Linda Ronstadt is an American
popular musicPopular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
recording artist. She has earned eleven
Grammy AwardA Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s, two
Academy of Country MusicThe Academy of Country Music was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Whereas the Country Music Association, founded in 1958, was based in Nashville, the Academy sought to promote country music in the western states. Among those involved in the...
awards, an
Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
, an
ALMA AwardThe American Latino Media Arts Award, or ALMA Award is a distinction awarded to Latino performers who promote positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment field...
, numerous United States and internationally certified
goldMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
,
platinumMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
and
multiplatinumMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
albums, in addition to
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
and Golden Globe nominations.
A singer, songwriter, and
record producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, she is recognized as a definitive
interpreterIn popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of songs. Being one of music's most versatile and commercially successful female singers in U.S. history, she is recognized for her many public stages of self-reinvention and incarnations.
With a one-time standing as the Queen of Rock, where she was bestowed the title of "highest paid woman in rock", and known as the First Lady of Rock, she has more recently emerged as music matriarch, international arts
advocateAn advocate is a term for a professional lawyer used in several different legal systems. These include Scotland, South Africa, India, Scandinavian jurisdictions, Israel, and the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
and
Human RightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
advocate.
Ronstadt has collaborated with artists from a diverse spectrum of genres—including
Billy EckstineWilliam Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
,
Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
,
Rosemary ClooneyRosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
,
Flaco JiménezLeonardo "Flaco" Jiménez is a Tejano music accordionist from San Antonio, Texas. Jiménez's father, Santiago Jiménez Sr. was a pioneer of conjunto music. He began performing with his father at age seven and recording at age fifteen, as a member of Los Caporales...
,
Philip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
,
The ChieftainsThe Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
,
Gram ParsonsGram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
,
Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
and has lent her voice to over 120 albums around the world. Christopher Loudon of Jazz Times noted in 2004, Ronstadt is "Blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation ... rarest of rarities—a chameleon who can blend into any background yet remain boldly distinctive ... It's an exceptional gift; one shared by few others."
In total, she has released over 30 solo albums, more than 15
compilationsA compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
or
greatest hitsA greatest hits album is a music compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular artist or band...
albums. Ronstadt has charted thirty-eight
Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
singles, twenty-one of which have reached the top 40, ten of which have reached the top 10, three peaking at #2, the #1 hit, "
You're No Good"You're No Good" is a song written by Clint Ballard, Jr. which first charted for Betty Everett in 1963 and in 1975 was a #1 hit for Linda Ronstadt....
". In the UK, her single "Blue Bayou" reached the UK Top 40 and the duet with Aaron Neville, "
Don't Know Much"Don't Know Much" is a song written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow and made famous when performed as a duet by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville on Ronstadt's 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind...
", peaked at #2 in December 1989. In addition, she has charted thirty-six albums, ten Top 10 albums, and three #1 albums on the
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Pop Album Charts.
Early life
Linda Ronstadt was born in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, in 1946 to Gilbert Ronstadt (1911–1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary Copeman Ronstadt (1917–1982), a homemaker with a gift for science.
Ronstadt was raised, along with her brothers Peter (who served as Tucson's
Chief of PoliceA Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
1981–1992), Michael J., and sister Gretchen (Suzy), on the family's 10 acres (4 ha) ranch. The family was featured in
Family CircleFamily Circle is an American women's magazine published 15 times a year by Meredith Corporation. It began publication in 1932 as a magazine distributed at supermarkets such as Piggly Wiggly and Safeway. Cowles Magazines and Broadcasting bought the magazine in 1962. The New York Times Company bought...
magazine in 1953.
Linda's father Gilbert came from a
pioneeringA settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...
Arizona ranching family and was of
MexicanMexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
descent, with some
GermanGerman Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
and
English AmericanEnglish Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
ancestry. Their influence and contributions to Arizona's history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies and music, is chronicled in the library of the
University of ArizonaThe University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. Linda Ronstadt's great grandfather, graduate engineer Friedrich August Ronstadt (who went by the name Federico Augusto Ronstadt) immigrated to the
West.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
(then a part of
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany, and married a Mexican citizen, and eventually settled in Tucson. In 1991, the City of Tucson opened its central transit terminal on March 16 and dedicated it to Linda's grandfather, local pioneer businessman
Federico José María RonstadtFederico José María Ronstadt was a business and cultural leader in Tucson, Arizona's early 20th century. Born in Las Delicias, Sonora, Mexico in 1868, Fred came to Tucson in 1882 to learn the blacksmithing and wheelwright trades. He eventually formed the F. Ronstadt wagon and carriage company,...
. Ronstadt was a wagon maker whose early contribution to the city's mobility included six mule-drawn streetcars delivered in 1903–04.
Her mother Ruth Mary was of German, English, and Dutch descent. Ruth Mary was the daughter of
Lloyd Groff CopemanLloyd Groff Copeman was a prolific American inventor who devised the first electric stove and the flexible rubber ice cube tray, among other products. Copeman was raised by his Canadian parents on a farm in Hadley Township, Michigan which was later incorporated into Farmer's Creek, Michigan -...
, a prolific inventor and holder of many patents. She was raised in the
Flint, MichiganFlint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
, area. Lloyd, with nearly 700 patents to his name, invented an early form of the
toasterThe toaster is typically a small electric kitchen appliance designed to toast multiple types of bread products. A typical modern two-slice toaster draws anywhere between 600 and 1200 W and makes toast in 1 to 3 minutes...
, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first
electric stoveAn electric stove converts electricity into heat to cook and bake.- History :On September 20, 1859, George B. Simpson was awarded US patent #25532 for an 'electro-heater' surface heated by an platinum-wire coil powered by batteries; in his words, useful to "warm rooms, boil water, cook...
, and an early form of the
microwave ovenA microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that heats food by dielectric heating, using microwave radiation to heat polarized molecules within the food...
. His flexible rubber
ice cube trayIce cubes are small, roughly cube-shaped pieces of ice, conventionally used to cool beverages. Ice cubes are often preferred over crushed ice because they melt more slowly; they are standard in mixed drinks that call for ice, in which case the drink is said to be "on the rocks."Ice cubes are...
earned him millions of dollars in royalties.
Career summary
Establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s at the forefront of
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's emerging
folk rockFolk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
and
country rockCountry rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
movements, genres which later defined post-60s
rock musicRock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, Linda Ronstadt joined forces with
Bobby KimmelBobby Kimmel lives in Tucson, Arizona and is a musician and songwriter who currently performs with the acoustic folk group, BK Special. He has been recording and performing in concert for over 40 years and was a founding member of the Stone Poneys, along with Linda Ronstadt and Kenny Edwards.Bobby...
and
Kenny EdwardsKenny Edwards was an American singer/songwriter. He was a founding member of The Stone Poneys and a long-time collaborator with both Linda Ronstadt and Karla Bonoff.-Biography:...
and became the lead singer of a successful folk rock trio, The Stone Poneys. Later, as a solo artist, she released
Hand Sown ... Home GrownHand Sown ... Home Grown is a 1969 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. Produced by Chip Douglas of the Turtles, it was Ronstadt's first solo release following three Folk Rock albums with her band The Stone Poneys. The album saw Ronstadt take a decisive turn away from the...
in 1969, which has been described as the first
alternative countryAlternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
record by a female recording artist. Although fame eluded her during these years, Ronstadt actively toured with
The DoorsThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
,
Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
,
Jackson BrowneJackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
and others, made numerous television show appearances, and began to contribute her voice to a variety of albums.
However, with the successful release of chart-topping albums such as
Heart Like a WheelHeart Like a Wheel is Linda Ronstadt's fifth solo album release and the last-ever of her studio projects for Capitol Records, released in late 1974. It is universally considered to be Ronstadt's all-time high watermark masterpiece recording and a pioneering blueprint of Country Rock...
,
Simple DreamsSimple Dreams is one of the most successful albums of Linda Ronstadt's career, spending five consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart in late 1977. It also knocked Elvis Presley out of No...
, and
Living in the USALiving In The USA is a 1978 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. The album was Ronstadt's third No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and was the first album in history to ship Double Platinum...
, coupled with the fact that Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star, setting records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade, Ronstadt became a celebrity and an illustrious star of the highest magnitude and the most successful female artist of her era. Recognized as the "First Lady of Rock" and the "Queen of Rock", Ronstadt was voted the Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s. Her rock and roll image was equally as famous as her music, appearing six times on the cover of
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, as well as
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
and
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
covers. In the 1980s, Ronstadt went to
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, garnered a Tony nomination, teamed with composer
Philip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, recorded traditional music, and collaborated with famed conductor
Nelson RiddleNelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...
, an event at that time viewed as an original and unorthodox move for a rock and roll artist. This venture paid off, and Ronstadt remained one of the music industry's best-selling acts throughout the 1980s with multi-platinum selling albums such as
What's NewWhat's New is a Grammy-nominated, Triple Platinum-certified, 1983 Jazz album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt consisting of nine songs of Jazz music. It represents the first in a trilogy of 1980s albums Ronstadt recorded with the bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle...
,
Canciones de Mi PadreCanciones De Mi Padre was American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt's first album of Mexican traditional Mariachi music. This album has never been out of print.-History:...
and
Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the WindCry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind is a Grammy award winning, Triple Platinum-certified 1989 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt featuring American soul singer Aaron Neville. This album was taken out of print in 2009—twenty years after release.-History:The album is a...
. Ronstadt has continued to successfully tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums, such as
Winter LightWinter Light is an out of print New Age-styled album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt, released in late 1993. Although it sold less than 300,000 copies in the US, it stands as one of Linda's most acclaimed albums.-History:...
, and Hummin' to Myself. Ronstadt's thirty-plus album catalog continue to be best-sellers, with the vast majority of them certified
goldMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
,
platinumMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
and
multiplatinumMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
. Having sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide and setting records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade, Linda Ronstadt was the most successful female singer of the 1970s and stands one of the most successful female recording artists in United States history. A consummate American artist, Ronstadt opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres by championing songwriters and musicians, pioneering her chart success onto the concert circuit, and being at the
vanguardAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
of many musical movements.
Early influences
Linda Ronstadt's early family life was filled with music and tradition, which influenced the stylistic and musical choices she later made in her career. Growing up, she listened to many types of music, including
Mexican musicThe music of Mexico is very diverse and features a wide range of different musical styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably indigenous Mexican and European, since the Late Middle Ages...
, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood. Ronstadt has remarked that everything she has recorded on her own records—rock 'n' roll, jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, opera, country, choral, and mariachi—is all music she heard her family sing in their living room, or heard played on the radio, by the age of 10. She credits her mother for her appreciation of
Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
and her father for introducing her to the traditional pop and
Great American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
repertoire that she would, in turn, help reintroduce to an entire generation. Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as
Lola BeltránLola Beltrán was a Mexican film actress and one of the most acclaimed Mexican ranchera singers, nicknamed Lola la Grande .-Biography:...
and
Édith PiafÉdith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
; she has called their singing and rhythms "more like Greek music ... It's sort of like 6/8
time signatureThe time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
... very hard driving and very intense." She also drew influence from country singer Hank Williams. She has said that "all girl singers" eventually "have to curtsy to
Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
and
Billie HolidayBillie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
". Of
Maria CallasMaria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
, Ronstadt says, "There's no one in her league. That's it. Period. I learn more ... about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays.... She's the greatest chick singer ever."< She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th-century singing, particularly opera, back into the
Bel cantoBel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
"natural style of singing". A self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and '60s, she was a fan of its eclectic and diverse music programming.
Beginning of professional career
At 14, Ronstadt formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Suzy. The group played coffeehouses, fraternity houses, and other small venues, billing themselves as "The Union City Ramblers" and "The Three Ronstadts", and they even recorded themselves at a Tucson studio under the name "The New Union Ramblers". Their repertoire included the music they grew up on—folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican. But increasingly, Ronstadt wanted to make a union of folk music and rock 'n' roll, and in 1964, after a semester at college (sources differ between Tucson's
University of ArizonaThe University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
and Arizona State University), the 17 year old decided to move to Los Angeles.
The Stone Poneys
Linda visited a friend from Tucson,
Bobby KimmelBobby Kimmel lives in Tucson, Arizona and is a musician and songwriter who currently performs with the acoustic folk group, BK Special. He has been recording and performing in concert for over 40 years and was a founding member of the Stone Poneys, along with Linda Ronstadt and Kenny Edwards.Bobby...
, in Los Angeles during Easter break from college in 1964, and later that year, shortly before her eighteenth birthday, decided to move there permanently to form a band with him. Kimmel had already begun co-writing folk-rock songs with guitarist-songwriter
Kenny EdwardsKenny Edwards was an American singer/songwriter. He was a founding member of The Stone Poneys and a long-time collaborator with both Linda Ronstadt and Karla Bonoff.-Biography:...
