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Post by erik on May 6, 2012 12:19:03 GMT -5
Given the knee-jerk way the country music establishment reacted in 1975 to the way John Denver and Olivia Newton-John had invaded "their" territory, it is remarkable to note that Linda avoided getting much heat for doing basically the same thing and with a much more rock-oriented approach, which should have inflamed them even further. As country music listeners came to know, however, Linda knew what she wanted in her music; and her crossover success came largely without her deliberately going for it. This was evident at the end of the summer of 1975, when her second Asylum album Prisoner In Disguise was released. It sold like crazy right out of the gate, eventually going Platinum, and hitting #2 on Billboard's C&W album chart (#4 on the overall Top 200). Part of the reason for that was that the Asylum execs, who looked at the success that Capitol had had at the beginning of 1975 in pairing the pure pop of "You're No Good" with the straight ahead C&W "I Can't Help It" on the same 78, tried the same tactic when "Heat Wave" and "Love Is A Rose" were released as a 2-sided single. The gambit worked quite well by them. LOVE IS A ROSE 09/13/75--#86 (her fifth Top 100 C&W hit) 09/20/75--#61 09/27/75--#49 10/04/75--#33 (her fourth Top 40 C&W hit) 10/11/75--#26 10/18/75--#19 10/25/75--#15 11/01/75--#11 11/08/75--#9 (her third Top 10 C&W hit) 11/15/75--#7 11/22/75--#6 11/29/75-- #512/06/75-- #512/13/75--#18 12/20/75--#47 In no small part due to the neo-bluegrass arrangement of "Love Is A Rose", penned by Linda's good friend Neil Young, the song was heavily played on country radio for much of the last quarter of 1975. It was also continuing evidence, however, that Linda's country approach wasn't that of Nashville or the Deep South so much as it was of Laurel Canyon. It had the requisite fiddle and banjo work from her friends David Lindley and Herb Pederson, but it also had a floor-rattling drums/bass sound that was a prime example of the Los Angeles sound she had been cultivating. As had been the case with "You're No Good"'s success helping out its country counterpart, the pop success of "Heat Wave" unquestionably boosted the popularity of "Love Is A Rose" on the country chart. The next release off of Prisoner In Disguise caught a lot of country music listeners substantially off guard, given that it was not only a reworking of a Motown classic, but that the only thing that made it country at all was the presence of a steel guitar. THE TRACKS OF MY TEARS 01/03/76--#75 (her sixth Top 100 C&W hit) 01/10/76--#55 01/17/76--#38 (her fifth Top 40 C&W hit) 01/24/76--#30 01/31/76--#23 02/07/76--#18 02/14/76--#14 02/21/76--#12 02/28/76-- #1103/06/76--#17 03/13/76--#44 03/20/76--#69 It wasn't unprecedented for Motown songs to end up being done by country artists (in 1970, Susan Raye and Bill Anderson had a country hit with "Someday We'll Be Together", which had been the twelfth and final #1 pop hit for the Supremes at the end of 1969). As usual, however, Linda had pulled a fast one on the country audience because this wasn't a Nashville countrypolitan remake, but a straight-from-L.A. version, with both the arrangement and Linda's gut-wrenching vocalization mixing country with Detroit R&B and L.A. pop-rock in a way that jarred a lot of country listeners. "The Tracks Of My Tears" had as its B-side an ultra-traditional country classic, "The Sweetest Gift", where, once again, Linda smuggled her good pal Emmylou Harris into the studio to do the harmony vocal; it got some airplay, reaching #12 as the B-side, but it was overshadowed on radio by its companion. Still, that was one of the songs that Linda and Emmy would do on Dolly's TV show in February 1976 that marked the first public performance of The Trio. It was also a prime example of how Linda was not only willing to break rules, but also to set precedents that others would follow in the next three decades. By 1976, youngsters like Trisha Yearwood and Sheryl Crow had gotten turned on to Linda's heartfelt, no-holes-barred California approach to C&W and rock. Her next album would continue that crossover pattern, and in ways that, once again, would turn people's heads.
