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Post by erik on Sept 8, 2017 19:08:36 GMT -5
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 8, 2017 21:31:47 GMT -5
That's a nice summary that left me wanting more. I took the list of Linda's country hits from the Linda Ronstadt Homepage (unofficial) and made a youtube page and added some other works she did in that genre to give a more complete picture of the breadth of her talent. It is always nice to see Linda get credit for her contributions to the music world.
Linda Ronstadt Country Hits and More:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUMq4sB5dsC-M-Pc7KcEYBmUUQbtPb2FB
No. 23: Linda Ronstadt – Country’s Most Powerful Women of All Time
By Taste of Country Staff
Linda Ronstadt was one of the first true multi-genre female superstars, and her impact on country music is so great that she ranks No. 23 on Taste of Country’s list of Country Music’s 30 Most Powerful Women of All Time.
Ronstadt was a Kelly Clarkson-sized star before Clarkson was even born, dominating the charts across several genres in the ’70s and into the ’80s. She charted her first country hit in 1974 with “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” which reached No. 20, and scored her first No. 1 country song with “When Will I Be Loved” in 1975. Covers of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” are among Ronstadt’s other country hits, with the latter featuring vocals from Don Henley, who met Ronstadt when he was playing in her backing group. That core group later splintered off and became the Eagles.
During a time when she was the biggest female artist in rock music, Ronstadt continued to have hits in the country charts as well. A cover of the Hank Williams classic “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You)” is another of her country hits, and indeed, many of Ronstadt’s biggest hits were covers of classic hits, earning her a label as one of the best song interpreters of her generation.
She scored her last solo country Top 10 with “I Never Will Marry” in 1978 and went on to a long-lived career that spans many different genres of popular music, returning to country in 1987 in a project with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. Their Trio album debuted at No. 1 on the country album charts. “Wildflowers”’ was a Top 10 single, and the album won Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal at the 1988 Grammy Awards. The trio also released Trio II in 1999. Parkinson’s disease later robbed Ronstadt of her singing voice and forced her into retirement.
Ronstadt is one of a handful of the most technically accomplished vocalists in country music history, with a voice that sounded good in country, rock, pop, Latin music and even on Broadway. Her versatility, ironically, is part of the reason she doesn’t place even higher in the list of the most powerful women in country music, since her time specifically in the country genre was relatively brief.
Read More: No. 23: Linda Ronstadt - Country's Most Powerful Women | tasteofcountry.com/linda-ronstadt-powerful-female-country-singers/?trackback=tsmclip  
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Post by erik on Sept 8, 2017 22:00:32 GMT -5
I know that most of these "placings" of Linda on any "best of" lists are considered meaningless in the big picture as wee see them, but Linda's very versatility and her desire not to necessarily remain in one place is one of the reasons why it has perhaps taken so long for her to be recognized (IMHO).
With respect to her influence on country music, of course, nowhere I can tell in her entire career did Linda ever proclaim herself to be a straight-ahead country singer, and certainly not in the Nashville sense of the term. Yes, she listened to C&W as a "young'un--Hank Williams; the Grand Ole Opry; the Louisiana Hayride. But she didn't grow up in the South, she grew up in the Southwest, so her approach to country is probably more kaleidoscopic than most: honky-tonk; Western swing; rockabilly; the influence of nearby Mexican border music. And the folk-rock influence of her generation was also an important factor to how she approached country. Linda was always much more Laurel Canyon than Music Row; and as such, it is easy for Nashville to dampen the idea that she had influence.
But truth be told, had it not been for Linda, we would not have seen the emergence of the following female country acts: Trisha Yearwood; Martina McBride; Patty Loveless; Terri Clark; Brandy Clark; Carlene Carter; Rosanne Cash; Carrie Underwood; and dozens of others.
So I guess we'll leave it at that, and allow her peers to decide how big a deal she continues to be even in forced retirement--pretty big, in my estimation.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2017 10:03:29 GMT -5
A nice tribute, considering Linda has not worked in the country genre for some time...
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