, and eventually the three of them were signed by Nik Venet to
CapitolCapitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
in the summer of 1966 as "The Stone Poneys". The trio released three albums in a 15-month period in 1967–68:
The Stone PoneysThe Stone Poneys is the debut studio album by the Stone Poneys; other than an early single of "So Fine" that was produced by Mike Curb in 1965, this album marks the first official recordings by Linda Ronstadt...
;
Evergreen, Volume 2Evergreen, Volume 2 is the second album from the Stone Poneys that was released five months after The Stone Poneys. The volume number is a reference to this being the band's second album.-Release Data:...
; and
Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. IIILinda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III is the third and final album by The Stone Poneys. Linda Ronstadt would release her first solo album the following year. The volume number is a reference to this being the third album by the band, though with a Roman numeral rather than the Arabic...
. The band is best known for their hit single "
Different Drum"Different Drum" is a 1966 song written by Mike Nesmith and originally recorded by the northern bluegrass band the Greenbriar Boys and included on their 1966 album, Better Late than Never!. The song tells of a pair of lovers, one of whom wants to settle down, while the other wants to retain a sense...
" (written and composed by
Michael NesmithRobert Michael Nesmith is an American musician, songwriter, actor, producer, novelist, businessman, and philanthropist, best known as a member of the musical group The Monkees and star of the TV series of the same name...
prior to his joining
the MonkeesThe Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
), which reached #13 on the
Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart as well as #12 in Cashbox magazine. More than 40 years later, the song remains one of Ronstadt's most popular recordings.
Besides recording one of her most enduring songs, Linda Ronstadt was already showcasing her highly expressive performance of an eclectic mix of songs, often from under-appreciated songwriters, utilizing a wide array of backing musicians. Additionally, many of her songs, including "Different Drum", were written and composed by male songwriters and had minimal lyric changes, allowing Ronstadt to toy with gender roles that were in ferment in the 1960s and 1970s. While the Stone Poneys broke up before the release of their third album, Kenny Edwards recorded and toured with Ronstadt from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.
(In 2008—as a testament to the continuing interest in Linda's early work with this band—Australia's
Raven RecordsRaven Records is an Australian record label that specializes in retrospectives and reissues or recordings by American, British and Australian artists.Raven Records was established in 1979 by Glenn A. Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito....
released a compilation CD titled The Stone Poneys. The disc features all tracks from the first two Stone Poneys albums and four tracks from the third album.)
Solo career
Still contractually obligated to Capitol Records, Ronstadt released her first solo album,
Hand Sown ... Home GrownHand Sown ... Home Grown is a 1969 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. Produced by Chip Douglas of the Turtles, it was Ronstadt's first solo release following three Folk Rock albums with her band The Stone Poneys. The album saw Ronstadt take a decisive turn away from the...
, in 1969. It has been called the first
alternative countryAlternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
record by a female recording artist. During this same period, she contributed to the
Music From Free CreekMusic From Free Creek is an album from a series of 1969 "super session" recordings by Free Creek, a group composed of a number of internationally renowned musical artists of the time, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Emerson, Mitch Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt...
"super session" project.
Ronstadt provided the vocals for some commercials during this period, including one for
RemingtonRemington Products, commonly known as simply Remington, is a worldwide personal care corporation which manufactures razors , epilators, and haircare products for both men and women. It is a subsidiary of Spectrum Brands.-History:...
electric razors, in which a multitracked Ronstadt and
Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
claimed that the electric razor "cleans you, thrills you ... may even keep you from getting busted".
Ronstadt's second solo album,
Silk PurseSilk Purse is the second solo album by Linda Ronstadt, released in March 1970, a year after the release of her first solo set, Hand Sown ... Home Grown...
, was released in March 1970. Recorded entirely in Nashville, it was produced by
Elliot MazerElliot Mazer is a producer, executive, technologist, and project leader. Elliot produced multi-platinum albums for artists including Neil Young, Janis Joplin, and Linda Ronstadt. He was the recording engineer of the live Last Waltz Concert. Meanwhile he has also built, designed, owned and operated...
, whom Ronstadt chose on the advice of
Janis JoplinJanis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, who had worked with him on her Cheap Thrills album. The Silk Purse album cover showed Ronstadt in a muddy pigpen, while the back and inside cover depicted her onstage wearing bright red. Ronstadt has stated that she was not pleased with the album, although it provided her with her first solo hit, the multi-format single "
Long Long Time", and earned her her first Grammy nomination (for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance/Female).
Touring
In a 1976
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
interview with
Cameron CroweCameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
, Ronstadt explained that "they haven't invented a word for that loneliness that everybody goes through on the road. The world is tearing by you, real fast, and all these people are looking at you.... People see me in my 'girl-singer' suit."
Several years before Ronstadt became what author Gerri Hirshey called the first "arena-class rock diva", with "hugely anticipated tours", she began her solo career touring the North American concert circuit. But being on the road took its toll both emotionally and professionally. There were few "girl singers" on the Rock circuit at the time, and those that were, were relegated to "groupie level when in a crowd of a bunch of rock and roll guys", a status Ronstadt avoided. Relating to men on a professional level as fellow musicians led to competition, insecurity, bad romances, and a series of boyfriend-managers. At the time, she admired singers like
Maria MuldaurMaria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...
for not sacrificing their femininity, but says she felt enormous self-imposed pressure to compete with "the boys" at every level. She noted in a 1969 interview in Fusion magazine that it was difficult being a single "chick singer" with an all-male backup band. According to her, it was difficult to get a band of backing musicians because of their ego problem of being labeled sidemen for a female singer.
Soon after she went solo in the late 1960s, one of her first backing bands was the pioneering country-rock band
SwampwaterSwampwater was an American country rock band, that formed and started out initially as Linda Ronstadt’s backing group in the late 1960s, soon after she went solo. They are famous for incorporating cajun and swamp-rock elements into their music...
, famous for synthesizing
CajunCajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...
and swamp-rock elements into their music. Its members included Cajun
fiddlerA fiddler is a person who plays a fiddle or violin.Fiddler may also refer to:*Fabrangen Fiddlers, an American musical group founded in 1971*Tupolev Tu-28 "Fiddler", a fighter aircraft*Fiddler , a DC Comics villain...
Gib GuilbeauFloyd August "Gib" Guilbeau is an American country-rock musician and songwriter. As a member of Nashville West, Swampwater, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Guilbeau helped pioneer the fusion of rock and country music in the 1960s....
and John Beland, who later joined
The Flying Burrito BrothersThe Flying Burrito Brothers was an early country rock band, best known for its influential debut album,The Gilded Palace of Sin . Although the group is most often mentioned in connection with country rock legends Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, the group underwent many personnel changes.-Original...
, as well as Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell and Eric White, brother of
Clarence WhiteClarence White was a guitar player for Nashville West, The Byrds, Muleskinner, and the Kentucky Colonels. His parents were Acadians from New Brunswick, Canada...
of
The ByrdsThe Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
. Swampwater went on to back Ronstadt during TV appearances on
The Johnny Cash ShowThe Johnny Cash Show was an American television music variety show hosted by Johnny Cash. The Screen Gems 58-episode series ran from June 7, 1969 to March 31, 1971 on ABC; it was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. The show reached No...
and
The Mike Douglas ShowThe Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that aired in syndication from 1961 to 1982, distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations.The program featured light banter with...
, and at the Big Sur Folk Festival.
Another backing band featured players
Don HenleyDonald Hugh "Don" Henley is an American singer, songwriter and drummer, best known as a founding member of the Eagles before launching a successful solo career. Henley was the drummer and lead vocalist for the Eagles from 1971–1980, when the band broke up...
,
Glenn FreyGlenn Lewis Frey is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Frey formed the Eagles after he met drummer Don Henley in 1970 and the two eventually joined Linda Ronstadt's backup band for her summer tour. The Eagles formed in 1971 and...
,
Bernie LeadonBernard Mathew "Bernie" Leadon, III is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of two pioneering and highly influential country rock bands, Dillard & Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers...
and
Randy MeisnerRandy Herman Meisner is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of Poco and the Eagles...
, who went on to form the Eagles. They toured with her for a short period in 1971 and played on
Linda RonstadtLinda Ronstadt is the third solo album by Linda Ronstadt, released in 1971 on the Capitol Records label. The album peaked at #163 on Billboard's album chart and is considered to be a front-runner in the country rock music genre.-History:...
, her self-titled third album. At this stage, Ronstadt began working with producer and boyfriend John Boylan. She said, "As soon as I started working with John Boylan, I started co-producing myself. I was always a part of my productions. But I always needed a producer who would carry out my whims."
Her collaborations with Peter Asher
Ronstadt began her fourth solo album,
Don't Cry NowDon't Cry Now is Linda Ronstadt's fourth solo LP and the first of her studio releases for Asylum Records, following six albums recorded for and released on Capitol Records...
, in 1973, with Boylan (who had negotiated her contract with
Asylum RecordsAsylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. Founded specifically to provide a record contract for Jackson Browne, the label signed Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell...
) and
John David "J.D." SoutherJohn David Souther is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has written and co-written numerous hits songs recorded by artists such as Linda Ronstadt and Glenn Frey of the Eagles.-Singing career:...
producing most of the album's tracks. But needing someone willing to work with her as an equal, Ronstadt asked
Peter AsherPeter Asher is an English guitarist, singer, manager and record producer. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the vocal duo Peter and Gordon before going on to a successful career as a record producer.-Early life:He was born at the Central Middlesex Hospital, a child actor and...
, who came highly recommended to her by
James TaylorJames Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
's sister
Kate TaylorKate Taylor is an American folk singer, originally from Boston, Massachusetts.-Biography:Kate was born in Boston and grew up with her four brothers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her father was Dean of the medical school at the University of North Carolina...
, to help her produce two of them: "Sail Away" and "I Believe in You." The album featured Linda's first Country hit, "
Silver Threads and Golden Needles"Silver Threads and Golden Needles", a song written by Jack Rhodes and Dick Reynolds, was first recorded by Wanda Jackson in 1956. The original lyrics, as performed by Jackson, contain a verse not usually included in later versions, which also often differed in other minor details.-Other versions:*...
", which she had first recorded on Hand Sown ... Home Grown; this time hitting the Country Top 20. With the release of Don't Cry Now, Ronstadt took on her biggest gig to date as the opening act on
Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's Time Fades Away tour, playing for larger crowds than ever before. Backstage at a concert in Texas,
Chris HillmanChristopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....
introduced her to
Emmylou HarrisEmmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, telling them, "You two could be good friends", which soon occurred, resulting in frequent collaborations over the following years. Meanwhile, the album became Ronstadt's most successful up to this time, selling 300,000 copies by the end of 1974.
Asher turned out to be more collaborative, and more on the same page with her musically, than any producer she had worked with previously. Ronstadt's professional relationship with Asher allowed her to take command and effectively delegate responsibilities in the recording studio. Although hesitant at first to work with her because of her reputation for being a "woman of strong opinions (who) knew what she wanted to do (with her career)", he nonetheless agreed to become her full-time producer, and remained in that role through the late 1980s. Asher attributed the long-term success of his working relationship with Ronstadt to the fact that he was the first person to manage and produce her with whom there was a solely professional relationship.
Asher executive produced a tribute CD called
Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, released September 6, 2011, on which Ronstadt's 1976 version of
Buddy HollyCharles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
's "
That'll Be The Day"That'll Be the Day" is a song written by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison and recorded by various artists including The Crickets and Linda Ronstadt. It was also the first song to be recorded by The Quarrymen, the skiffle group that subsequently became The Beatles...
" appears among newly-recorded versions of Holly's songs by various artists.
Vocal styles
Ronstadt captured the sounds of
country musicCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and the rhythms of ranchero music--which she likened in 1968 to "Mexican bluegrass"--and redirected them into her rock 'n' roll and some of her pop music. Many of these rhythms and sounds were part of her
SouthwesternThe Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
roots. Likewise, a country sound and style, a fusing of country music and rock 'n' roll called
Country rockCountry rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
, started to exert its influence on mainstream pop music around the late 1960s, and it became an emerging movement Ronstadt helped form and commercialize. However, as early as 1970, Ronstadt was being criticized by music "purists" for her "brand of music" which crossed many genres. Country Western Stars magazine wrote in 1970 that "Rock people thought she was too gentle, folk people thought she was too pop, and pop people didn't quite understand where she was at, but Country people really loved Linda." She never categorized herself and stuck to her genre-crossing brand of music.
Interpretive singer
Ronstadt is considered an "interpreter of her times", and has earned praise for her courage to put her own unique "stamp" on many of these songs. Although many of her hits were criticized for being cover songs, they were the songs the record companies elected to cull and release off the albums. More importantly, Linda Ronstadt became a highly successful "Albums Artist", some of which contain material written by her. Ronstadt's natural vocal range spans several
octaveIn music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
s from
contraltoContralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
to
sopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, and occasionally she will showcase this entire range within a single work. Ronstadt was the first female artist in popular music history to accumulate four consecutive
platinumPlatinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...
albums (fourteen certified million selling, to date). As for the singles,
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
Magazine pointed out that a whole generation, "but for her, might never have heard the work of artists such as
Buddy HollyCharles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
,
Elvis CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, and
Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
."