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Post by sliderocker on May 8, 2012 22:10:59 GMT -5
I never was much of a fan of "Love Is A Rose" back in '75, preferring to listen to "Heat Wave" but over the years, that listening preference has sort of reversed."Heat Wave" sounds a little dated and forced to me today whereas "Love Is A Rose" doesn't sound quite as bad. It's held up really well over the years. Most of the "Prisoner In Disguise" album has held up pretty well though it wasn't quite the monster that "Heart Like A Wheel" was and that "Hasten Down The Wind" would be, but it does have a couple of my favorite Linda performances: her version of "The Sweetest Gift" and "I Never Will Marry," in which she displays that tender, fragile, seriously wounded by love voice of hers that sounded far more genuine than maybe it should have. It's still one of her most affecting and saddest performances. Most country music has been described as cry in your beer music but Linda's saddest music didn't need an alcoholic inducer to bring out the tears. Of course, you are feeling sad for her rather than feeling sad for yourself.
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Post by erik on May 8, 2012 22:24:48 GMT -5
I think Linda does understand the cry-in-your-beer side of country music too, but obviously it's really the traditional spirit of the thing that she tries to get across on her albums, including Prisoner In Disguise, and doing it in a progressive way. To her, the two approaches, traditional and progressive, are not really separate--not that you'd know it from listening to the stuff that somehow passes for country music these days, which is what Linda doesn't really like about the form as it is in the present context.
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Post by sliderocker on May 9, 2012 0:59:54 GMT -5
I think Linda does understand the cry-in-your-beer side of country music too, but obviously it's really the traditional spirit of the thing that she tries to get across on her albums, including Prisoner In Disguise, and doing it in a progressive way. To her, the two approaches, traditional and progressive, are not really separate--not that you'd know it from listening to the stuff that somehow passes for country music these days, which is what Linda doesn't really like about the form as it is in the present context. I think Linda definitely understood the cry-in-your-beer country music and likewise that she did not view the traditional and progressive form of country music as being separate, yet I think she has always held a certain amount of disdain for what passed for most country music that has come out of the Nashville area. And yet, I don't think her disdain is the same disdain that has come from Nashville's own established performers, the ones who bemoan the lack of the traditional country sound, the infusion of rock and roll and other musical forms into country music - established performers complaining about the music they themselves are making most of the time. Linda's disdain seemed to be like that of other southern California country-rockers in that I think the view was regional. They didn't want to make it in Nashville. The majority of country music may have come out of Nashville but that didn't mean they had an exclusive on the musical form any more than rock and roll was exclusive to Los Angeles, New York or London. California's country music base I thought was quite legit and certainly more musician friendly as far as a country singer being able to use their own band members on a recording if they so chose. Still, almost all of the old country music Linda made was straight out of Nashville to begin with, so she didn't exactly burn the bridges to Nashville. Newer country music must've seemed pretty false to her yet not everything that came out of Nashville was a piece of pretentious garbage nor was every country songwriter a hack writing tailor-made hits to order. And yet, the older country music she recorded was itself new at one time and was probably viewed with a similar scorn by certain artists of the time that others might feel about today's country music.
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Post by erik on May 9, 2012 9:18:15 GMT -5
With Linda, I don't think her criticisms of present-day country music stem from the fact that rock and roll is injected to it, because she knows from her own history that that would be tantamount to the pot calling the kettle black. I think her criticism is the kind of rock that's injected, namely 80s-style arena rock with its loud guitars, the stage spectacles, the smoke bombs, and stuff like that. To put it mildly, I think she's right in her criticism.
One has to remember that Linda's childhood was spent largely in extremely rural surroundings on a ranch in southeastern Arizona. It's that rusticity, that actual kind of country living that caused her to gravitate to country music, both American and Mexican, as a youngster; and it's that natural feel, combined with the intensity of early rock and roll and the integrity of the folk music revival, which informed her approach when she began her career in the late 1960s. All of that, she feels, is what is largely missing from what passes for country music today.
