BORN 80 years ago in Tucson, Arizona on July 15, Linda Ronstadt didn’t have an ambition when she started singing but today, she is known as the Queen of Country Rock who has made every song she sang entirely her own.
It was in 1967 that Ronstadt scored her first top 40 hit with ‘Different Drum’. That title also doubles as an apt description of her musical journey.
What made her unique, though, is that she never stuck to just one genre. Instead, she conquered all as she recorded and released hits in rock, folk, pop, country and soul, establishing herself as the top female singer of the 1970s and one of the most successful female recording artists of all time.
Today, we’re reflecting on the life and legacy of the 11-time Grammy winner as she celebrated her 80th birthday more than a week ago.
Ronstadt grew up on her family’s 10-acre ranch and there she cultivated a diverse musical palette, listening to everything from folk, rock, pop, country, opera and the traditional Mexican ballads passed down from her father’s childhood.
Singing was truly her passion and she never considered taking a different career path as she grew older.
“I never wanted to be anything but a singer,” she enthused in Route magazine’s interview. “I thought that I would be singing at pizza parlors or Holiday Inns, or something like that. As long as I could make a living as a singer . . . I didn’t have an ambition when I started.”
By age 14, Linda was already performing in local coffeehouses, fraternity joints and other small venues as part of a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen.
On finishing high school, she then headed to the University of Arizona. However, her foray into higher education was short-lived. During Easter break in 1964, she visited folk-rock guitarist Bobby Kimmel, a friend from Tucson who had moved to Los Angeles to further his music career.
Later that same year, Ronstadt decided to leave college behind and move to Los Angeles, where she formed the Stone Poneys with Kimmel and guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards. Signing with Capitol Records, the band released three albums across 15 months, scoring their biggest hit in 1967 with ‘Different Drum’.
The song was written by a pre-Monkees Michael Nesmith and it reached number 13 on the Hot 100. Ironically, though, the song’s success ultimately spelled the Stone Poneys’ demise.
In this, there was actually no regret as Linda shared later that Capitol Records had wanted to push her as a solo artist from the beginning.
Despite the band’s split in 1968, Ronstadt was still contractually bound to Capitol Records, so she put together her solo debut album, ‘Hand Sown . . . Home Grown’, which was released the following year. The long play (LP) has been billed as the first alternative country album released by a woman.
Between 1968 and the 1970s, Ronstadt leaned into her country roots on her next two albums, ‘Silk Purse’ (1970) and her self-titled 1972 LP. The latter featured a group of session musicians who would later form the Eagles.
Then 1974’s hit ‘Heart Like a Wheel’ became a turning point in Ronstadt’s career, giving to her the first-ever number-one album and first chart-topping single—’You’re No Good’.
At the 18th annual Grammy Awards, ‘Heart Like a Wheel’ earned an Album of the Year nod, while Ronstadt won Best Country Vocal Performance for a Female Artist with her version of ‘I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You)’.
From there, Linda became one of the biggest names in music as she was tagged as the first female recording artist to achieve three consecutive platinum albums, eventually extending that record to eight consecutive more.
And by the time she retired from music in 2009, Ronstadt had racked up 21 Top 40 hits and 10 Top 10 singles, selling more than 100 million records across the globe and boasting 11 Grammy Awards. She eventually joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
Today, despite changing the game for women in rock music, Ronstadt remains almost absurdly humble. Once asked what she would like people to remember about her, the ‘Blue Bayou’ singer replied, “That I wasn’t very good, and I got better.”
ia/xf