Others have argued that Ronstadt had the same generational effect with her
Great American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
music, exposing a whole new generation to the music of the 1920s and '30s—music which, ironically, was pushed aside because of the advent of rock 'n' roll. When interpreting, Ronstadt said she "sticks to what the music demands", in terms of lyrics. Explaining that rock and roll music is part of her culture, she says that the songs she sang after her rock and roll hits were part of her soul. "The (Mariachi music) was my father's side of the soul", she was quoted as saying in a 1998 interview she gave at her Tucson home. "My mother's side of my soul was the Nelson Riddle stuff. And I had to do them both in order to reestablish who I was."
In the 1974 book Rock 'N' Roll Woman, author Katherine Orloff writes that Ronstadt's "own musical preferences run strongly to rhythm and blues, the type of music she most frequently chooses to listen to ... (and) her goal is to ... be soulful too. With this in mind, Ronstadt fuses country and rock into a special union."
By this stage of her career, Ronstadt had established her niche in the field of country-rock. Along with other musicians such as
The Flying Burrito BrothersThe Flying Burrito Brothers was an early country rock band, best known for its influential debut album,The Gilded Palace of Sin . Although the group is most often mentioned in connection with country rock legends Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, the group underwent many personnel changes.-Original...
,
Emmylou HarrisEmmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
,
Gram ParsonsGram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
,
SwampwaterSwampwater was an American country rock band, that formed and started out initially as Linda Ronstadt’s backing group in the late 1960s, soon after she went solo. They are famous for incorporating cajun and swamp-rock elements into their music...
,
Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, and the Eagles, she helped free country music from stereotypes and showed rockers that country was OK. However, she stated that she was being pushed hard into singing more
Rock & RollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
.
Most successful female singer of the 1970s
Author
Father Andrew GreeleyFather Andrew M. Greeley is an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and fiction writer....
, in his book God in Popular Culture, described Ronstadt as "the most successful and certainly the most durable and most gifted woman Rock singer of her era." Signaling her wide popularity as a concert artist, outside of the singles charts and the recording studio,
Dirty Linen magazine describes her as the "first true woman rock 'n' roll superstar ... (selling) out stadiums with a string of mega-successful albums."
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
defines her as the American female rock superstar of the decade.Cash Box gave Ronstadt a Special Decade Award, as the top selling female singer of the 1970s. Coupled with the fact that her album covers, posters, magazine covers—basically her entire rock n roll image conveyed—was just as famous as her music. That by the end of the decade, the singer whom the Chicago Sun Times described as the "Dean of the 1970s school of female rock singers" became what
RedbookRedbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
called, "the most successful female rock star in the world","Female" being the important qualifier, according to
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, labeling her "a rarity ... to (have survived) ... in the shark-infested deeps of rock."
Having been a cult favorite on the music scene for several years, 1975 was "remembered in the music biz as the year when 29-year-old Linda Ronstadt belatedly happened." With the release of Heart Like A Wheel, Ronstadt reached #1 on the Billboard Album Chart (it was also the first of four #1 Country Albums for Ronstadt) and the disc was certified Double-Platinum (over 2 million copies sold in the United States). In many instances, her own interpretations were more successful than the original recordings and many times new songwriters were discovered by a larger audience as a result of Ronstadt interpreting and recording their songs. Interestingly, Ronstadt had major success interpreting songs from a diverse spectrum of artists. This skill would eventually serve her later in her career, as a noted master song interpreter.
Heart Like A Wheel first single release was "
You're No Good"You're No Good" is a song written by Clint Ballard, Jr. which first charted for Betty Everett in 1963 and in 1975 was a #1 hit for Linda Ronstadt....
"—a rockified version of an R&B song written by
Clint Ballard, Jr.Clint Ballard, Jr. was an American songwriter. He wrote two Billboard Hot 100 number one hits. The first was "Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders in 1965...
that Ronstadt had initially resisted because Andrew Gold's guitar tracks sounded too much like a "Beatles song" to her—climbed to #1 on both the
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
and Cash Box Pop singles charts. The album's second single release was "
When Will I Be Loved"When Will I Be Loved" is a popular song, written by Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers and a #8 hit single for that duo in the summer of 1960. The track had been recorded in 1959 while the Everly Brothers were contracted to Cadence Records; by 1960 they had moved to Warner Brothers and recording...
"—an uptempo Country Rock version of a Top 10 Everly Brothers song—hit #1 in Cash Box and #2 in Billboard. The song was also Linda's first #1 Country hit.
The album showed a physically attractive Ronstadt on the cover but, more importantly, its critical and commercial success was due to a fine presentation of country and rock with Heart Like A Wheel, her first of many major commercial successes that would set her on the path to being one of the best-selling female artists of all time. Ronstadt won her first Grammy Award for
Best Country Vocal Performance/FemaleThe Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance was first awarded in 1965, to Dottie West. The award has had several minor name changes:*From 1965 to 1967 the award was known as Best Country & Western Vocal Performance - Female...
for "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" which was originally a 1940s hit by Hank Williams. Ronstadt's interpretation peaked at #2 on the Country charts. The album itself was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy as well as the Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female trophy.
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine put Linda on its cover in March 1975. This was the first of six Rolling Stone magazine covers shot by photographer
Annie LeibovitzAnna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
. It included her as the featured artist with a full photo layout and an article by
Ben Fong-TorresBenjamin Fong-Torres is an American rock journalist, author, and broadcaster best known for his association with Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle .-Biography:Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Fong-Torres' father, Ricardo Fong-Torres Benjamin Fong-Torres (方振豪; Cantonese:...
, discussing Ronstadt's many struggling years in rock n roll, as well as her home life and what it was like to be a woman on tour in a decidedly all-male environment.
In September 1975, Linda's album
Prisoner In DisguisePrisoner In Disguise is Linda Ronstadt's sixth solo LP release and her second for the label Asylum Records. It followed Ronstadt's Multi-Platinum breakthrough album, Heart Like A Wheel, which became her first of three #1 albums on the Billboard album chart in early 1975.This album has never been...
was released. It quickly climbed into the Top Five on the Billboard Album Chart and sold over a million copies. It became her second in a row to go platinum, "a grand slam" in the same year (Ronstadt would eventually be the first female artist in popular music history to have three consecutive platinum albums and would ultimately go on to have eight consecutive platinum albums, and then another six between 1983 and 1990). The disc's first single release was "
Love Is A Rose"Love Is a Rose" is a song written by Neil Young in 1974 for the unreleased album Homegrown. It was later released in 1977 on the compilation Decade....
". It was climbing the Pop and Country charts but
Heat Wave" Heat Wave" is a 1963 hit single penned by the Holland–Dozier–Holland songwriting team and made popular by Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas. It was originally released in July 1963, on the Motown subsidiary label Gordy, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Hot...
, a rockified version of the 1963 hit by
Martha and the VandellasMartha and the Vandellas were among the most successful groups of the Motown roster during the period 1963–1967...
, was receiving considerable airplay. Asylum pulled the "Love Is A Rose" single and issued "Heat Wave" with "Love Is A Rose" on the B-side. "Heat Wave" hit the Top Five on Billboard's Hot 100 while "Love Is A Rose" hit the Top Five on Billboard's Country chart.
In 1976, Ronstadt reached the Top 3 of Billboard's Album Chart and won her second career Grammy Award for
Best Female Pop Vocal PerformanceThe Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance is the latest in a series of awards recognizing superior vocal performance by a female in the pop category, the first of which was presented in 1959. The award goes to the artist...
for her third consecutive platinum album
Hasten Down The WindHasten Down The Wind is a 1976 album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt and was Ronstadt's third straight million-selling album. Ronstadt was the first female artist in history to accomplish this feat. The album earned Ronstadt a Grammy for "Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female" in 1977,...
. The album featured a sexy, revealing cover shot and showcased Ronstadt the
singer-songwriterSinger-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
, who composed two of its songs, "Try Me Again" and "Lo Siento Mi Vida". It also included an interpretation of Willie Nelson's classic "Crazy", which became a Top 10 Country hit for Ronstadt in early 1977.
At the end of 1977, Ronstadt surpassed the success of Heart Like A Wheel with her album
Simple DreamsSimple Dreams is one of the most successful albums of Linda Ronstadt's career, spending five consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart in late 1977. It also knocked Elvis Presley out of No...
, which held the #1 position for five consecutive weeks on the Billboard Album Chart. It also knocked
Elvis PresleyElvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
out of #1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart. It sold over 3½ million copies in less than a year in the U.S. alone. The album was released in September 1977, and by December it had replaced
Fleetwood MacFleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
's long running #1 album
RumoursRumours is the eleventh studio album by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac. Largely recorded in California during 1976, it was produced by the band with Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut and was released on 4 February 1977 by Warner Bros. Records. The record peaked at the top of both the...
in the top spot. Simple Dreams spawned a string of hit singles on numerous charts. Among them were the RIAA platinum-certified single "
Blue Bayou"Blue Bayou" is the title of a song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and sung by Orbison.-Roy Orbison version:A plaintive ballad, it was originally released by Orbison as a 45rpm single on the Monument Records label in August 1963 ."Blue Bayou" also appears on Orbison's 1963 album, In Dreams...
", a Country Rock interpretation of a
Roy OrbisonRoy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
song, "It's So Easy"—previously sung by Buddy Holly—and "
Poor Poor Pitiful Me"Poor Poor Pitiful Me" is a rock song written by Warren Zevon.-Content:In keeping with Zevon's sardonic lyrical style, the song's verses deal with a failed suicide, domestic abuse, and a brush with sadomasochism. The song appeared first on Zevon's 1976 self-titled solo album...
", a song written by
Warren ZevonWarren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
, an up and coming songwriter of the time whom Ronstadt elected to highlight and record. The album garnered several Grammy Award nominations—including Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for "Blue Bayou"—and won its art director,
KoshKosh is an English art director, album cover designer, graphic artist, and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House...
, a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, the first of three Grammy Awards he would win for designing Ronstadt album covers.
Simple Dreams became one of the singer's most successful international selling albums as well, reaching #1 on the Australian and Canadian Pop and Country Albums charts. Simple Dreams also made Ronstadt the most successful international female touring artist as well. The same year, she completed a highly successful concert tour around Europe. As Country Music Magazine wrote in October 1978, Simple Dreams solidified Ronstadt's role as "easily the most successful female rock and roll and country star at this time."
Also in 1977, she was asked by the
Los Angeles DodgersThe Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
to sing the U.S. National Anthem at game three of the
World SeriesThe World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
against the
New York YankeesThe New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
.
Time Magazine and Linda's 'Rock Chick' image
Ronstadt has remarked that she felt as though she was "artificially encouraged to kinda cop a really tough attitude (and be tough) because
Rock & RollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
is kind of tough (business)", which she felt wasn't worn quite
authenticallyAuthenticity is a technical term in existentialist philosophy, and is also used in the philosophy of art and psychology. In philosophy, the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very...
. Female rock artists like her and
Janis JoplinJanis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, whom she described as lovely, shy and very literate in real life and the
antithesisAntithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
of the "red hot mamma" routine she was artificially encouraged to project, went through an
identity crisis"Identity crisis is the failure to achieve ego identity during adolescence." The term was coined by the psychologist Erik Erikson. The stage of psychosocial development in which identity crisis may occur is called the Identity Cohesion versus Role Confusion stage...
.
Eventually, Ronstadt's
Rock & RollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
image became just as famous as her music by the mid 1970s. The 1977 appearance on the cover of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine under the banner "
TorchyA torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship...
Rock" was controversial for Ronstadt, considering what the image appeared to project about the most famous woman in rock. At a time in the industry when men still told women what to sing and what to wear, Ronstadt hated the image of her that was projected to the world on the cover of Time magazine, and she noted recently how the photographer kept forcing her to wear a dress, which was an image she did not want to project (although she wore a rather revealing dress for the cover of Hasten Down the Wind which projected an image of her not all that different from the Time magazine cover). In 2004, she was interviewed for CBS This Morning and stated that this image was not her because she didn't sit like that. Asher noted, "anyone who's met Linda for 10 seconds will know that I couldn't possibly have been her
SvengaliSvengali is a fictional character of George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby. Svengali "would either fawn or bully and could be grossly impertinent. He had a kind of cynical humour that was more offensive than amusing and always laughed at the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place...
. She's an extremely determined woman, in every area. To me, she was everything that feminism's about." Qualities which, Asher has stated, were considered a "negative (in a woman at that time), whereas in a man they were perceived as being masterful and bold". Since her solo career began, Ronstadt has fought hard to be recognized as a solo female singer in the world of rock, and her portrayal on the Time cover didn't appear to help the situation. It was in 1976 that
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine published in its cover story an alluring collection of photographs taken by
Annie LeibovitzAnna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
, which helped to further the image that Ronstadt later said she wasn't pleased with. Ronstadt and Asher claim to have viewed the photos prior to publication and, when asked that they be removed and the request was denied, they unceremoniously threw Leibovitz out of the house.