The other thing to remember is that, even when her records were hitting the C&W singles charts in the 70s, the older and more established artists were never marginalized or relegated to the dustbin like they are now; if anything, Linda, Emmy, and many of the other artists of her generation seemed to insist on having the classic stuff still getting played because they loved it too much. Nowadays, the oldest artists they have on country radio anymore are probably George Strait and Garth Brooks (the latter sometimes thought of as something of a villain for having introduced spectacle to country music, while ditching the substance).
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Post by sliderocker on May 9, 2012 15:30:57 GMT -5
I have a vague recollection of remember reading around 1972-73 that Linda had a dislike of what passed for country music in the late 60s and up to the time of that article, so it seems like her dislike goes back quite some time. I guess she didn't like the countrypolitan style that was produced by the likes of Chet Atkins, who felt that country music needed to grow as an artform if it was to reach out to anyone beyond a small part of the population.
The fact is, a lot of country recordings in the 50s, 60s and 70s didn't sell in the numbers one might think. A rock album could sell 500,000 copies in the 60s, a pretty healthy sales figure for the time but some country performers were lucky if they could sell a tenth of that amount. I don't think there was the pressure on the artists back then to sell in such large amounts. I'm not sure there is today, even. I recall an interview with country singer Mindy Macready where she said the label bosses at her record company (RCA operating as BNA) only expected her to sell about 70,000 copies on her first album for them. They (and she) were stunned when the album sold over a million copies.
Still, I think part of the problem for Linda in disliking much of country music is judging today's music by the music of her past. We all do that, I guess. I listen to the music of the 60s and 70s, the music I grew up with and I think the music of the 80s, 90s and up to the present time pales in comparison. That may be an unfair thing to do, but I do feel a lot of the music that came after the 70s had no soul to it. Of course, it's probably a generational thing or maybe just just a change in musical tastes. I still like rock and roll but I don't hear a lot I like. Same for country, like some but don't hear a lot I happen to like. I lsten to a lot of classical music these days though I can't tell you the titles of the music I've listened to. Maybe it's just me - and Linda and everyone else too, just growing older and away from the musical mainstreams?
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Post by erik on May 9, 2012 20:42:35 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I don't recall her having any objections to the Nashville Sound, since one of the artists most associated with it is Patsy Cline, who Linda has also claimed to have been influenced by. And after all, Linda covered both "I Fall To Pieces" (in 1972) and "Crazy" (in 1976), so I don't think that is quite the problem she has with it. The political slant of the country music establishment, which leaned to the right then and does so today, however, that might have been her own bone of contention with it at the time.
The thing that bothers Linda today is that what passes for country music doesn't even have anything to do with the kind of rural life that it once encompassed. For her, it was ranches, farms, and wide open spaces, not Wal-Mart, soccer mom stuff, or loud proclamations of "I'm Country" like it is now.
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Post by sliderocker on May 10, 2012 10:00:09 GMT -5
I don't recall her having any objections to the Nashville Sound, since one of the artists most associated with it is Patsy Cline, who Linda has also claimed to have been influenced by. And after all, Linda covered both "I Fall To Pieces" (in 1972) and "Crazy" (in 1976), so I don't think that is quite the problem she has with it. The political slant of the country music establishment, which leaned to the right then and does so today, however, that might have been her own bone of contention with it at the time. The thing that bothers Linda today is that what passes for country music doesn't even have anything to do with the kind of rural life that it once encompassed. For her, it was ranches, farms, and wide open spaces, not Wal-Mart, soccer mom stuff, or loud proclamations of "I'm Country" like it is now. Wished I had saved all the magazines which had articles on Linda in the early 70s, so I could look up the particular magazine in question, but I remember her not liking some of the country music of the 60s and 70s. Most of the country songs she recorded in the late 60s and 70s dated back to the late 50s and early 60s. She didn't really do a lot of newer country songs on her earlier albums, country as in coming out of Nashville. I'm not sure how old of a song Mel Tillis's "Mental Revenge" was at the time when Linda recorded the song, but was it a fairly recent recording by him? Likewise, Mickey Newbury's "Are My Thoughts with You," which probably was a newer song but Newbury wasn't even thought of at the time as being a country performer. Patsy's influence in Linda's life would've been during her pre-teen and teen years, at a time when the Nashville countrypolitan sound was just getting underway. She might not have associated the Patsy Cline recordings with the later country recordings that tried to sound "uptown" and far from the rural areas of the south. But, maybe Linda's dislike had nothing to do with the music per se but what Nashville was adding to the music which they might have seen as making an improvement but was actually detracting from the songs. As mentioned, Nashville was the only music center which claimed a particular genre as belonging to them. No other city that was a music center claimed a musical sound as being its exclusive domain. Country performers came from all over the US and from Canada, performers who brought colorings that were specific to the regions they came from, and they got subjected to the Nashville method of making music I guess you could say that, in a sense, Nashville took the color out the performer's performance of a song and watered it down where more people would maybe like it and maybe buy it.
