![]() From her teenage days in the folk trio the Stone Poneys, Ronstadt developed a persona that spoke profoundly to women waking up to the way many men had condescended to them throughout the early years of the supposed sexual revolution. Those who underestimate Ronstadt as a pretty face and voice who rose to fame on the power of others’ songwriting and production talents - and there have been far too many in that camp - are ignorant. Album titles like Hand Sown…Home Grown, Simple Dreams, and Hasten Down the Wind celebrated a naturalness that was complemented by a meticulous attention to musical detail and one of the greatest ears of the rock era. Raised on country and the ranchera music that echoed through her Tuscon, Arizona, neighborhood, Ronstadt sang with a verve and directness that eradicated the pretentiousness that could sometimes afflict the children of the counterculture. “She is offering us something very valuable for the '70s: not a fantasy figure, but a reality figure,” wrote the rock scribe Tom Nolan in 1974. In a time of fading utopian hopes, she emerged as an emissary able to connect old musical ways with the new consciousness of her own maverick generation. Her voice didn’t seem just to come from the house, but out of the earth, over the water into the rickety little town and the scrubland and forest beyond it.”īeginning in the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt’s singing has had that kind of geological effect throughout popular music: steadying, seemingly able to erase time and trends within one flow of feeling that goes below the surface and the deeper strata of American consciousness. “Gene was glad it was Linda Ronstadt, not someone soppy or sickly sweet,” Wakefield wrote. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she as declaring her unconditional love for him.In Home Free, his 1977 novel of faded denim hippie dreams, Dan Wakefield described his wandering anti-hero Gene Barrett overhearing a song on a nearby record player as he dozes in a hammock in Maine - Linda Ronstadt singing her folkish country ballad “Long Long Time” in the alto that wafted through many a window in those imperfect, exploratory days. “It’s just that I am not in the market for a boy who wants to love only me / Yes, and I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty,” she sings charmingly. From the layered guitar work and an eerie resemblance to Peter, Paul and Mary, the song (off the latter record), sees Ronstadt relinquish a lover for being too clingy. 2, the trio unleashed a charred folk-rock style not too far removed from Ronstadt’s later solo endeavors. Through two studio albums, 1967’s self-titled effort and Evergreen Vol. The remastered disc will include three bonus live versions of “It’s So Easy,” “Blue Bayou” and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.” In honor of that album and her outstanding career, here are Linda Ronstadt’s 15 best songs.Īlong with musicians Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards, Ronstadt fronted the short-lived Stone Poneys in the late ‘60s. ![]() Most known for a slew of covers, she never let someone else’s compositions hold her back and Linda Ronstadt’s greatest include even better, fuller-bodied work than the originals.Īnother of Ronstadt’s most important albums, 1977’s Simple Dreams, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and Rhino Entertainment will reissue the set Sept. Through subsequent acclaimed, landmark records, such as 1974’s Heart Like a Wheel, and 1987’s Trio (a collaboration with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton) and Canciones de Mi Padre, Ronstadt injected music with grizzly excitement, raw soul-punches and an incomparable vocal artistry few other artists have ever cleared. Instantly, it was evident she was destined for bigger and better things. 2, featuring the Top 20 hit “Different Drum,” she parted ways and released her solo debut album, Hand Sown…Home Grown in 1969. Following two LPs as frontwoman of The Stone Poneys, including Evergreen Vol. Ronstadt’s legacy remains strong, though. Tragically, Parkinson’s disease stole her voice back in 2013, although she suspects she was first hit with the illness 12 years earlier. She could easily slip into whatever musical style she so desired, and went on to sell millions of albums and singles and garner countless awards and hardware. During her nearly 50 years of music-making, the Tuscon, Ariz., native also divided the walls separating pop, rock, mainstream country and traditional Mariachi music. 14, 2017, and republished in honor of that beautiful Last of Us episode, featuring our #2, “Long Long Time.”įew voices are as synonymous with the ’70s country-rock scene as Linda Ronstadt’s. This article was initially published Sept.
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