In 1978 Rolling Stone magazine declared Ronstadt, "by far America's best-known female rock singer". She scored a third #1 album on the Billboard Album Chart—unsurpassed by any female artist at this point in time—with
Living In The USALiving In The USA is a 1978 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. The album was Ronstadt's third No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and was the first album in history to ship Double Platinum...
. Linda achieved a major hit single with "Ooh Baby Baby", with her rendition hitting all four major singles charts (Pop, AC, Country and R&B). Living In The USA was the first album by any recording act, in music history, to ship double-platinum (over 2 million advanced copies). The album eventually sold 3 million U.S. copies.
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
magazine crowned Linda Ronstadt with three #1 Awards for the Year: #1 Pop Female Singles Artist of the Year; #1 Pop Female Album Artist of the Year; #1 Female Artist of the Year (overall).
Living In The USA showed the singer on roller skates with a newly short, permed hairdo on the album cover. Ronstadt continued this theme on concert tour promotional posters with photos of her on roller skates in a dramatic pose with a large American flag in the background. By this stage of her career, she was promoting every album released, with posters and concerts—which at the time were recorded live on radio and/or TV. Ronstadt was also featured in the 1978 film
FMFM is a 1978 directed by John A. Alonzo, and starring Michael Brandon, Eileen Brennan, Alex Karras and Cleavon Little. The screenplay was written by Ezra Sacks.This film was produced by Universal Pictures, and originally released to movie theaters in 1978....
, where the plot involved
disc jockeyA disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
s attempting to broadcast a Linda Ronstadt concert live, without a competing station's knowledge. The movie also showed Ronstadt performing the songs Poor Poor Pitiful Me, Love Me Tender, and
Tumbling Dice"Tumbling Dice" is a rock song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for The Rolling Stones' 1972 double album Exile on Main St., and was the album's first single. The single peaked at #7 on the US charts and #5 in the UK....
. Ronstadt was persuaded to record "Tumbling Dice" after
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
came backstage when she was at a concert and said, "You do too many ballads, you should do more rock and roll songs."
Following the success of Living in the USA, Ronstadt not only conducted successful disc promotional tours and concerts but in one concert in 1978, Ronstadt made a guest appearance onstage with
The Rolling StonesThe Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
at the Tucson Community Center on July 21, 1978, in her hometown of Tucson, where Ronstadt and
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
vocalized on "Tumbling Dice". On singing with Jagger, Ronstadt reflects " I loved it. I didn't have a trace of stage fright. I'm scared to death all the way through my own shows. But it was too much fun to get scared. He's so silly onstage, he knocks you over. I mean you have to be on your toes or you wind up falling on your face."
Highest paid woman in rock
By the end of 1978, Ronstadt had solidified her role as one of rock and pop's most successful solo female acts, and owing to her consistent platinum album success, and her ability as the first-ever woman to sell out concerts in arenas and stadiums hosting tens of thousands of fans, Ronstadt became the "highest paid woman in rock". She had six platinum certified albums, three of which went to #1 on the Billboard album chart, and numerous charted Pop singles. In 1978 alone, she made over $12 million (equivalent to $38,000,000 in today's dollars) and in the same year her albums sales were reported to be 17 million—grossing over $60 million (equivalent to a gross of over $170,000,000, in today's dollars).
As Rolling Stone magazine dubbed her "Rock's Venus", her record sales continued to multiply and set records themselves. By 1979, Ronstadt had collected eight gold, six platinum and four multi-platinum certifications for her albums, an unprecedented feat at the time. Her 1976
Greatest HitsGreatest Hits was Linda Ronstadt's first major compilation album, released at the end of 1976 for the holiday shopping season. It included material from both her Capitol Records and Asylum Records output, and went back to 1967 for The Stone Poneys' hit "Different Drum".It remains the...
album would sell consistently for the next 25 years and in 2001 was certified by the RIAA for 7 times platinum (over 7 million U.S. copies sold). In 1980,
Greatest Hits Volume IIGreatest Hits was Linda Ronstadt's first major compilation album, released at the end of 1976 for the holiday shopping season. It included material from both her Capitol Records and Asylum Records output, and went back to 1967 for The Stone Poneys' hit "Different Drum".It remains the...
was released and certified platinum.
In 1979, Ronstadt went on a successful international tour, playing in arenas across Australia to Japan, including the
Olympic Park StadiumOlympic Park Stadium was a multi-purpose outdoor stadium located on Olympic Boulevard in inner Melbourne. The stadium was built as an athletics training venue for the 1956 Olympics, a short distance from the MCG, which served as the Olympic Stadium...
in Melbourne, Australia and the
BudokanThe , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena in central Tokyo, Japan.This is the location where many "Live at the Budokan" albums were recorded...
in Tokyo, Japan. She also participated in a benefit concert for her friend
Lowell GeorgeLowell Thomas George was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who was the main guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Little Feat.- Early years :...
, held at
The ForumThe Forum is an indoor arena, in Inglewood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. From 2000 to 2010, it was owned by the Faithful Central Bible Church, which occasionally used it for church services, while also leasing the building for sporting events, concerts and other events.Along with Madison...
, in Los Angeles.
By the end of the decade, Ronstadt had outsold her female competition; no other female artist to date had five straight platinum LPs:
Hasten Down the WindHasten Down The Wind is a 1976 album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt and was Ronstadt's third straight million-selling album. Ronstadt was the first female artist in history to accomplish this feat. The album earned Ronstadt a Grammy for "Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female" in 1977,...
, and
Heart Like a WheelHeart Like a Wheel is Linda Ronstadt's fifth solo album release and the last-ever of her studio projects for Capitol Records, released in late 1974. It is universally considered to be Ronstadt's all-time high watermark masterpiece recording and a pioneering blueprint of Country Rock...
among them. US Magazine reported in 1978, that Linda Ronstadt,
Stevie NicksStephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums...
,
Carly SimonCarly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
and
Joni MitchellJoni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
had become "The Queens of Rock" and 'Rock is no longer exclusively male. There is a new royalty ruling today's record charts'.
She would go on to parlay her mass commercial appeal with major success in interpreting The Great American Songbook, made famous a generation before by
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, and
Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
and later the Mexican folk songs of her childhood.
From punk rock to opera
In 1980 Ronstadt recorded
Mad LoveMad Love is a Platinum certified, Grammy-nominated 1980 New Wave album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard album chart — a record at the time and a first for any female artist — and quickly became Ronstadt's seventh consecutive million-selling...
, her seventh consecutive platinum selling album.
Mad LoveMad Love is a Platinum certified, Grammy-nominated 1980 New Wave album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard album chart — a record at the time and a first for any female artist — and quickly became Ronstadt's seventh consecutive million-selling...
is a straightforward
Rock & RollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
album with post-punk, new wave influences, including tracks by songwriters such as Elvis Costello,
The CretonesThe Cretones were a United States, Los Angeles-based new wave rock and power pop group in the early 1980s. Led by singer/guitarist and former Eddie Boy Band member Mark Goldenberg , the group had a strong sense of melody and a lyrical wit that placed them a cut above most of their new wave peers...
, and musician Mark Goldenberg who played on the record himself. She also made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine for a record-setting sixth time.
Mad LoveMad Love is a Platinum certified, Grammy-nominated 1980 New Wave album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard album chart — a record at the time and a first for any female artist — and quickly became Ronstadt's seventh consecutive million-selling...
entered the
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Album Chart in the Top Five its first week (a record at that time) and climbed to the #3 position. The project continued her streak of Top 10 hits with "How Do I Make You?", originally recorded by
Billy ThermalBilly Thermal is a band formed by hit songwriter Billy Steinberg in 1979. The name Billy Thermal comes from the vineyards located in Thermal, California where Steinberg's father Lionel Steinberg owned Freedman Farms....
, and "Hurt So Bad", originally a Top 10 hit for
Little Anthony & the ImperialsLittle Anthony and the Imperials is a rhythm and blues/soul/doo-wop vocal group from New York, first active in the 1950s. Lead singer Jerome Anthony "Little Anthony" Gourdine was noted for his high-pitched falsetto voice, influenced by Jimmy Scott...
. The album earned Ronstadt a 1980
Grammy AwardA Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female (although she lost to
Pat BenatarPat Benatar is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States...
's Crimes of Passion album). Benatar praised Linda Ronstadt by stating, "There are a lot of good female singers around. How could I be the best? Ronstadt is still alive!"
In the summer of 1980 Ronstadt began rehearsals for the first of several leads in
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musicals.
Joseph PappJoseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
cast her as the lead in the
New York Shakespeare FestivalNew York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
production of
Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's
The Pirates of PenzanceThe Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, alongside
Kevin KlineKevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...
.
She said singing Gilbert and Sullivan was a natural choice for her, since her grandfather Fred Ronstadt was credited with having created Tucson's first
orchestraAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, the Club Filarmonico Tucsonense, and had once created an arrangement of The Pirates of Penzance.
The Pirates of Penzance opened for a limited engagement in New York City's
Central ParkCentral Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, eventually moving its production to Broadway, where it became a major hit, running from January 8, 1981, to November 28, 1982.
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
was effusive in its praise: "... she has not dodged the coloratura demands of her role (and Mabel is one of the most demanding parts in the G&S canon): from her entrance trilling 'Poor Wand'ring One,' it is clear that she is prepared to scale whatever soprano peaks stand in her way." Ronstadt co-starred with Kline and
Angela LansburyAngela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
in the 1983 motion picture version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Ronstadt received a Golden Globe nomination for the role in the movie version. She garnered a
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and
The Pirates of PenzanceThe Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
won several Tony Awards, including a
Tony Award for Best RevivalThe Tony Award for Best Revival was presented from 1977 until 1994, when it was split into the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. If there are not enough revivals, it is possible under the current Tony rules for the "Best Revival of a Play or...
.
As a child, Ronstadt had discovered
La BohèmeLa bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
through the silent movie with
Lillian GishLillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
and was determined to someday play the part of Mimi. When she met the late opera superstar
Beverly SillsBeverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
, she was told, "My dear, every soprano in the world wants to play Mimi!" In 1984 Ronstadt was cast in the role at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre. However, the production was a critical and commercial disaster, closing after only a few nights.
In 1988 Ronstadt would return to Broadway for a limited-run engagement in the musical show adaptation of her album celebrating her Mexican heritage, Canciones De Mi Padre—A Romantic Evening In Old Mexico.
In 1982 Ronstadt released Get Closer—a primarily rock album with some country and pop music as well. It remains her only album between 1975 and 1990 not to be officially certified Platinum. It peaked at #31 on the
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Album Chart. The release continued her streak of Top 40 hits with "Get Closer" and "I Knew You When"—a 1965 hit by
Billy Joe RoyalBilly Joe Royal is an American singer.-Biography:Born in Valdosta and raised in Marietta in 1942, Royal became a local star at Savannah, Georgia's Bamboo Ranch in the 1950s and 1960s...
—while the Jimmy Webb song "Easy For You To Say" was a surprise Top 10 Adult Contemporary hit in the spring of 1983. "Sometimes You Just Can't Win" was released to country radio, and made it to #27 on that listing. Linda also filmed several music videos for this album which became popular on the fledgling
MTVMTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
cable channel. The album earned Ronstadt two Grammy Award nominations: one for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female for the title track and another for Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for the album. The artwork won its art director,
KoshKosh is an English art director, album cover designer, graphic artist, and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House...
, his second Grammy Award for
Best Album PackageThe Grammy Award for Best Recording Package is one of a series of Grammy Awards presented for the visual look of an album. It is presented to the art director of the winning album, not to the performer, except if the performer is also the art director....
.
Along with the release of her Get Closer album, Ronstadt embarked on a very successful North American tour, remaining one of the top rock concert draws that summer and fall. On November 25, 1982, Linda's 'Happy Thanksgiving Day' concert was held at the
Reunion ArenaReunion Arena was an indoor arena, in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, Texas . It held 18,293 for basketball and 17,001 for ice hockey.It was demolished in November 2009 and the site was cleared by the end of the year.-History:...
in Dallas and broadcast live via satellite on radio stations across the United States.
A journey through tradition and roots
Ronstadt has remarked that in the beginning of her career "(she) ... was so focused on folk, rock and country that..(she) got a bit bored and started to branch out, and ... (has) been doing that ever since." By 1983, Linda Ronstadt's estimated worth was over $40 million mostly from successful records, concerts and merchandising.
Ronstadt eventually tired of playing arenas. She had ceased to feel that arenas, where people milled around smoking marijuana cigarettes and drinking beer, were "appropriate places for music." She wanted "angels in the architecture"—a reference to a lyric in the
Paul SimonPaul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
song "
You Can Call Me Al"You Can Call Me Al" is a song by Paul Simon, the first single released from his album Graceland. The song originally charted in the U.S. at No. 44 in October 1986 but it was reissued with greater promotion in March 1987 and hit No. 23. In the UK it peaked at No. 4, while in Sweden and the...
" from the 1986 album
GracelandGraceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...