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Post by erik on May 10, 2012 19:33:04 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
All of this is probably true, I have to say. It may have been Nashville's attempt to appeal to more uptown crowds that once flocked to early 50s pop and then got disgusted when this new-fangled rock and roll thing came around. They also reacted rather poorly to the folk music explosion of the early 1960s, even though it was that movement that attracted young people (Linda especially) to ultra-traditional styles of country music, including bluegrass, and found a way to make it relevant once again while removing the hick/hillbilly stereotype. In a sense, Nashville is perhaps the most schizoid center of American music culture that we have.
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Post by sliderocker on May 11, 2012 12:03:23 GMT -5
All of this is probably true, I have to say. It may have been Nashville's attempt to appeal to more uptown crowds that once flocked to early 50s pop and then got disgusted when this new-fangled rock and roll thing came around. They also reacted rather poorly to the folk music explosion of the early 1960s, even though it was that movement that attracted young people (Linda especially) to ultra-traditional styles of country music, including bluegrass, and found a way to make it relevant once again while removing the hick/hillbilly stereotype. In a sense, Nashville is perhaps the most schizoid center of American music culture that we have. The Nashville establishment wanted to have the kind of sales that were being seen in the pop, rock and soul/R&B genres but they wanted to keep making the same kind of music over and over again. One thing in Nashville's favor during that time was they didn't turn their backs on older artists. Many of Nashville's established artists in the 50s and 60s (and maybe into the 70s) was that they were all pretty old to begin with - many in their 40s or 50s or older, with a handful of younger country performers in their 30s and an even smaller number in their 20s. And maybe the resentment was not only from the sales and wealth those in the rock, pop and soul genres were having, but also the resentment of youth and the fear that the record companies might decree that the older country artists were persona non grata and boot them off the label, which many record companies would ultimately do.
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Post by erik on May 11, 2012 14:15:43 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
Well the big purge of older artists really occurred near the end of the 1980s, when the young hunks of country (led by the Garthmeister) led the charge. Even in 1989, after a decade and a half of loyalty to them and a ton of success, Warner Brothers dislodged Emmylou Harris from their roster. She disappeared from country radio, only to re-emerge in the 90s in the alt-country/Americana world and get a new lease on life.
But besides everything else, Linda and Emmy both share a generalized apathy towards what passes for country music these days. Emmy herself refers to it as "vanilla"; and Jimmy Webb has reported Linda as saying that most of the male singers in the genre today are merely "guys with big hats." These gals are straight-shooters, to be sure, but truer words, in my opinion, were never spoken.
