Vanguard, wanted her to create some Cajun music records.
"He said, 'Give me some ideas.' So I threw out a lot of real traditional ideas first: Fathers and sons ... things like that, you know really hardcore traditions," Savoy said. "And then I said, 'Or, rock stars play with Cajun musicians' and he goes, 'That's the one we want.' "
"Of course, the most commercial, hardest one to do," Savoy said. "I just knew a few people in the rock genre, so I approached the ones I knew first."
They were Richard Thompson, Linda Thompson and Ronstadt "and they all said yes," Savoy said. "So they were all on the project."
That project came to be Evangeline Made in 2002.
"Linda wanted me to sing with her and then she wanted me to sing the lead and she would sing the harmonies," Savoy said. "So that started the whole thing. I would never have presumed to sing with Linda. She insisted I sing."
The cuts of the two singing together got great reviews and Savoy sent them to Ronstadt.
"I said, 'How about that?' " Savoy recalled. "And she said, 'Wow. People like that. Let's do a record like that.' And so we did."
That led the duo to record Adieu False Heart, a Grammy-nominated release in 2006.
For many intents and purposes, Adieu was basically done in the Savoys' backyard with the Red Stick Ramblers backing up the women.
"We made this demo, which was to show them what we could do," Savoy said. "We sent that to Vanguard, and they immediately wanted it and Steve Buckingham produced it."
From there, they went to Breaux Bridge and to acclaimed musician and record producer Dirk Powell's studio. And then it was onto Nashville where "they added a whole lot of Nashville musicians on there," she said.
"She likes it here. She likes my house. She likes Louisiana. She likes the food. She likes the people," Savoy said. "She loved all our young friends — loved those guys, loved the musicianship — it's an appealing thing."
As they worked together, they discovered, that their voices complement each other.
"We both have kind of what I would call a round voice. It's kind of like a clear, round voice," Savoy said. "I think it's something about the tonality of our voices that just works together. It was a dream to find her, honestly, and sing with her."
Ronstadt recalled those days when Savoy would head out to Tucson while working on Adieu False Heart.
"She bunked in with me for a week or so and we just sang and we were very surprised that we liked to sing together," Ronstadt said. "I mean, it's a very hard combination of voices because I'm so loud and she's so soft. But I worked around that and I just loved what she was digging for.
“She's such a veteran musician, knows the business, understands what is good. She has a good gut reaction to it — a lot of experience — I really listen to what she says.”
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"She has a beautiful sensibility. Ann has artist's sensibility, both visually and in terms of sound," Ronstadt said. "She can really hear and see beautiful things and it's a treat to be with her."
When the two visit these days, Ronstadt said Savoy "always has a beautiful book to show me, or we go to the museum to look at paintings," she said. "Or she always has a bunch of stuff that she's been listening to and she puts it on her laptop and we sit around in our pajamas and listen to it."
Savoy spent time with Ronstadt just a couple of weeks ago to discuss a project "that is something that is trying to morph into something," Ronstadt said. "I don't know what it will be exactly. I mean, I don't know exactly what I can do because I can't travel and I can't sing anymore."
Ronstadt, who has Parkinson's disease, said she basically just listened to music with Savoy while they went through songs for an upcoming release, a follow-up to Adieu False Heart that would include Patty Griffin, Linda Thompson, Allison Krause, Cami Thompson and Savoy.
"That's what we did when we recorded (Adieu, False Heart), except for that I sang part of it," Ronstadt said. "I imagine she's going to find other people to sing with her. She's embarked on that journey. I don't know what will happen. Honestly, I don't know what I can do. I can try. I can say, 'Atta girl, Ann. You're doing a great job.'
"I really don't know what it is I can do," Ronstadt said. "So far, all I have done is sat and listened to some songs with her and said 'I like this song. I like that song.' "
And Savoy is cool with that.
"She's such a veteran musician, knows the business, understands what is good," Savoy said. "She has a good gut reaction to it — a lot of experience — I really listen to what she says.
"Which is unusual," she said. "On music, I've got my own ideas. Luckily, our tastes are really the same."
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