. (Ronstadt sang harmony with Simon on a different Graceland track, "Under African Skies." The lyrics pay tribute to Ronstadt: "Take this child, Lord, from Tucson, Arizona....") Ronstadt has said she wants to sing in places similar to the
Theatre of ancient GreeceThe theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was...
, where the attention is focused on the stage and performer.
Ronstadt's recording output in the 1980s proved to be just as commercially and critically successful as her 1970s recordings. Between 1983 and 1990 Ronstadt scored six additional platinum albums; two of these have been certified triple platinum (each with over 3 million U.S. copies sold); one has been certified double platinum (over two million copies sold); and one has earned additional certification as a Gold (over 500,000 U.S. copies sold) double disc album.
By recording Traditional pop,
Traditional countryOld-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...
,
Traditional Latin rootsLatin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...
, and Adult Contemporary, Ronstadt resonated with a different fan base and diversified her appeal.
Jazz/pop trilogy
In 1981 Linda Ronstadt produced and recorded an album of jazz and pop standards (later marketed in
bootlegA bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
form) titled Keeping Out of Mischief with the assistance of producer
Jerry WexlerGerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...
. However, Ronstadt's displeasure with the final result led her, with regrets, to scrap the project. "Doing that killed me", she said in a Time magazine interview. But the appeal of the album's music had seduced Ronstadt, as she told Down Beat magazine in April 1985, crediting Wexler for encouraging her. Nonetheless, Ronstadt had to somehow convince her reticent record company,
Elektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
, to
greenlightTo green-light a project is to give permission or a go ahead to move forward with a project. In the context of the movie and TV businesses, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to...
this type of album under her contract.
By 1983 Ronstadt had enlisted the help of 62-year-old conductor and master of jazz/traditional pop orchestration,
Nelson RiddleNelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...
. The two embarked on an unorthodox and original approach to rehabilitating the
Great American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
, recording a trilogy of highly successful
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
/ traditional pop albums:
What's NewWhat's New is a Grammy-nominated, Triple Platinum-certified, 1983 Jazz album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt consisting of nine songs of Jazz music. It represents the first in a trilogy of 1980s albums Ronstadt recorded with the bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle...
(1983—U.S. 3.7 million as of 2010);
Lush LifeLush Life is a Platinum-certified, Grammy-nominated album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt, released in late 1984. It was the second in a trilogy of jazz albums with bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle....
(1984—U.S. 1.7 million as of 2010); and
For Sentimental ReasonsFor Sentimental Reasons is a million-selling, Platinum-certified album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt, released in late 1986. The album reached #46 on Billboards main album chart as well as #3 on the Top Jazz Albums chart...
(1986—U.S. 1.3 million as of 2010). The three albums have a combined sales total of nearly 7 million copies in the United States alone.
The album design for What's New by designer
KoshKosh is an English art director, album cover designer, graphic artist, and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House...
was unlike any of her previous disc covers. It showed Ronstadt in a vintage dress lying on shimmering satin sheets with a
WalkmanWalkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones...
headset. At the time, Ronstadt received some chiding for both the album cover and her venture into what was then considered "elevator music" by cynics, but remained determined to record with Nelson Riddle, and What's New became a hit. The album was released in September 1983, it spent 81 weeks on the
BillboardBillboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Album Chart and held the #3 position for a month and a half (held out of the top spot by
Michael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's '
ThrillerThriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall...
' and Lionel Richie's 'Can't Slow Down') and the RIAA certified it triple platinum (over 3 million U.S. copies sold alone). The album earned Ronstadt another Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and critical raves, with
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine calling it "one of the gutsiest, most unorthodox and unexpected albums of the year".
Ronstadt faced considerable pressure not to record What's New or record with Riddle. According to
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
historianA historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Peter LevinsonPeter J. Levinson was an American music publicist and biographer, particularly of jazz musicians.-Education:...
, author of the book
September In The Rain"September in the Rain" is a popular song by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, published in 1937. The song was introduced by James Melton in the film Melody for Two...
—a Biography on Nelson Riddle, Joe Smith, president of
Elektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
, was terrified that the Nelson Riddle album would turn off Ronstadt's rock audience. Linda did not completely turn her back on her rock and roll past, however; the video for the title track featured
Danny KortchmarDanny "Kootch" Kortchmar is a guitarist, session musician, and songwriter. Kortchmar's work with singer-songwriters such as David Crosby, Carole King, Graham Nash, Carly Simon and James Taylor helped define the signature sound of the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s...
as the old beau that she bumped into during a rainstorm.
What's New brought Nelson Riddle to a younger audience. According to Levinson, "the younger audience hated what Riddle had done with
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, which in 1983 was considered 'Vintage Pop.'" Working with Ronstadt, Riddle brought his career back into focus in the last three years of his life. Stephen Holden of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, What's New "isn't the first album by a rock singer to pay tribute to the golden age of the pop, but is ... the best and most serious attempt to rehabilitate an idea of pop that
BeatlemaniaBeatlemania is a term that originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward The Beatles during the early years of their success...
and the mass marketing of rock LPs for teenagers undid in the mid-60s.... In the decade prior to Beatlemania, most of the great band singers and crooners of the 40s and 50s codified a half-century of American pop standards on dozens of albums ... many of them now long out-of-print." What's New is the first album by a rock singer to have major commercial success in rehabilitating the
Great American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
.
In 1984 Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle performed these songs live, in concert halls throughout Australia, Japan and the United States, including multi-night performances at historic venues
Carnegie HallCarnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
,
Radio City Music HallRadio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
and
Pine KnobPine Knob is a downhill ski area in Clarkston, Michigan. It is best known for its snow-making and marquee run, "The Wall." Pine Knob is the home mountain to a number of local high school ski racing teams, including Clarkston, Detroit Country Day School, Rochester Adams High School, Cranbrook...
.
In 2004 Ronstadt released Hummin' to Myself, her album for
Verve RecordsVerve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
. It was her first foray into traditional jazz since her sessions with Jerry Wexler and her records with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, but this time with an intimate
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
comboA musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
. The album was a quiet affair for Ronstadt, giving few interviews and making only one television performance as promotion. It reached #2 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart but peaked at #166 on the main Billboard album chart. Not having the mass distribution that Warner Music gave her, Hummin' To Myself had sold over 75,000 copies in the U.S. as of 2010—which is quite successful for a small record label like Verve Records. It also achieved some critical acclaim from the jazz cognoscenti.
The "Trio" recordings
In 1978, Ronstadt, with
Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
and
Emmylou HarrisEmmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, began recording a Trio album. Unfortunately, the attempt was not successful. Ronstadt later remarked that not too many people were in control at the time and everyone was too involved with their own careers. (Though the efforts to complete the album were abandoned, a number of the more successful recordings were included on the singers' respective solo recordings over the next few years.) This concept album was put on the back burner for almost ten years.
In January 1986, the three eventually did make their way into the recording studio, where they spent the next several months working. The result,
TrioTrio was a collaboration album by three of the most successful American female singers of the 1970s and 1980s, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris...
, which they had conceived ten years earlier, was released in March 1987. It was a considerable hit, holding the #1 position on Billboard's Country Albums chart for five weeks running and hitting the Top 10 on the Pop side also. Selling over three million U.S. copies and winning them a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, it produced four Top Ten Country singles including "To Know Him Is To Love Him" which hit #1. The album was also a nominee for overall Album of the Year, in the company of Michael Jackson, U2, Prince, and Whitney Houston.
In 1994, the three performers recorded a follow-up to Trio. As was the case with their aborted 1978 effort, conflicting schedules and competing priorities delayed the album's release indefinitely. Ronstadt, who had already paid for studio time—and owed her record company a finished album—removed Dolly's individual tracks at her request, kept Emmylou's vocals on, and produced a number of the recordings, which she subsequently released on her 1995 return to Country Rock, Feels Like Home.
However, in 1999, Ronstadt, Parton and Harris agreed to release the Trio II album, as was originally recorded in 1994. It included an ethereal cover of
Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's "After The Gold Rush" which became a popular music video. The effort was certified Gold (over 500,000 copies sold) and won them a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for the track. Ronstadt co-produced the album with
George MassenburgGeorge Y. Massenburg is a recording engineer and inventor. Working principally in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Macon, Georgia, Massenburg is widely known for his 1972 paper on the parametric equalizer.-Background:...
and the three ladies also received a Grammy Nomination for Best Country Album.
Canciones—songs of the Ronstadt family
At the end of 1987, Ronstadt released an album of traditional Mexican folk songs, or what she describes as "world class songs", titled
Canciones de Mi PadreCanciones De Mi Padre was American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt's first album of Mexican traditional Mariachi music. This album has never been out of print.-History:...
. Keeping with the Ronstadt history theme, her cover art was dramatic, bold, and colorful. For Canciones De Mi Padre, Ronstadt was in full Mexican regalia, and her musical arranger was famed Mariachi musician
Rubén FuentesRubén Fuentes Gassón , is a Mexican classical violinist and composer, who is best known for his contributions to Mariachi music. In 1944, he joined Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán as a violinist and later as a music arranger. In 1955 Fuentes stopped performing in the group, but he maintains his...
.
These canciones were a big part of Ronstadt's family tradition and musical roots. For example, the history of this album goes back half a century. In January 1946, the
University of ArizonaThe University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
published a booklet by Luisa Espinel entitled Canciones de mi Padre. Luisa Espinel, Ronstadt's aunt, was herself an international singer in the 1920s and 1930s. Ms. Espinel's father was Fred Ronstadt, Linda's grandfather, and the songs she had learned, transcribed and published were some of the ones he had brought with him from
SonoraSonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
. Ronstadt researched and extracted from the favorites she had learned from her father Gilbert and she called her album by the same name as her aunt's booklet and as a tribute to her father and his family. Though not fully bilingual, she has a fairly good command of the Spanish language, allowing her to sing Latin American songs with little discernible Anglo accent; Ronstadt has often identified herself as Mexican-American. Her formative years were spent with her father's side of the family. In fact, in 1976, Ronstadt had collaborated with her father to write and compose a Traditional Mexican folk ballad titled "Lo siento mi vida", a song that she included in her Grammy winning album
Hasten Down the WindHasten Down The Wind is a 1976 album by singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt and was Ronstadt's third straight million-selling album. Ronstadt was the first female artist in history to accomplish this feat. The album earned Ronstadt a Grammy for "Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female" in 1977,...
. Also, Ronstadt has credited Mexican singer
Lola BeltránLola Beltrán was a Mexican film actress and one of the most acclaimed Mexican ranchera singers, nicknamed Lola la Grande .-Biography:...
as an influence in her own singing style, and she recalls how a frequent guest to the Ronstadt home,
Eduardo "Lalo" GuerreroEduardo "Lalo" Guerrero , was a Mexican-American guitarist, singer and farm labor activist best known for his strong influence on today's Latin musical artists.-Life Summary:...
, father of
ChicanoThe terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
music, would often
serenadeIn music, a serenade is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someone's honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music.The word Serenade is derived from the Italian word sereno, which means calm....
her as a child.
This album won Ronstadt a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance. The real achievement, however, is the disc's RIAA double-platinum (over 2 million U.S. copies sold) certification—making it the biggest-selling non-English language album in U.S. music history. Another achievement is that the album and later theatrical stage show, served as a benchmark of Latin cultural renaissance in North America.
Ronstadt produced and performed a theatrical stage show in concert halls across the United States and Latin America to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences, including on the Great White Way. She called the stage show by the same name Canciones de mi Padre. These performances were released on DVD. Ronstadt elected to return to the Broadway stage, 4 years after she performed in La Bohème, for a limited run engagement.
PBSThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
Great Performances aired the celebrated stage show during its annual fund drives and the show was a hit with audiences, earning Ronstadt an
Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for
Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music ProgramThis is a list of winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program. Awards in this category from 1974 through 1978 were presented for Outstanding Supporting Actor or Actress in A Variety Show or Special...
.
Linda later recorded two additional discs of Latin music in the early 1990s. Although their promotion, like most of her albums in the 1990s, were a quieter affair for Ronstadt, where she appeared to do the "bare minimum" to promote them. They were not nearly as successful as Canciones De Mi Padre, but were critically acclaimed in some circles. In 1991 she released
Mas CancionesMas Canciones is an album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt, released in late 1991. Although it was a significant hit for a non-English language album, it peaked at number 88 on the Billboard album chart and sold approximately 400,000 copies in the United States...
, a follow up to the first Canciones. For this effort she won a Grammy award for
Best Mexican/Mexican-American AlbumThe Grammy Award for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album was an honor presented to recording artists for quality albums in the Mexican music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
. The following year she stepped outside of the Mariachi genre and decided to record well known "afro-Cuban" songs. This disc was titled
FrenesíFrenesí is an album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt released in 1992. It was Ronstadt's third Spanish-language album. It reached number 193 on the Billboard Billboard 200 chart, number 3 on the Top Latin Albums chart and number 17 on the Tropic/Salsa chart...