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Post by sliderocker on May 12, 2012 1:27:14 GMT -5
Well the big purge of older artists really occurred near the end of the 1980s, when the young hunks of country (led by the Garthmeister) led the charge. Even in 1989, after a decade and a half of loyalty to them and a ton of success, Warner Brothers dislodged Emmylou Harris from their roster. She disappeared from country radio, only to re-emerge in the 90s in the alt-country/Americana world and get a new lease on life. But besides everything else, Linda and Emmy both share a generalized apathy towards what passes for country music these days. Emmy herself refers to it as "vanilla"; and Jimmy Webb has reported Linda as saying that most of the male singers in the genre today are merely "guys with big hats." These gals are straight-shooters, to be sure, but truer words, in my opinion, were never spoken. Many artists disappeared from the majors in all genres but luckily, some of the artists were willing to sign with smaller labels that were artist friendly. Or they formed their own record label or released albums on labelless labels. (Olivia Newton-John released some albums in exclusive deals through Hallmark or Walgreens that carried no label name, not even a mention of the names of those stores or their logos on the albums.) I know that after Asylum, Linda bounced from Verve to Vanguard, which to me indicated there wasn't a strong enough interest from either label for the albums they released on her. Some artists don't mind doing one-off album deals but that kind of deal is basically a suicide deal. It means all the artist is doing is recording an album the record company won't get behind and give it any push. The record company may have 10,-100,000 copies of an album pressed up but require the artist to pay for all unsold copies. The artists don't need to do that kind of deal, not when they can basically have their label (with or without a label name). I kind of wish Linda had gone the own label route but some artists seem to prefer sticking with a the record companies.
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Post by erik on May 12, 2012 11:31:37 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I think Verve did a good job with Hummin' To Myself, which did pretty good on the jazz album chart, just missing going to #1 there; and besides, jazz is their thing. Vanguard, I felt, did likewise with Adieu False Heart, which was an eclectic and ultra-traditional folk album. Neither album could be expected to blast the general album charts in terms of sales because they are very specialized pieces, and they didn't.
As for making records on her own label--I agree that Linda probably should have tried that, but maybe she didn't feel she had the proper business acumen to pull it off.
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Post by sliderocker on May 12, 2012 13:59:20 GMT -5
I think Verve did a good job with Hummin' To Myself, which did pretty good on the jazz album chart, just missing going to #1 there; and besides, jazz is their thing. Vanguard, I felt, did likewise with Adieu False Heart, which was an eclectic and ultra-traditional folk album. Neither album could be expected to blast the general album charts in terms of sales because they are very specialized pieces, and they didn't. As for making records on her own label--I agree that Linda probably should have tried that, but maybe she didn't feel she had the proper business acumen to pull it off. Verve and Vanguard may not have expected Linda to have had album sales in the millions, and Linda may have just wanted to have the kind of freedom where she could make an album without having the pressure and expectation that it had to sell millions of copies. But, you know the snarky critics, her detractors, would look at those albums selling in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than in the millions and judge her career to be on the way down or already over. It probably wouldn't occur to them that the goal wasn't to sell a million but just to do the album under the terms she wanted. Linda may not have had the proper business acumen to run her own record label, but the companies which published the all too few songs she wrote or cowrote, were those companies hers or were they run by someone else? For a long time, I assumed she owned Normal Music or had some kind of financial interest in the publishing company, but she wrote a song with Wendy Waldman about the time Normal Music was in operation, yet that company didn't have the publishing on that aprticular song. And they didn't have the publishing on the arrangement for "Ave Maria," which she did for Aaron Neville. So I'm guessing she didn't own any of the publishing companies but what a pity she never tried her hand at running her own label.
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Post by erik on May 12, 2012 17:53:20 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
We'll probably find out about those things and a lot more when her memoir, named after her breakthrough 1974 album Heart Like A Wheel, comes out sometime next year.
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Post by sliderocker on May 13, 2012 10:31:10 GMT -5
I've been curious about what will be in her autobiography ever since it was announced she was writing it. Obviously, a good part of the book will cover her career and her music, and hopefully she won't be so dismissive of her music as she has been in the past. Hopefully, the publisher won't insist on and put a lot of pressure on Linda for the dirt, anything which would make herself or others look bad. I expect some part of the book will cover her political views, particularly the incident with the loudmouthed conservative Republican in Vegas over Michael Moore, and the anti-immigration issue in Arizona which she has spoken out against. Hopefully, nothing shocking though if there is, not anything that would boomerang on Linda in a very bad way. Some people would probably want an auto-bio book that was more salacious and scandalous but if Linda's book presents an image of her as the girl next door, an image which she has had most of her life and career, what would be wrong with that?
