Celebrating Linda Ronstadt on her 78th birthday. —Ed.
Through no fault of her own, Linda Ronstadt has been relegated to the 1970s soft-rock camp. Some would even label her an easy-listening artist, but they’d change their mind by listening to her fiery takes on Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.” and Buddy Holly and the Crickets’ “It’s So Easy.” Say what you will about the long-time denizen of West Los Angeles’ Topanga Canyon scene, she’s more than a lovely voice.
Ronstadt has primarily covered other musicians’ songs, but she’s always left her unique stamp on them. Like Joe Cocker at his best, she’s made their songs her songs, and many of those songs were written by her L.A. contemporaries: Warren Zevon, Lowell George, Townes Van Zant, Neil Young, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the list goes on. If Thelonious Monk was a close personal friend, I would have to include him on the list.
There are plenty of welcome vinyl introductions to Ronstadt’s work. Studio LPs such as 1974’s Heart Like a Wheel and 1977’s Simple Dreams are as good as any, as is 1976’s Greatest Hits. There are some more extensive compilations out there as well. But my personal favorite is 2019’s Live in Hollywood, which was recorded in 1980 at Television Center Studios in Hollywood for broadcast as a special on HBO. Only three of its twelve songs were previously recorded, making it an essential purchase for fans looking for songs they’d yet to hear.
Ronstadt isn’t known for having grit in her voice, or muscle for that matter. But on Live in Hollywood she makes it clear that Linda Ronstadt the MOR (in some folks’ opinion anyway) can be a real belter. It doesn’t hurt that her backing band are not just crack musicians but close friends, and they include the likes of Little Feat keyboard player Bill Payne, guitarist Kenny Edwards, Stone Poneys founder and frequent Ronstadt collaborator, drummer about town Russ Kunkel, and backing vocalist and singer/songwriter Wendy Waldman. They lend Live in Hollywood an organic feel—their warm and intimate sound is miles away from the clinically cold sound coming out of Ronstadt’s contemporaries at the time.
The LP opens with a radio-ready cover of “I Can’t Let Go.” As is true with many of these songs it’s hard to believe it hadn’t been previously unreleased. It’s a rocker with a good melody, and Ronstadt ‘s gutsy singing is more Chrissie Hynde than, say, Stevie Nicks. Ronstadt may not have as much gravel in her voice, but she’s no polished pop princess either. On LP standout “Willin’,” both Ronstadt and band outdo themselves. With Edward’s acoustic guitar, Payne’s piano and Dan Dugmore’s pedal steel guitar behind her, Ronstadt does the seemingly impossible—mainly brings her lovely voice to bear on the song without mopping up a single drop of its 18-wheel axle grease.
Ronstadt’s cover of Helen “Mama Soul” Troy’s 1963 hit “Just One Look” may lack the swing of the original, and there’s simply no competing with Troy, but Ronstadt—with assistance from Payne’s piano and the rhythm section’s sway—demonstrates she has the lungs to put paid to her origins as a folk performer and the genteel country rocker of the Stone Poneys. As for Warren Zevon’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” Ronstadt’s version rocks harder—and while she may lack Zevon’s lunatic cred, she doesn’t sacrifice an iota of the song’s cheerful elan.
Ronstadt lends her cover of Don Henley and Glen Frey’s “Desperado”—on which she is accompanied only by Payne’s piano—a quiet passion. She’s a woman, after all, and hers is more a song of romantic heartbreak than the Marlboro man machismo of the Eagles’ original. And she takes Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.” and sets fire to it. She’s no Janis Joplin, but she bites off and spits out the lyrics with all the urgency of a first-generation rocker standing behind a microphone in Sun Studios. And it doesn’t hurt that the band goes “Johnny B. Goode”on the song, with Dugmore playing Berry on guitar and Payne playing the legendary Johnnie Johnson on piano.
Ronstadt and band go the sultry route on Cliff Ballard Jr.’s “You’re No Good,” and by so doing manages to walk a fine line between frank sexual desire and pissed off lover. As is the case with “Back in the U.S.A.,” “You’re No Good” makes you forget all about the ingenue with the Judy Collins voice who recorded songs like “The Dolphins.” She puts everything she’s got into that “I’m gonna say it again,” while the band serves up a brief interlude that has more Beatles in it than every L.A. act since The Byrds. The only thing that sticks in my craw is Payne’s synthesizer. He ruined Little Feat with the damn thing, and it’s a crying shame to watch him ruin other artists’ work as well.
Ronstadt lets loose on “Hurts So Bad,” which was co-written by Bobby Hart, who helped write a few Monkees’ songs. Listen to the song’s end and then tell me she was a white bread vocalist in a white bread time. On “It’s So Easy” Ronstadt has a growl in her voice that probably would have scared the willies out of poor Buddy Holly, whose version is better but certainly not as angry. Ronstadt has made Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” as much hers as his by giving the verses the quiet treatment while going full-throated torch singer on the choruses.
Ronstadt takes the lovely “Faithless Love” by J.D. Souther—who some may remember was a member of the David Geffen-manufactured disaster of a supergroup the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band—and turns it into a stunner, thanks in large part to the banjo and vocals of Kenny Edwards. The only song on Live on Hollywood that leaves me cold is the blatant New Wave move “How Do I Make You.” I know, I know—every star who feared being left behind by the likes of Elvis Costello—whose “Alison” Ronstadt covered in 1978—tried to adapt, sometimes with ludicrous results, to the new and awful world. “How Do I Make You” is no embarrassment, but it is the work of an artist attempting to keep herself atop the pop heap by any means possible.
It’s unfortunate the Ronstadt was one of the L.A. superstar crowd who would soon be rendered passé by Hollywood’s punk rock scene. And more than just being written off as a relic of the vapid mid- to late seventies pop scene, she faced the indignity of being viewed as nothing more than a talented sex kitten. Ronstadt has gumption and an incredible voice, and her songs will be around just as long as those of the bands that put paid to her style of music. I’ll always be a much bigger fan of X, but Ronstadt’s version of Warren Zevon’s “Mohammed’s Radio” could give me second thoughts.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