. Like her two previous Latin recordings ventures, this third Latin album won Ronstadt another Grammy award, this time for
Best Traditional Tropical Latin AlbumThe Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album has been awarded since 1984. The award has had several minor name changes:*From 1984 to 1991 the award was known as Best Tropical Latin Performance...
.
In 1991 Ronstadt acted in the lead role of arch angel San Miguel in La Pastorela, or A Shephard's Tale, a musical filmed at San Juan Bautista. It was written and directed by Luis Valdez. The production was part of the PBS "Great Performances" series. (As of December 2010, it existed on VHS format but had not been released on DVD by that time.)
Returning to the pop music scene
By the late 1980s, while enjoying the success of her big band jazz collaborations with Nelson Riddle and her surprise hit Mariachi recordings, Linda Ronstadt elected to return to recording mainstream pop music once again. In 1987 she made a return to the top of Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with "
Somewhere Out There"Somewhere Out There" is a song written by James Horner, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Its single was released by American recording artists, pop rock icon Linda Ronstadt and R&B musician James Ingram...
", which peaked at #2 in March. Featured in the animated film
An American TailAn American Tail is a 1986 American animated adventure film directed by Don Bluth and produced by Sullivan Bluth Studios and Amblin Entertainment. The film tells the story of Fievel Mouskewitz and his family as they immigrate from Russia to America for freedom. However, Fievel gets lost and must...
, the sentimental duet with
James IngramJames Ingram is an American soul musician. He is best known as a vocalist. He is also a self-taught musician who plays piano, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards...
was nominated for several Grammy Awards, ultimately winning "Song of the Year." It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Motion Picture song and achieved high sales, earning a million-selling Gold single in the U.S.—one of the last 45s ever to do so. It was also accompanied by a popular music video. On the heels of this success,
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
asked Ronstadt to record the theme song for the animated sequel titled
An American Tail: Fievel Goes WestAn American Tail: Fievel Goes West is a 1991 American animated film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to An American Tail, and the fourth installment in terms of the series' fictional chronology...
, which was titled "Dreams To Dream." Although "Dreams To Dream" failed to achieve the success of "Somewhere Out There", the song did give Ronstadt an Adult Contemporary hit in 1991.
In 1989, Ronstadt released a mainstream pop album and several popular singles. This effort, titled
Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The WindCry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind is a Grammy award winning, Triple Platinum-certified 1989 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt featuring American soul singer Aaron Neville. This album was taken out of print in 2009—twenty years after release.-History:The album is a...
, became one of the singer's most successful albums—in terms of production, arrangements, chart sales, and critical acclaim. It became Ronstadt's tenth Top 10 album on the Billboard chart, reaching the #7 position and being certified triple-platinum (over 3 million U.S. copies sold). The album also garnered critical acclaim, receiving numerous Grammy nominations and being praised by
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
as "an album that defines virtually everything that is right about adult contemporary pop." Linda featured New Orleans soul singer
Aaron NevilleAaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...
on several of the twelve disc cuts.
Ronstadt incorporated the sounds of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir,
Tower of PowerTower of Power is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 43 years. They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section...
horns, the Skywalker Symphony and numerous musicians. It had duets, including "
Don't Know Much"Don't Know Much" is a song written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow and made famous when performed as a duet by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville on Ronstadt's 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind...
" (Billboard Hot 100 #2 hit—Christmas 1989) and "
All My Life"All My Life" is a song written by Karla Bonoff and performed as duet by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville on Ronstadt's Triple Platinum 1989 album Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind; this is the 2nd collaboration of Ronstadt and Neville...
" (Billboard Hot 100 #11 hit), both of which were long-running #1 Adult Contemporary hits. These duets with
Aaron NevilleAaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...
received much critical acclaim, earning several Grammy nominations. The duo won both the 1989 and 1990 Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal awards. Linda's last known live Grammy Award appearance was in 1990 when she and Neville performed "Don't Know Much" together on the telecast. ("Whenever I sing with a different artist, I can get things out of my voice that I can't do by myself", Ronstadt reflected in 2007. "I can do things with Aaron that I can't do alone.")
In December 1990, Linda Ronstadt participated in a concert held at the
Tokyo DomeTokyo Dome is a 55,000-seat baseball stadium located in Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, Japan.The stadium opened for business on March 17, 1988. It was built on the site of the Velodrome which was next door to the site of the predecessor ballpark, Kōrakuen Stadium...
to commemorate
John LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's 50th birthday, and to raise awareness of environmental issues. Other participants included
Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
,
Lenny KravitzLeonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...
,
Hall & OatesHall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."...
,
Natalie ColeNatalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
, Japanese artists,
Yoko Onois a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
and
Sean Lennonis an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
. A CD resulted, titled Happy Birthday, John.
A return to roots music
Continuing with her crafted approach to more mainstream-oriented material, Ronstadt released the highly acclaimed
Winter LightWinter Light is an out of print New Age-styled album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt, released in late 1993. Although it sold less than 300,000 copies in the US, it stands as one of Linda's most acclaimed albums.-History:...
album at the end of 1993. It included New Age arrangements such as the lead single "Heartbeats Accelerating" as well as the self-penned title track and featured the unique glass armonica instrument. But alas, it was Linda's first commercial failure since 1972, and peaked at a disappointing #92 in Billboard, whereas 1995's
Feels Like HomeFeels Like Home is an out-of-print album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt released in 1995. It was a rare commercial failure for Linda and peaked at #75 on the Billboard album chart.-Reception:...
was Ronstadt's much heralded return to Country-Rock and included her version of
Tom PettyThomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
's classic hit "
The Waiting"The Waiting" is the lead single from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' album Hard Promises released in 1981. The song peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #1 on the magazine's new Rock Tracks chart, where it remained for six consecutive weeks.- Covers :*Linda Ronstadt covered...
." The single's rollicking, fiddle-infused flip side, "Walk On", returned Linda to the Country Singles chart for the first time since 1983. An album track entitled "The Blue Train" charted 10 weeks in Billboard's Adult Contemporary Top 40. This album fared slightly better than its predecessor, reaching #75. Both albums were later deleted from the Elektra/Asylum catalog.
In 1996 Ronstadt produced
Dedicated to the One I LoveDedicated To The One I Love is a Grammy Award-winning album of rock classics reinterpreted as children's lullabies by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. Released in the summer of 1996, it is commonly known among fans as 'The Lullaby Album'. It reached number 78 on the Billboard...
, an album of classic
rock 'n rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
songs reinvented as
lullabiesLullabies is an EP by the Scottish rock group Cocteau Twins, released on 4AD records on 1 November 1982. The EP features three non-album tracks and was released just a few months after their debut album....
. The disc reached #78 in Billboard. Ronstadt was awarded a Grammy in the
Best Musical Album for ChildrenThe Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children was an honor presented to recording artists for quality children's music albums at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
category.
In 1998 Ronstadt released
We RanWe Ran is a 1998 Rock album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt. It lasted only two weeks on the Billboard album chart, peaking at a disappointing #160. The album was a rare commercial failure for Ronstadt with US sales of approximately 75,000 copies...
, her first album in over two years. The disc harkened back to Ronstadt's country-rock and folk-rock heyday. She returned to her rock 'n' roll roots with vivid interpretations of songs by
Bruce SpringsteenBruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
,
Doc PomusJerome Solon Felder, better known as Doc Pomus , was a twentieth-century American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lyricist of many rock and roll hits. Pomus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category of non-performer in 1992. He was also inducted into...
,
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and
John HiattJohn Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...
. The recording was produced by
Glyn JohnsGlyn Johns is a musician, recording engineer and record producer.-Career:He has worked with such artists as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Easybeats, The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Clash, The Steve Miller Band, Small Faces, Spooky Tooth, The Ozark...
. A commercial failure, the album stands—at 60,000 copies sold at the time of its deletion in 2008—as the poorest selling studio album in Linda's Elektra/Asylum catalogue. We Ran did not chart any singles but it was well received by critics.
Despite the lack of success of We Ran, Ronstadt kept towards this adult rock exploration. She released Western Wall — The Tucson Sessions in the summer of 1999—a folk-rock oriented project with EmmyLou Harris. It earned a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and made the Top 10 of Billboard's Country Albums chart (#73 on the main Billboard album chart). However, it would sell roughly half the number of copies that Trio II sold and had gone out of print as of December 2010.
Also in 1999, Ronstadt went back to her concert roots, when she performed with the Eagles and
Jackson BrowneJackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
at
Staples CenterStaples Center is a multi-purpose sports arena in Downtown Los Angeles. Adjacent to the L.A. Live development, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street. Opening on October 17, 1999, it is one of the major sporting facilities in the Greater Los Angeles...
's 1999 New Year's Eve celebration kicking off the December 31 end-of-the-
millenniumA millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
festivities. As Staples Center Senior Vice President and General Manager Bobby Goldwater said, "It was our goal to present a spectacular event as a sendoff to the 20th century", and "Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt are three of the most popular acts of the century. Their performances will constitute a singular and historic night of entertainment for
New Year's EveNew Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
in Los Angeles."
In 2000 Linda Ronstadt completed her long contractual relationship with the
Elektra/AsylumElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
Records label. The fulfillment of this contract commenced with the release of A Merry Little Christmas, Linda's first holiday collection, which included rare choral works, the somber
Joni MitchellJoni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
song "River", and a rare recorded duet with the late
Rosemary ClooneyRosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
on her (Clooney's) signature song, "
White Christmas"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide.Accounts vary as...
".
Since leaving Warner Music, Ronstadt has gone on to release one album each under the
VerveVerve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
and
VanguardVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
Record labels.
In 2006, recording as the ZoZo Sisters, Ronstadt teamed with her then-new friend, musician and musical scholar
Ann SavoyAnn Savoy is a musician, author, and record producer.-Biography:Savoy was raised in Richmond, Virginia. She resides with her husband Marc Savoy and family in Southern Louisiana....
, to record
Adieu False HeartAdieu False Heart is a Grammy-nominated 2006 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt featuring Cajun music singer Ann Savoy...
. It was an album of roots music incorporating pop, Cajun, and early 20th century music and released on the
Vanguard RecordsVanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
label. But
Adieu False HeartAdieu False Heart is a Grammy-nominated 2006 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt featuring Cajun music singer Ann Savoy...
was a commercial failure, peaking at #146 in the U.S., and is the latest Linda Ronstadt album as of 2010.
Adieu False Heart, recorded in
LouisianaLouisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, features a cast of local musicians, including Chas Justus, Eric Frey and Kevin Wimmer of the Red Stick Ramblers, Sam Broussard of The Mamou Playboys, Dirk Powell and Joel Savoy, as well as an array of Nashville musicians: fiddler Stuart Duncan, mandolinist Sam Bush and guitarist Bryan Sutton. The recording earned two Grammy nominations: Best Traditional Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
In 2007 Ronstadt could be heard on the compilation LP
We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of SongWe All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady Of Song is a 2007 tribute album to Ella Fitzgerald, released to mark the 90th anniversary of her birth.-Track listing:#"A-Tisket, A-Tasket"...
--a tribute album to jazz music's all-time most heralded artist—on the track "Miss Otis Regrets."
In the summer of 2007 Ronstadt headlined the
Newport Folk FestivalThe Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
, making her debut at this prestigious event, where she incorporated jazz, rock and folk music into her repertoire.
Selected list of career achievements
- As of 2011 Linda Ronstadt has earned three #1 Pop albums, ten Top 10 Pop albums and 36 charting Pop albums on the Billboard Pop Album Charts
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. On Billboard (magazine)Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s Top Country Albums chart, she has charted 15 albums including four that hit #1.
- Also—as of 2011—Ronstadt's singles have earned her a #1 hit and three #2 hits on the Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
(with ten Top 10 Pop singles and twenty-one reaching the 'Top 40' overall). Additionally she has scored two #1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country SongsHot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
chart, and two #1 hits and on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.
- Linda has recorded and released well over 30 studio albums and has made guest appearances on an estimated 120 other albums. Her guest appearances included the classical minimalist Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
's album Songs from Liquid Days, a hit Classical record with other major Pop stars either singing or writing lyrics, she also appeared on Glass's follow up recording; 1000 Airplanes on the Roof1000 Airplanes on the Roof is a melodrama in one act by Philip Glass which featured text by David Henry Hwang and projections by Jerome Sirlin. It is described by Glass as "a science fiction music drama"....
, an appearance on Paul SimonPaul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
's GracelandGraceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...
, she voiced herself in The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Mr. Plow"Mr. Plow" is the ninth episode of The Simpsons fourth season, which originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 19, 1992. In the episode, Homer buys a snow plow and starts a business plowing driveways. It is a huge success, and inspired by this, Barney Gumble starts a...
" and sang a duet "Funny How Time Slips Away" with Homer SimpsonHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
on The Yellow AlbumThe Yellow Album is The Simpsons second album of originally recorded songs, released as a follow up to the 1990 album The Simpsons Sing the Blues. Though it was released in 1998, it had been recorded years earlier, after the success of the first album...
