Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt (75)

 Retired American Solo Rock voclist.

 

 " Won 10 Grammy Awards

Awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Recording Academy 

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

Awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities 

 Released 24 studio albums

 Charted 

 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles. 

 21  reached the top 40

 10 reached the top 10

   1 reached number one ("You're No Good"). 

Associated Acts (Recorded with)

 Bonnie Raitt

Emmylou Harris

Aaron Neville (from NOLAs royalty "The Neville Brothers")

 & Jackson Browne 

 Sold more than 100 million records, making her one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. 

Ronstadt reduced her activity after 2000 when she felt her singing voice deteriorating,

She announced her retirement in 2011 and revealed that she is no longer able to sing as a result of a degenerative condition called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

She published an autobiography, "Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir" and a documentary based on her memoirs, "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice"  released in 2019.

Early life    Edit

Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in Tucson, Arizona, on July 15, 1946, the third of four children of Gilbert Ronstadt (1911–1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co.,[26] and Ruth Mary (née Copeman) Ronstadt (1914–1982), a homemaker.[27]

Ronstadt was raised on the family's 10-acre (4 ha) ranch with her siblings Peter (who served as Tucson's Chief of Police for ten years, 1981–1991), Michael J., and Gretchen (Suzy). The family was featured in Family Circle magazine in 1953.[28]

Ronstadt family history    Edit

Ronstadt's father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family[29] and was of German, English, and Mexican ancestry.[30] The family's influence on and contributions to Arizona's history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies, and music, are chronicled in the library of the University of Arizona.[31] Her great-grandfather, graduate engineer Friedrich August Ronstadt (who went by Federico Augusto Ronstadt) immigrated to the Southwest (then a part of Mexico) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany, and married a Mexican citizen, eventually settling in Tucson.[32][33] In 1991, the City of Tucson opened its central transit terminal on March 16 and dedicated it to Linda's grandfather, Federico José María Ronstadt, a local pioneer businessman; he was a wagon maker whose early contribution to the city's mobility included six mule-drawn streetcars delivered in 1903–04.[34]

Ronstadt's mother Ruth Mary, of German, English, and Dutch ancestry, was raised in Flint, Michigan. She was a granddaughter of Lloyd Groff Copeman, a prolific inventor and holder of many patents. Copeman, with nearly 700 patents to his name, invented an early form of the toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first electric stove, and an early form of the microwave oven. His flexible rubber ice cube tray earned him millions of dollars in royalties.[35]

Career summary    Edit

Everybody has their own level of doing their music. ... Mine just happened to resonate over the years, in one way and another, with a significant enough number of people so that I could do it professionally.

—Linda Ronstadt[36]

Establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s at the forefront of California's emerging folk rock and country rock movements – genres which defined post-1960s rock music – Ronstadt joined forces with Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards and became the lead singer of a folk-rock trio, the Stone Poneys. Later, as a solo artist, she released Hand Sown ... Home Grown in 1969, which has been described as the first alternative country record by a female recording artist.[37] Although fame eluded her during these years, Ronstadt actively toured with the Doors, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and others, appeared numerous times on television shows, and began to contribute her singing to albums by other artists.

With the release of chart-topping albums such as Heart Like a Wheel, Simple Dreams, and Living in the USA, Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star. She set records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade.[37][38][39][40] Referred to as the "First Lady of Rock"[29][41] and the "Queen of Rock", Ronstadt was voted the Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s.[29] Her rock-and-roll image was as famous as her music; she appeared six times on the cover of Rolling Stone and on the covers of Newsweek and Time.

In the 1980s, Ronstadt performed on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for her performance in The Pirates of Penzance,[42] teamed with the composer Philip Glass, recorded traditional music, and collaborated with the conductor Nelson Riddle, an event at that time viewed as an original and unorthodox move for a rock-and-roll artist. This venture paid off,[43] and Ronstadt remained one of the music industry's best-selling acts throughout the 1980s, with multi-platinum-selling albums such as Mad Love, What's New, Canciones de Mi Padre, and Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. She continued to tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums, such as Winter Light and Hummin' to Myself, until her retirement in 2011.[44] Most of Ronstadt's albums are certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum.[45][46] Having sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide[47] and setting records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade, Ronstadt was the most successful female singer of the 1970s and stands as one of the most successful female recording artists in U.S. history. She 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 in the vanguard of many musical movements.[37]

Career overview    Edit

Early influences    Edit

I don't record (any type of genre of music) that I didn't hear in my family's living room by the time I was 10. It just is my rule that I don't break because ... I can't do it authentically ... I really think that you're just hard-wiring (synapses) in your brain up until the age of maybe 12 or 10, and there are certain things you can't learn in an authentic way after that.

—Linda Ronstadt[48]

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 music, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood.[49]

Ronstadt has remarked that everything she has recorded on her own records – rock and roll, 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 Sullivan and her father for introducing her to the traditional pop and Great American Songbook repertoire that she would, in turn, help reintroduce to an entire generation.[48][50]

If I didn't hear it on the radio, or if my dad wasn't playing it on the piano, or if my brother wasn't playing it on the guitar or singing it in his boys' choir, or my mother and sister weren't practicing a Broadway tune or a Gilbert and Sullivan song, then I can't do it today. It's as simple as that. All of my influences and my authenticity are a direct result of the music played in that Tucson living room.[51]

—Linda Ronstadt

Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as Lola Beltrán and Édith Piaf; she has called their singing and rhythms "more like Greek music ... It's sort of like 6/8 time signature ... very hard driving and very intense."[52] She also drew influence from country singer Hank Williams.