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Post by erik on May 13, 2012 12:15:23 GMT -5
I don't think they'll pressure her to unburden herself with tawdry tabloid material, but I do think she'll be honesty both with the fans and, most importantly, with herself. She has seen a fair amount of darkness in her career, since so many friends of hers have passed away, either from natural causes or from drug use, but she has had a lot to be happy for. I believe all of that will be covered.
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Post by sliderocker on May 14, 2012 12:24:50 GMT -5
Hope not but dirt sells books and the nastier, the better the sales. Probably where the most dirt could come from would be in the relationships she had but given her shyness, I can't see her being too revealing. I was watching a video on youtube a while back of her on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from the 80s, and Carson was saying something she obviously didn't like and she sort of turned away and looked down and looked to be totally embarrassed by the way the conversation was going. So, I can't see her being too revealing or too shocking and just hope the publisher doesn't put the pressure on for the dirt as a condition for publication.
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Post by erik on May 14, 2012 12:58:46 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I think I know what interview you're talking about, but I think she handled herself better than she would if it had been anyone but Johnny. Insofar as relationships go, I think if she discusses anything along those lines, it would probably be related to the process of music-making, which I believe most of us fans would be the most intrigued by; and also, I would hope, her connection with the Eagles, who pretty much owe their existence to her.
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Post by the Scribe on May 14, 2012 14:52:29 GMT -5
I think an interesting chapter would be Linda's search for a backup band during the early days. She had some good ones along the way. She explained why it never seemed to work for her as they were competing with each other and would often have to take a back seat to her which then caused resentments. Her search to be part of a band probably had more of her not wanting to be in the spotlight so much. In reality, it is Linda that people really wanted to see and having a band to hide behind would never work. It goes hand in hand with being a woman in Rock and why it was so difficult.
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Post by erik on May 14, 2012 18:40:35 GMT -5
Quote by ronstadtfanaz:
And besides everything else, her voice would be the most noticeable thing about the group, as it was with the Stone Poneys. There really isn't any way she wouldn't stand out.
On the other hand, as she showed when she guested with Jackson and the Eagles on the "Take It Easy" video, she proved that she could handle herself as a band member.
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Post by sliderocker on May 15, 2012 11:54:25 GMT -5
I think I know what interview you're talking about, but I think she handled herself better than she would if it had been anyone but Johnny. Insofar as relationships go, I think if she discusses anything along those lines, it would probably be related to the process of music-making, which I believe most of us fans would be the most intrigued by; and also, I would hope, her connection with the Eagles, who pretty much owe their existence to her. If that Carson appearance had been my first exposure to Linda, that shyness of hers that she displayed during the interview would've made me a fan for life. To have been a public figure for two decades by that point and still be that shy was just something you wouldn't have expected from someone that well known. And although I couldn't tell from watching the video, I wouldn't have been surprised if she also wasn't blushing to some degree. I figure her music will be a big part of her book, which I'm hoping she won't diss because of her belief it's not up to the Sinatra standard. That dismissive stance still annoys me because I don't agree with it because while Sinatra was a great singer, Linda was and is a far better singer than she gives herself credit for. But, I also figure her book will cover a familiar path in other auto-bio books but Linda has lived during some interesting times, especially the 60s and her take on that era - its music, politics and people would make for a fascinating read. I don't expect to read anything too negative or shocking but here again, there may be parts of her life where her experiences were negative (like with former managers or other individuals or maybe with Capitol or Rolling Stone magazine) that she may want to tell off with a "f--k you." And as much as she loves musicians, I can't see her having anything bad to say about the ones she has worked with, although here again, that could be an area where she could surprise us.
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Post by erik on May 15, 2012 12:33:14 GMT -5
QUote by sliderocker:
I don't think she has ever had anything really overtly bad to say about Capitol; she just felt that they really didn't know how to market her during that period of her career. She was never a one-genre singer, not even in the early 70s.