. Ronstadt has also recorded on albums with artists as diverse as Billy EckstineWilliam Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Emmylou HarrisEmmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, The ChieftainsThe Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
, Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
, Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, J. D. SoutherJohn David Souther is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has written and co-written numerous hits songs recorded by artists such as Linda Ronstadt and Glenn Frey of the Eagles.-Singing career:...
, Gram ParsonsGram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
, Bette MidlerBette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
, Nitty Gritty Dirt BandThe Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American country-folk-rock band that has existed in various forms since its founding in Long Beach, California in 1966. The group's membership has had at least a dozen changes over the years, including a period from 1976 to 1981 when the band performed and recorded...
, Earl ScruggsEarl Eugene Scruggs is an American musician noted for perfecting and popularizing a 3-finger banjo-picking style that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music...
, The Eagles, Andrew GoldAndrew Maurice Gold was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" , as well as the singles "Thank You for Being a Friend" , and "Never Let Her Slip Away" ....
, Hoyt AxtonHoyt Wayne Axton was an American country music singer-songwriter, and a film and television actor. He became prominent in the early 1960s, establishing himself on the West Coast as a folk singer with an earthy style and powerful voice. As he matured, some of his songwriting efforts became well...
, Kate and Anna McGarrigleKate and Anna McGarrigle, were a pair of Canadian singer-songwriters from Quebec, who performed as a duo until Kate McGarrigle's death on January 18, 2010.-Profile:...
, Mark Goldenberg, Ann SavoyAnn Savoy is a musician, author, and record producer.-Biography:Savoy was raised in Richmond, Virginia. She resides with her husband Marc Savoy and family in Southern Louisiana....
, Karla BonoffKarla Bonoff is an American singer-songwriter, primarily known for her songwriting.As a songwriter, Bonoff's songs have been interpreted by other artists such as "Home" by Bonnie Raitt, "Tell Me Why" by Wynonna Judd, and "Isn't It Always Love" by Lynn Anderson...
, James TaylorJames Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Warren ZevonWarren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
, Maria MuldaurMaria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...
, Randy NewmanRandall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....
, Nicolette LarsonNicolette Larson was an American pop singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young, as well as her 1978 cover of Young's "Lotta Love". The song, her debut single, was a Number One Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks hit and #8 pop hit that year...
, the Seldom Scene, Rosemary ClooneyRosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
, Aaron NevilleAaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...
, Rodney CrowellRodney Crowell is a Grammy Award-winning musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music....
, Hearts and Flowers"Hearts and Flowers" is a song composed by Theodore Moses-Tobani and published in 1893.The famous melody is taken from the introductory 2/4 section of "Wintermärchen" Waltzes Op.366 by the Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka.The song as a vocal number was soon forgotten but the piece it was...
, Teresa, Laurie LewisLaurie Lewis , is an American bluegrass musician.- History :Lewis fell in love with American folk music as a teenager, at the sunset of the 1960s folk revival. She says of the Berkeley Folk Festivals where she first caught the folk bug:"Oh, it was so exciting...
, Yanka Runpika and Flaco JiménezLeonardo "Flaco" Jiménez is a Tejano music accordionist from San Antonio, Texas. Jiménez's father, Santiago Jiménez Sr. was a pioneer of conjunto music. He began performing with his father at age seven and recording at age fifteen, as a member of Los Caporales...
.
- Linda's three biggest-selling studio albums to date are her 1977 release Simple Dreams
Simple Dreams is one of the most successful albums of Linda Ronstadt's career, spending five consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart in late 1977. It also knocked Elvis Presley out of No...
, 1983's What's NewWhat's New is a Grammy-nominated, Triple Platinum-certified, 1983 Jazz album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt consisting of nine songs of Jazz music. It represents the first in a trilogy of 1980s albums Ronstadt recorded with the bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle...
, and 1989's Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The WindCry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind is a Grammy award winning, Triple Platinum-certified 1989 album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt featuring American soul singer Aaron Neville. This album was taken out of print in 2009—twenty years after release.-History:The album is a...
, each one certified by the Recording Industry Association of AmericaThe Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
for over 3 million copies sold. Her highest-selling album to date is the 1976 compilation, Greatest HitsGreatest Hits was Linda Ronstadt's first major compilation album, released at the end of 1976 for the holiday shopping season. It included material from both her Capitol Records and Asylum Records output, and went back to 1967 for The Stone Poneys' hit "Different Drum".It remains the...
, certified for over 7 million units sold in 2001.
- Linda Ronstadt became music's first major touring female artist, selling out major venues, and she also became the top-grossing solo female concert artist for the 1970s. Ronstadt remained a highly successful touring artist into the 1990s at which time she decided to 'scale back' to smaller venues.
- Cash Box magazine—fierce competition to Billboard
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
in the 1970s—named Linda Ronstadt the '#1 Female Artist of the Decade'.
- Her RIAA certification (audits paid for by record companies or artist for promotion) tally as of 2001, now totals 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and 7 Multi-Platinum albums.
- Ronstadt's album sales have not been certified since 2001, and at the time, Ronstadt's U.S. album sales were certified by the RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
at over 30 million albums sold while Peter Asher, her former producer and manager, placed her total U.S. album sales at over 45 million. Likewise, her worldwide albums sales are in excess of 60 million albums sold, according to Verve Music.
- She was the first female in music history to score three consecutive platinum albums and ultimately racked up a total of eight consecutive platinum albums.
- Her album Living In The USA is the first album by any recording act in U.S. music history to ship double platinum (over 2 million advanced copies).
- Linda's first Latin release, the all-Spanish 1987 album, Canciones De Mi Padre
Canciones De Mi Padre was American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt's first album of Mexican traditional Mariachi music. This album has never been out of print.-History:...
stands as the best-selling non-English-language album in U.S. music history. As of 2009, it had sold over 2½ million U.S. copies.
- Ronstadt has served as record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
on various albums from musicians such as her cousin David LindleyDavid Perry Lindley is an American musician who is notable for his work with Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and other rock musicians. He has worked extensively in other genres as well, performing with artists as varied as Curtis Mayfield and Dolly Parton...
and Aaron NevilleAaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...
to singer-songwriter Jimmy WebbJimmy Webb is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He wrote numerous platinum selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park"...
. She produced Cristal — Glass Music Through the Ages, an album of classical music using glass instruments with Dennis James, and Ronstadt singing on several of the arrangements. In 1999, Ronstadt also produced the Grammy Award winning Trio II.
- She has received a total of 27 Grammy Award nominations in various fields from Rock
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, CountryCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, and PopPop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, to Tropical Latin, and has won 11 Grammy AwardA Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s in fields including Pop, Country, Tropical Latin, Musical Album for Children, and Mexican-American.
- Ronstadt was the first female solo artist to have two Top 40 singles simultaneously on Billboard magazine's Hot 100: "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" (October 1977). By December, both "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" had climbed into Billboard's Top 5 and remained there for the entire month.
- As a singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Ronstadt has also written songs covered by several artists, such as "Try Me Again" covered by Trisha YearwoodPatricia Lynn Yearwood, professionally known as Trisha Yearwood , is an American country music artist. She is best known for her ballads about vulnerable young women from a female perspective that have been described by some music critics as "strong" and "confident."Trisha Yearwood signed with MCA...
and "Winter Light" which was co-written and composed with Zbigniew Preisner and Eric Kaz, and covered by Sarah BrightmanSarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...
.
- Ronstadt has elected to sing songs written by a diverse group of artist including Lowell George
Lowell Thomas George was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who was the main guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Little Feat.- Early years :...
, ZevonWarren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
, CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, SoutherJohn David Souther is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has written and co-written numerous hits songs recorded by artists such as Linda Ronstadt and Glenn Frey of the Eagles.-Singing career:...
, NewmanRandall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....
, Patty GriffinPatty Griffin, born Patricia Jean Griffin, March 16, 1964, is an American Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter and musician. She is especially known for her down-home crafting of songs and her connection to musicians including Emmylou Harris, Ellis Paul, and the Dixie Chicks, who have played with...
. Sinéad O'ConnorSinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
, Julie MillerJulie Miller is a songwriter, singer, and recording artist currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. She married Buddy Miller in 1981...
, Mel TillisLonnie Melvin Tillis , known professionally as Mel Tillis, is an American country music singer. Although he recorded songs since the late 1950s, his biggest success occurred in the 1970s, with a long list of Top 10 hits....
, Tom Petty & the HeartbreakersThomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
, John HiattJohn Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...
, Joe MelsonJoe Melson , is an American singer and a BMI Award–winning songwriter.Melson was born in Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in northeast Texas. He was reared on a farm until he was sixteen. He attended high school in Gore, Oklahoma, and in Chicago before he returned to Texas to study at the two-year...
, Seldom Scene, Bruce SpringsteenBruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, George JonesGeorge Glenn Jones is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette....
, Tracy Nelson-Youth in Wisconsin:Nelson was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. There she first learned about R&B music from WLAC radio in Nashville. In her teens, Nelson sang folk music in coffeehouses and with a group called The Fuller's Wood Singers and was lead singer in a band called The Fabulous...
, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Little FeatLittle Feat is an American rock band formed by singer-songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles....
, Neil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, the Everly BrothersThe Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...
, Brian WilsonBrian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
, the Rolling StonesThe Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, the MiraclesThe Miracles are an American rhythm and blues group from Detroit, Michigan, notable as the first successful group act for Berry Gordy's Motown Record Corporation . Their single "Shop Around" was Motown's first million-selling hit record, and the group went on to become one of Motown's signature...
, Oscar Hammerstein IIOscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
, Roy OrbisonRoy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
and Buddy Holly and the CricketsCharles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
.
- Rolling Stone Magazine writes, a whole generation "but for her, might never have heard the work of Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
, Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, or Elvis CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
."
- "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" included Heart Like A Wheel (1974) at #164 and The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt (2002) at #324.
- In 1999, Ronstadt ranked #21 in VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. Three years later, she ranked #40 in CMT- Medicine :* California mastitis test* Certified Massage Therapist* Cervical motion tenderness, a sign of pelvic inflammatory disease* Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease* Chemically modified tetracyclines* Circus Movement Tachycardia...
's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music.
Personal life
Beginning in the mid-1970s, Linda Ronstadt's private life was given major publicity. It was fueled by a relationship with then-Governor of California
Jerry BrownEdmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...
, a
DemocraticThe Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
presidential candidate. They shared a
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine cover in April 1979. They also made the cover of
Us WeeklyUs Weekly is a celebrity gossip magazine, founded in 1977 by The New York Times Company, who sold it in 1980. It was acquired by Wenner Media in 1986. The publication covers topics ranging from celebrity relationships to the latest trends in fashion, beauty, and entertainment...
magazine. Ronstadt and Brown took a trip to Africa which became fodder for the international press, and they made the cover of
PeopleIn 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine. In the mid-1980s, Ronstadt was engaged to
Star WarsStar Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
director
George LucasGeorge Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
. In 1991 Ronstadt adopted an infant daughter, Mary Clementine. She later adopted a son, Carlos.
In the early 1980s, Ronstadt was criticized by some (mainly rock critics) for playing two concerts, as a replacement for
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, in South Africa under apartheid, at a time when
Ray CharlesRay Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
,
The Beach BoysThe Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
,
Tina TurnerTina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
, Sinatra,
Shirley BasseyDame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
and
CherCher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
were also performing there.
In 2009, in honor of Linda Ronstadt, the
Martin Guitar CompanyC.F. Martin & Company is a US guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. Martin is highly regarded for its steel-string guitars, and is a leading mass manufacturer of flattop acoustics with models that retail for thousands of dollars and vintage instruments that often...
has made a 00–42 model "Linda Ronstadt Limited Edition" acoustic guitar. Ronstadt has appointed the
Land InstituteThe Land Institute is a non-profit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture based in Salina, Kansas, United States....
as recipient of all proceeds from her signature guitar.
In the summer of 2011,
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
announced they would publish Ronstadt's autobiography. To be entitled Heart Like A Wheel, the memoir is scheduled to be released in 2013.
Political activism
Major criticism and praise involving Ronstadt's politics arose during a July 17, 2004, performance at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts in
Las VegasThe Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
. Toward the end of her performance, as she had done across the country, Ronstadt spoke to the audience, praising
Fahrenheit 9/11Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
,
Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's
documentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the
Iraq War, and dedicated the song "Desperado" to Moore. Accounts say the crowd's initial reaction was mixed, with "half the crowd heartily applauding her praise for Moore, (and) the other half booing." Following the concert, news accounts reported that Ronstadt was "evicted" from the hotel premises. Ronstadt's comments, as well as the reactions of some audience members and the hotel, became a topic of discussion nationwide. Aladdin casino president Bill Timmins and Michael Moore each made public statements on the controversy. The incident prompted international headlines and debate on an entertainer's right to express a political opinion from the stage, and made the editorial section of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. Following the incident, many friends of Ronstadt's, including the Eagles, immediately canceled their engagements at the Aladdin. Ronstadt also received telegrams of support from her rock 'n' roll friends around the world, such as
The Rolling StonesThe Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, The Eagles, and
Elton JohnSir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. Amid reports of mixed public response, Ronstadt continued in her praise of Moore and his film throughout her 2004 and 2006 summer concerts across North America. At a 2006 concert in Canada, Ronstadt told the
Calgary SunThe Calgary Sun is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a division of Sun Media, a Quebecor company.First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running broadsheet newspaper, The Albertan soon after it was acquired by the publishers of the Toronto...
that she was "embarrassed George Bush (was) from the United States.... He's an idiot.... He's enormously incompetent on both the domestic and international scenes.... Now the fact that we were lied to about the reasons for entering into war against Iraq and thousands of people have died — it's just as immoral as
racismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
." Her remarks drew international headlines. In an August 14, 2007, interview, she commented on all her well-publicized, outspoken views, in particular the Aladdin incident by noting, "If I had it to do over I would be much more gracious to everyone ... you can be as outspoken as you want if you are very, very respectful. Show some grace".
