Well they might have had a budget constraint and if Linda had input she'd be saying nobody would want to buy this. She can be a marketer's worst nightmare. Vinyl for some reason I hope is not more expensive because now it is a novelty in limited editions but it is more expensive than cd's. WTD? eddiejinnj
It would be great if somebody could upload Linda's appearance on the Rachel Ray Show with Regis. It was done in Sept. 2013, probably the same day as her GMA interview re: her autobiography, "Simple Dreams". Thanks much!!!!! eddiejinnj
I know it’s popular and I know it’s a cliche, but Heart Like a Wheel is among the most perfect records ever made. There is simply not a bum note on it, not a single flaw I can determine, and everything works. It is of a piece and of its time, and it took me years to realize this but it transcends every genre you try and put it in. It is perfect.
I agree. I have always thought this. The only time I saw her live was shortly before it came out, so it got many listens early and has always been a favorite.
The first album I got of hers was GH 1 after I saw the TV ad in 1976 before the Christmas season. It was Linda singing WWIBL and then it goes still to the album cover. I asked for Linda albums for Christmas that year from my Grandma and she bought me 3 I think. PID, HLAW and I forget the third. She may have gotten me 2. She may have gotten me Don't Cry Now or Hasten, also. I can't say for sure but that was it for me, music-wise, until this day. I have gotten all of her recordings in various forms over the years. Many duplicates around stuffland. eddiejinnj
I have to always attempt to put in my head the feeling about the album after I first played it a hundred times. Amazing album!!!! Glad it is in the permanent collection of the National Archives, I believe. I am almost sure that is the institution. eddiejinnj
Really a lovely new review of Heart Like A Wheel over at Pitchfork: Linda Ronstadt: Heart Like a Wheel Album Review | Pitchfork Worth reading! Cheers, RH
A lot of us know she played instruments on some of her recordings and in concert on occasion especially during most of the 70's. She also has 4 writing credits and she was one of the first female producers. eddiejinnj
The knock on her back when was that she had a tendency to just sing (or boom) her way through songs instead of interpreting them, usually sounding gorgeous but often lacking in expression and variety (the album "Heart Like a Wheel" being an early exception). There is some truth to this IMO. To compare her "Down So Low" to Tracy Nelson's, or her "Love Has No Pride" to Bonnie Raitt's, is just a painful experience if you like Ronstadt (which I do for the most part). Her experiments with different material didn't always work out, as Elvis Costello conveyed to her by sending back her royalty checks. I think she got better with the years, particularly after working with Nelson Riddle, and it says a lot for her that she continued to grow as an artist even after her biggest days on the charts had passed. Incredible range.
Yep, commercial LA. mellow (which Andrew Gold epitomized) and doing mostly covers and radiating beauty and attractiveness both sonically and pulchritudinously with no hint of tortured-artist cred, cost her points m those days. But time passes, value and depth of appreciation acrue, and commercial becomes classic.
My sense is that Linda is having a "moment" these days, a small but perceptible critical self-correction to celebrate her work at a moment when the critical world mostly can't be bothered to think much about the mainstream 70s anymore. Pitchfork saying nice things about her (see the post above). A nice showing for HLAW on the NPR poll of Greatest Albums by Women and its followup Readers Poll of the same. MFSL remastering most of her 70s albums in the last 12 years (but not Linda Ronstadt -- hey! MoFi! Make it happen, eh?!).
Are there plans for other live records or other releases given the upcoming Documentary (which is garnering some buzz and positivity)? Seems like an ideal time for more releases...
I’ve always loved Mad Love and feel it’s an underrated part of her discography even if she misreads Elvis Costello’s Allison.
I can't speak for the perception of her credibility wise during the 70s as I was just a kid. But I remember her being huge. However, it is her interpretive skills that has drawn me to her. Sounding gorgeous doesn't mean lack of authenticity. Example, Patsy Cline.
I agree. It seems that singers who are blessed with incredibly gorgeous voices are not always given critical respect. It is also like a movie actress that is so beautiful that it takes years for people to realize what a great actress she has been the whole time. I am thinking of Elizabeth Taylor or Charlize Theron as examples from the acting field. Karen Carpenter is another singer whose singing voice was so pure and technically perfect that it was sometimes wrongly dismissed by music critics as being heartless or passionless, which I think was highly unfair. I think the same thing was true of Linda Ronstadt, who was blessed with one of the most beautiful female singing voices to ever grace a recording studio.
Linda will tell you she completely wrote the lyrics to "Try Me Again" and only got help musically with a bridge or something from Andrew Gold (not minimizing this help). Am pointing this out as it is the most singular example of Linda's song writing skills. It is a great power ballad and seems like a difficult one to sing. eddiejinnj
I never heard that Costello sent back her royalty checks. It was quite the opposite saying something like keep sending the royalty checks. "Love Has No Pride" was a song both Linda and Bonnie did almost at the same time. Bonnie's came out I thinks months before Linda's. They are both excellent but Linda went a more dramatic arrangement that made it power pop!!! Linda's "Down So Low" is just more than good enough for me. I have seen her tear into that song on video. The difference in both of them is that I may not have heard these songs if not for Linda because the other two versions were not as readily known especially as they say "back in the day"!!!! eddiejinnj
In an interview, much later, Costello acknowledged being rude in his reactions (at the time) to Ronstadt covering his material. He closed by saying something along the lines of: "I wasn't rude about the money, though." He clearly felt bad about it.
I could be mistaken about returning the royalty checks, but I'm reasonably sure he did that or something like it - maybe he donated them (?) Cline is a good example of a singer with a lush instrument who loses nothing in expression. I don’t want to belabor the point because this is an appreciation thread and I like a lot of her work, but it is true that Ronstadt received a lot of critical grief, deserved or no, over the blandness of many of her interpretations. (This essay by John Rockwell, who loves him some Linda, summarizes the old Ronstadt Debate pretty well: Living in the USA .)
Having played every Linda track from 69 though 86 just recently and a few from before and beyond, there's no doubt that she, like many singers, could get a tad lazy and not really try to understand the lyric. However, this certainly wasn't always the case. Elvis comes to mind as a guy who took songs off sometimes instead of really brining it from the heart. Both he and Linda still sounded good just not at their best during those moments.