As for Rolling Stone--you'll probably get many different views as to when the bottom fell out with respect to her stewardship to the magazine or its publisher. Some say it began with those provocative photos Annie Liebowitz took of Linda in 1976. I think it may have happened with their August 18, 1983 article regarding her performance that summer at Sun City in South Africa, which arguably destroyed her reputation with rock critics because she had gone against the UN boycott of the country due to its apartheid policy. For the following several years, their reviews of her albums were not exactly complimentary (though I can't say Sun City had anything to do with it, and in any case they're not obligated to give glowing reviews), and she had very little to say about the magazine as time went on that wasn't critical.
As for her relationship to other musicians--I think she has often said how uneasy it was to relate to them because they were often all male and the element of sexism crept in. But many who have worked with her really found out how much she knew about her abilities, and I think she'll probably acknowledge that in the book.
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Post by sliderocker on May 15, 2012 18:36:32 GMT -5
I don't think she has ever had anything really overtly bad to say about Capitol; she just felt that they really didn't know how to market her during that period of her career. She was never a one-genre singer, not even in the early 70s. As for Rolling Stone--you'll probably get many different views as to when the bottom fell out with respect to her stewardship to the magazine or its publisher. Some say it began with those provocative photos Annie Liebowitz took of Linda in 1976. I think it may have happened with their August 18, 1983 article regarding her performance that summer at Sun City in South Africa, which arguably destroyed her reputation with rock critics because she had gone against the UN boycott of the country due to its apartheid policy. For the following several years, their reviews of her albums were not exactly complimentary (though I can't say Sun City had anything to do with it, and in any case they're not obligated to give glowing reviews), and she had very little to say about the magazine as time went on that wasn't critical. As for her relationship to other musicians--I think she has often said how uneasy it was to relate to them because they were often all male and the element of sexism crept in. But many who have worked with her really found out how much she knew about her abilities, and I think she'll probably acknowledge that in the book. Linda may not have anything bad to say about her time at Capitol although if not, she would be a rarity among artists who left record companies for whatever reason - better deal with another company or were dumped. Most artists who left a label or were dumped rarely had anything good to say about their former labels. Some, like Elvis openly dissed their label while still signed to the label. (Elvis had some kind of long standing problem with RCA over his recordings that he once talked of going to White Whale Records, which was the label the Turles were signed to.) Of course, Linda is different from most artists. As for her problems with Rolling Stone, it may be for the reason you said although one has to wonder why they flipped over her performing in South Africa regardless of the boycott over apartheid? Surely, they couldn't have suspected her of being a closet conservative and being pro-apartheid? Maybe she just got fed up with Rolling Stone's self-importance of thinking it was a kingmaker in rock music? I've heard that most rock musicians do not like the magazine or Wenner at all and that if it were left up to them, Rolling Stone would be on the outside looking in. But, it's become a necessary evil though a very unnecessary evil. And with the musicians, I think I recall Linda also mentioned the sexism in rock music, that many of the musicians she worked with didn't like having her for a boss. I could see where they might think that because she was a singer, she shouldn't be telling them their parts even though it was her music and what she wanted in her music should've been the only priority. I could see her being open to ideas about the music but maybe the musicians she worked couldn't deal with having their ideas rejected?
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Post by erik on May 15, 2012 18:56:44 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker re. Rolling Stone:
They may not have suspected that she was a conservative, or worse, a racist, but the responses that Rolling Stone got in their Letters section a few issues later practically said that much, and several months later, when she toured with Nelson Riddle, there were protests outside some venues by anti-apartheid groups. Linda did seem to get singled out and made an example of, given that she wasn't the first to break that boycott, and Rolling Stone, perhaps unintentionally, fed the flames.
Re. other musicians:
I think it was a matter of her being intimidated by their musicianship, especially at the start. A certain amount of sexism must have creeped in, but in general she got along well with them because they were all impressed with the sheer power and focus of her voice. It was really in 1973 when she began playing acoustic guitar in rehearsals and onstage that her abilities as a musician, as well as a singer, really came out.