In August 2009, Ronstadt, in a well publicized interview to PlanetOut Inc. titled "Linda Ronstadt's Gay Mission", championed gay rights, same sex marriage and stated that "homophobia is anti-family values. Period, end of story."
On January 16, 2010, Ronstadt converged with thousands of other activists in a "National Day of Action". Ronstadt stated that her "dog in the fight" was—as a native Arizonan and coming from a law enforcement family—the treatment of illegal aliens, Arizona's enforcement of the rule of law and Maricopa County Sheriff
Joe Arpaio Joseph M. "Joe" Arpaio is the elected Sheriff of Maricopa County in the U.S. state of Arizona. First voted into office in 1992, Arpaio is responsible for law enforcement in Maricopa County. This includes management of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, county jail, courtroom security,...
's immigration efforts.
On April 29, 2010, Ronstadt began a campaign, including joining a lawsuit, against Arizona's new illegal-immigration law SB 1070 calling it a "devastating blow to law enforcement..the police don't protect us in a democracy with brute force", something she said she learned from her brother, Peter, who was Chief of Police in Tucson.
Ronstadt has also been outspoken on environmental and community issues. Ronstadt is a major supporter and admirer of sustainable agriculture pioneer
Wes Jackson-Early life and Education:Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After earning a BA in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, an MA in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University, Wes Jackson established and served as chair...
, saying in 2000 that "the work he's doing right now is the most important work there is in the (United States)", and dedicating the rock
anthemThe term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
"Desperado" to him at an August 2007 concert in
Kansas City, KansasKansas City is the third-largest city in the state of Kansas and is the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. The city is part of a consolidated city-county government known as the "Unified...
. In 2007 Ronstadt resided in the
San FranciscoSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
area, while also maintaining her home in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
. That same year she drew criticism and praise from Tucsonans for commenting that the local city council's failings, developers'
strip mallA strip mall is an open-area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front...
mentality, greed and growing
dustDust consists of particles in the atmosphere that arise from various sources such as soil dust lifted up by wind , volcanic eruptions, and pollution...
problem had rendered the city unrecognizable and poorly developed.
National arts advocate
In 2008, Ronstadt was appointed Artistic Director of the
San JoséSan Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival. On March 31, 2009, in testimony that the LA Times viewed as "remarkable", Ronstadt spoke to the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
' House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment & Related Agencies, attempting to convince lawmakers to budget $200 million in the 2010 fiscal year for the National Endowment of the Arts.
Ronstadt has also been honored for her contribution to the American arts. On September 23, 2007, Ronstadt was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame, along with
Stevie NicksStephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums...
,
Buck OwensAlvis Edgar Owens, Jr. , better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band, the Buckaroos...
and filmmaker
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
. On August 17, 2008, Ronstadt received a tribute by various artists including
BeBe WinansBenjamin "BeBe" Winans is a gospel and R&B singer. He is a member of the noted Winans family, most members of which are also gospel artists.-The PTL Club:...
and
Wynonna JuddWynonna Ellen Judd is an American country music singer. Her solo albums and singles are all credited to the singular name Wynonna. Wynonna first rose to fame in the 1980s alongside her mother, Naomi, in the country music duo The Judds...
, when she was honored with the Trailblazer Award, presented to her by
Plácido DomingoPlácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
at the 2008 ALMA Awards, a ceremony later televised in the U.S. on
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
.
In May 2009, Ronstadt received an honorary doctorate of music degree from the
Berklee College of MusicBerklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
for her achievements and influence in music, and her contributions to American and international culture.
MixMix magazine is a periodical billing itself as "the world's leading magazine for the professional recording and sound production technology industry". The magazine is distributed in 94 countries....
magazine stated that "Linda Ronstadt (has) left her mark on more than the record business; her devotion to the craft of singing influenced many audio professionals.... (and is) intensely knowledgeable about the mechanics of singing and the cultural contexts of every genre she passes".
In 2004, Ronstadt wrote the Foreword
IntroductionAn introduction is a beginning section which states the purpose and goals of the following writing. The introduction is usually interesting and it intrigues the reader and causes him or her to want to read on. The sentence in which the introduction begins can be a question or just a statement...
to the book titled The
NPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
Curious Listener's Guide To American Folk Music, and in 2005 she wrote the Introduction to the book titled Classic Ferrington Guitars, about guitar-maker and
luthierA luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
Danny Ferrington and his custom guitars that he created for Ronstadt and other musicians such as
Elvis CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
,
Ry CooderRyland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
, and
Kurt CobainKurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
.
Grammy Awards
- 1975
The 17th Grammy Awards were presented March 1, 1975, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1974.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" from Heart Like a Wheel
- 1976
The 18th Grammy Awards were held February 28, 1976, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1975.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Hasten Down the Wind
- 1980
The 22nd Grammy Awards were held February 27, 1980, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1979.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Musical Album for Children, In Harmony: A Sesame Street Record (multiple artist compilation w/ Linda Ronstadt)1
- 1987
The 29th Grammy Awards were held in 1987. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Russ Titelman , Steve Winwood for "Higher Love"*Album of the Year...
—Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Trio (with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris)
- 1988
The 30th Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1988. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.- Award winners :*Record of the Year**Paul Simon for "Graceland"*Album of the Year...
—Best Mexican-American Performance, Canciones de Mi Padre
- 1989
The 31st Grammy Awards were held in 1989. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Linda Goldstein & Bobby McFerrin for "Don't Worry, Be Happy"*Album of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "Don't Know Much" from Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind with Aaron Neville
- 1990
The 32nd Grammy Awards were held in 1990. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-General:*Record of the Year**Arif Mardin & Bette Midler for "Wind Beneath My Wings"*Album of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "All My Life" from Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind with Aaron Neville
- 1992
The 34th Grammy Awards were held on February 26, 1992. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year . Natalie Cole was the big winner winning three awards including Album of the Year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year...
—Best Tropical Latin Album, Frenesi
- 1993
The 35th Grammy Awards were held in 1993. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Eric Clapton was the night's big winner, winning 6 awards including Album of the Year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year...
—Best Mexican-American Album, Mas Canciones
- 1996
The 38th Grammy Awards were held on February 28, 1996. The awards recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Alanis Morissette was the night's big winner, scoring four trophies, including Album of the Year.-Award winners:...
—Best Musical Album for Children, Dedicated to the One I Love
- 1999
The 41st Grammy Awards were held on February 24, 1999. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1998. Lauryn Hill was the nights big winner winning a total of 5 awards including Album of the Year and Best New Artist. Madonna won three awards while country musicians the Dixie...
—Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, "After the Gold Rush" from Trio II with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
1 "Best Musical Album for Children" Grammy—Linda Ronstadt is not recognised by the Grammy Awards as being a recipient of this particular Grammy, although she participated in the production. Therefore, the Grammy Award site shows Ronstadt the recipient of only 10 Awards, and 17 additional nominations. However, the official Grammy Awards site does show Ronstadt as a recipient for the Grammy winning Musical Album for Children.
Grammy Award nominations
- 1970
The 12th Grammy Awards were held on March 11, 1970. They recognized accomplishments of musicians for the year 1969.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Bones Howe & The 5th Dimension for "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In"*Album of the Year...
—Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female, "Long, Long Time" from Silk Purse
- 1975
The 17th Grammy Awards were presented March 1, 1975, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1974.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Album of the Year, Heart Like a Wheel
- 1975
The 17th Grammy Awards were presented March 1, 1975, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1974.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Heart Like a Wheel
- 1977
The 19th Grammy Awards were held on February 19, 1977, and were broadcast live on American television . They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1976.-Award winners:*Record of the Year...
—Record of the Year, "Blue Bayou" from Simple Dreams
- 1977
The 19th Grammy Awards were held on February 19, 1977, and were broadcast live on American television . They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1976.-Award winners:*Record of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "Blue Bayou" from Simple Dreams
- 1980
The 22nd Grammy Awards were held February 27, 1980, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1979.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, "How Do I Make You" from Mad Love
- 1982
The 24th Grammy Awards were held February 24, 1982, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1981...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "Get Closer" from the album Get Closer
- 1982
The 24th Grammy Awards were held February 24, 1982, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1981...
—Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, "Get Closer" from the album Get Closer
- 1983
The 25th Grammy Awards were held February 23, 1983. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Awards:*Record of the Year**Toto for "Rosanna"*Album of the Year**Toto for Toto IV...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, What's New
- 1985
The 27th Grammy Awards were held February 26, 1985, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1984.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Lush Life
- 1987
The 29th Grammy Awards were held in 1987. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Russ Titelman , Steve Winwood for "Higher Love"*Album of the Year...
—Album of the Year, Trio with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
- 1987
The 29th Grammy Awards were held in 1987. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Russ Titelman , Steve Winwood for "Higher Love"*Album of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "Somewhere Out There" from the soundtrack to An American Tail with James Ingram
- 1989
The 31st Grammy Awards were held in 1989. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year**Linda Goldstein & Bobby McFerrin for "Don't Worry, Be Happy"*Album of the Year...
—Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind
- 1999
The 41st Grammy Awards were held on February 24, 1999. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1998. Lauryn Hill was the nights big winner winning a total of 5 awards including Album of the Year and Best New Artist. Madonna won three awards while country musicians the Dixie...
—Best Country Album, Trio II with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
- 1999
The 41st Grammy Awards were held on February 24, 1999. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1998. Lauryn Hill was the nights big winner winning a total of 5 awards including Album of the Year and Best New Artist. Madonna won three awards while country musicians the Dixie...
—Best Contemporary Folk Album, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions with Emmylou Harris
- 2002
The 44th Grammy Awards were held on February 27, 2002. The biggest was Alicia Keys, winning 5 Grammys, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Fallin'". U2 won 4 awards including Record of the Year and Best Rock Album.-Award winners:...
—Best Traditional Folk Album, Evangeline Made: A Tribute to Cajun MusicEvangeline Made: A Tribute to Cajun Music is an album of Cajun music by various pop and rock musical artists, released in 2002. It reached number 6 on the Billboard Top World Music chart and was nominated for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 45th Grammy Awards.-History:Producer Ann Savoy's goal...
, multiple artist compilation, with vocalist Ann Savoy
- 2006
The 48th Annual Grammy Awards took place on February 8, 2006 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Irish rock band U2 were the big winners, winning five awards including Album of the Year. Mariah Carey, John Legend, and Kanye West each were nominated for eight awards and won three,...
—Best Traditional Folk Album, Adieu False Heart with Ann Savoy
Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame inductee
- 2007—For her significant impact and evolution and development of the entertainment culture in the state of Arizona
ACM Music Award
- 1974—Best New Female Artist
- 1987—Best Album / 'TRIO'—Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris
Emmy Award
- 1989—Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program, Linda Ronstadt, Great Performances: Canciones de Mi Padre
Tony Award nomination
- 1981—Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Linda Ronstadt in The Pirates of Penzance as "Mabel"
Golden Globe Award nomination
- 1983—Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Linda Ronstadt in The Pirates of Penzance
Articles and interviews
- Fusion, Linda Ronstadt: Female Rocker, (December 26, 1969), Courtesy of Unofficial Linda Ronstadt Homepage
- Creem Magazine, A Heart To Heart with Linda Ronstadt (December 1976), Courtesy of Unofficial Linda Ronstadt Homepage
- Linda Ronstadt: Melancholy Baby, Esquire, (October 1985), Courtesy of Unofficial Linda Ronstadt Homepage
- The Weekend Australian: Everlasting Linda, by Debbie Kruger, Courtesy of Debbie Kruger (July 19, 1998)
- Linda Ronstadt lets wisdom strike notes, The Honolulu Advertiser (March 31, 2006)
- San Diego Union-Tribune interview
- Tucson Citizen report of the Aladdin incident
- Edmonton Sun interview "Linda Ronstadt defends her politics" (August 10, 2006)
- Calgary Sun "Ronstadt still sings sweetly" (August 10, 2006)
- Linda Ronstadt's interview with Tavis Smiley (August 5, 2006)
- Kudos To Linda Ronstadt by James Donahue
- Linda Ronstadt rocks with jazz sophistication (August 4, 2007)
- Linda Ronstadt plays NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" (April 28, 2007)
External links