She has said that "all girl singers" eventually "have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday".[29] Of Maria Callas, 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."[53] She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th-century singing, particularly opera, back into the bel canto "natural style of singing".[54]

A self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and 1960s, Ronstadt is a fan of its eclectic and diverse music programming.[50]

Beginning of professional career    Edit

At age 14, Ronstadt formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen. 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".[55] Their repertoire included the music they grew up on – folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican.[56] But increasingly, Ronstadt wanted to make a union of folk music and rock 'n' roll,[40] and in 1964, after a semester at Arizona State University,[56] the 18-year-old decided to move to Los Angeles.[57][58][59]

The Stone Poneys    Edit

Main article: Stone Poneys

Ronstadt visited a friend from Tucson, Bobby Kimmel, in Los Angeles during Easter break from college in 1964, and later that year, shortly before her eighteenth birthday,[57] decided to move there permanently to form a band with him.[58] Kimmel had already begun co-writing folk-rock songs with guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards, and eventually the three of them were signed by Nik Venet to Capitol in the summer of 1966 as "the Stone Poneys". The trio released three albums in a 15-month period in 1967–68: The Stone Poneys; Evergreen, Volume 2; and Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III. The band is widely known for their hit single "Different Drum" (written by Michael Nesmith prior to his joining the Monkees), which reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well as number 12 in Cashbox magazine. Nearly 50 years later, the song remains one of Ronstadt's most popular recordings.[60]

In 2008 Australia's Raven Records 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    Edit

Still contractually obligated to Capitol Records, Ronstadt released her first solo album, Hand Sown ... Home Grown, in 1969. It has been called the first alternative country record by a female recording artist.[37] During this same period, she contributed to the Music from Free Creek "super session" project.

Ronstadt provided the vocals for some commercials during this period, including one for Remington electric razors, in which a multitracked Ronstadt and Frank Zappa claimed that the electric razor "cleans you, thrills you ... may even keep you from getting busted".[61]

Ronstadt's second solo album, Silk Purse, was released in March 1970. Recorded entirely in Nashville, it was produced by Elliot Mazer, whom Ronstadt chose on the advice of Janis Joplin, who had worked with him on the Cheap Thrills album.[62] 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 first Grammy nomination (for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance/Female).

Touring    Edit

Judy Henske, who was the then reigning queen of folk music, said to me at The Troubadour, "Honey, in this town there are four sexes. Men, women, homosexuals, and girl singers."

—Linda Ronstadt [63]

In 1975, Ronstadt performed shows with Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Toots and the Maytals.[64] In a 1976 Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe, Ronstadt said, "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."[65] In 1974 she told Peter Knobler in Crawdaddy, "People are always taking advantage of you; everybody that's interested in you has got an angle."[66]

Several years before Ronstadt became what author Gerri Hirshey called the first "arena-class rock diva" with "hugely anticipated tours"[38] 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 they were relegated to "groupie level when in a crowd of a bunch of rock and roll guys", a status Ronstadt avoided.[67] 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 Muldaur for not sacrificing their femininity but says she felt enormous self-imposed pressure to compete with "the boys" at every level.[58] She noted in a 1969 interview in Fusion magazine that it was difficult being a single "chick singer" with an all-male backup band.[67] 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.[68]

Soon after she went solo in the late 1960s, one of her first backing bands was the pioneering country-rock band Swampwater, which combined Cajun and swamp-rock elements in their music. Its members included Cajun fiddler Gib Guilbeau and John Beland, who later joined the Flying Burrito Brothers,[69] as well as Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell, and Eric White, brother of Clarence White of the Byrds. Swampwater went on to back Ronstadt during TV appearances on The Johnny Cash Show[70] and The Mike Douglas Show, and at the Big Sur Folk Festival.[71]

Another backing band included Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner, who went on to form the Eagles. They toured with her for a short period in 1971 and played on Linda Ronstadt, her self-titled third album, from which the failed single, Ronstadt's version of Browne's "Rock Me on the Water", was drawn. 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."[55] Also in 1971, Ronstadt began talking with David Geffen about moving from Capitol Records to Geffen's Asylum Records label.[72]

Collaborations with Peter Asher    Edit

In general when you fall in love with an artist and their music, the plan is a fairly simple one. .. get people to go and see them, and make a record that you think properly presents their music to the public and some of which you can get on the radio.

—Peter Asher, on collaborating with Ronstadt[36]

Ronstadt began her fourth solo album, Don't Cry Now, in 1973, with Boylan (who had negotiated her contract with Asylum Records) and John David "J.D." Souther producing most of the album's tracks. But needing someone willing to work with her as an equal, Ronstadt asked Peter Asher, who came highly recommended to her by James Taylor's sister Kate Taylor, to help produce two of them: "Sail Away" and "I Believe in You".[73]

The album featured Ronstadt's first country hit, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", 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 Young's Time Fades Away tour, playing for larger crowds than ever before. Backstage at a concert in Texas, Chris Hillman introduced her to Emmylou Harris, telling them, "You two could be good friends",[74] which soon occurred, resulting in frequent collaborations over the following years. Meanwhile, the album became Ronstadt's most successful up to that time, selling 300,000 copies by the end of 1974.[73]

Asher turned out to be more collaborative, and more on the same page with her musically, than any producer she had worked with previously.[55] Ronstadt's professional relationship with Asher allowed her to take command and effectively delegate responsibilities in the recording studio.[73] 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,[75] 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. "It must be a lot harder to have objective conversations about someone's career when it's someone you sleep with", he said.[73]

Asher executive produced a tribute CD called Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, released September 6, 2011, on which Ronstadt's 1976 version of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" appears among newly recorded versions of Holly's songs by various artists.[76]

Vocal styles    Edit

I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West A