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Post by the Scribe on May 15, 2012 19:59:02 GMT -5
As for Rolling Stone--you'll probably get many different views as to when the bottom fell out with respect to her stewardship to the magazine or its publisher. Some say it began with those provocative photos Annie Liebowitz took of Linda in 1976.
Personally, I liked those photos. I wonder if she has changed her mind about that now? Wish I had photos of myself looking that good even if it were 40 years ago (especially if it were 40 years ago).
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Post by erik on May 15, 2012 20:51:21 GMT -5
Quote by ronstadtfanaz re. Annie Liebowitz photos: I think Linda was bothered by the fact that she was being sexualized in those pictures; even as recently as 1995, she expressed her displeasure at them. One would hope she has lightened up about the whole thing now; after all, we're hardly talking about X-rated stuff, or Britney Spears.
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Post by sliderocker on May 16, 2012 0:36:30 GMT -5
They may not have suspected that she was a conservative, or worse, a racist, but the responses that Rolling Stone got in their Letters section a few issues later practically said that much, and several months later, when she toured with Nelson Riddle, there were protests outside some venues by anti-apartheid groups. Linda did seem to get singled out and made an example of, given that she wasn't the first to break that boycott, and Rolling Stone, perhaps unintentionally, fed the flames.
There's another video of youtube (great source, that) from the 70s where she said she was somewhat conservative but I didn't take her as meaning she was a conservative overall politically, just a very private person. She might be a financial conservative - after all, how many of her friends or peers in the music business were wealthy at one time, only to be not quite as wealthy today? Social issues, she's very much on the liberal side. As for Rolling Stone, fanning the flames may have been an unintentional act on their part but they had stirred the pot in the past on other artists and it was intentional. No "we didn't mean that to happen" disclaimer. Purely intentional. Of course, many of Rolling Stone's readers were just as prejudiced as the others they accused of being. Prejudice can be found on both sides and it doesn't belong exclusively to one side.
I think it was a matter of her being intimidated by their musicianship, especially at the start. A certain amount of sexism must have creeped in, but in general she got along well with them because they were all impressed with the sheer power and focus of her voice. It was really in 1973 when she began playing acoustic guitar in rehearsals and onstage that her abilities as a musician, as well as a singer, really came out.
I could see her in her early days either being intimidated or demurring because of perhaps not knowing how to communicate to the musicians what she wanted. As for her guitar playing abilities, I think she mentioned in one interview (possibly in Rolling Stone) that all she could play in the early days were only two or three guitar chords and that for many years, her guitar stayed in the closet. She sharpened her skills on the guitar considerably and I think playing guitar helped her to be in command in the recording studio with the musicians.
But, I think she still dealt with musicians with a sexist bent, which seemed to have been a pretty common thing. Almost every female artist seems to have had a similar tale. For whatever reasons, male musicians looked upon their musical instruments and the recording studio as being their domain and that women had no business playing musical instruments or telling a male musician how to play. Sort of like the jocks in sports who didn't like women interviewers in the locker room. Forbidden territory. I don't think there's many barriers today to women playing on their recordings even though I think there's still sexism, though here again, as with prejudices, sexist attitudes go both ways, not just on one side.
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Post by erik on May 16, 2012 8:48:49 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
Women have never had an easy time in the business because of this generalized sexism and oversized male egos. Linda sure didn't, but I think most of this sexism came from the media's perception of her, not so much from the guys who worked with her, the vast majority of whom found her to be very bright, bubbly, and sharp-minded. The media, which was male-dominated then (and not much has changed, in my opinion), just seemignly couldn't handle a woman like Linda who thought two or three steps ahead of them.
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Post by the Scribe on May 16, 2012 14:38:37 GMT -5
I think she mentioned in one interview (possibly in Rolling Stone) that all she could play in the early days were only two or three guitar chords and that for many years, her guitar stayed in the closet. She sharpened her skills on the guitar considerably and I think playing guitar helped her to be in command in the recording studio with the musicians.
Do you need more than 3 chords for Rock and Roll?
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