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Post by eddiejinnj on Aug 3, 2021 7:24:05 GMT -5
Linda does well with "dream" songs, lol eddiejinnj
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2021 7:27:22 GMT -5
This is my other favourite EB song, and Linda would have put real heart into it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2021 10:34:16 GMT -5
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Post by ausfan2 on Aug 26, 2021 7:29:40 GMT -5
I Can't Make You Love Me (1991)
Apparently this song was written for Linda but Bonnie Raitt snapped it up.
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Post by erik on Aug 26, 2021 8:46:54 GMT -5
A pair from The Man:
"Almost In Love", which Elvis recorded for his 1968 film LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE:
"For The Heart", written by Dennis Linde (who also wrote "Burning Love"), which was the B-side to Elvis' enormously impassioned version of the 1954 Roy Hamilton hit "Hurt" in 1976:
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2021 11:36:32 GMT -5
This. By the late great Nanci Griffiths.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Sept 9, 2021 15:26:03 GMT -5
I have always wondered since it was released how Linda would have done on "I Can't Make You Love Me". eddiejinnj
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2021 14:47:33 GMT -5
Jimmy Webb
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Post by RobGNYC on Sept 16, 2021 15:14:28 GMT -5
Inspired by Suzy Horton Ronstadt.
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 17, 2021 11:09:24 GMT -5
I would love to have heard Linda cover this Petula Clark song, an excellent pop-rock tune:
And this song by the Toys:
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Post by erik on Sept 17, 2021 13:11:23 GMT -5
One from 1984 by Ronnie Milsap, who may be a country singer by choice, but who has always had the Memphis R&B sound in his toolbox (it's his piano featured on Elvis' 1970 hit "Kentucky Rain"):
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Post by eddiejinnj on Sept 17, 2021 14:12:42 GMT -5
Susie/Suzy (depends on what site you look at) Horton Ronstadt married Linda's cousin, Bobby in 1993. Very interesting. eddiejinnj
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Post by RobGNYC on Sept 17, 2021 14:48:28 GMT -5
Susie/Suzy (depends on what site you look at) Horton Ronstadt married Linda's cousin, Bobby in 1993. Very interesting. eddiejinnj She was also the Susie of Webb’s “Where’s the Playground Susie.” Linda said it was on her list of songs that got away.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2021 18:36:32 GMT -5
Suzy also sings in a band with Bob Kimmel
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Post by Partridge on Sept 17, 2021 21:45:00 GMT -5
This song would be a nice companion song to Linda's Silver Wings.
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Post by erik on Sept 17, 2021 22:21:14 GMT -5
Here's one by one of Linda's folk music era heroes, Joan Baez, from an unusual source: "Rejoice In The Sun", with lyrics by Diane Lampert, and music by Peter (P.D.Q. Bach) Schickele, from the 1972 science fiction drama SILENT RUNNING:
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 18, 2021 13:51:06 GMT -5
She was also the Susie of Webb’s “Where’s the Playground Susie.” Linda said it was on her list of songs that got away. I wish Linda's list of songs that got away had been included in her book or published somewhere. It would've been a fascinating insight as to the songs Linda wished she had recorded but never got around to. Linda reworking Where's the Playground Susie as Where's the Playground Baby was something she could've done as in her recording sessions, she never appeared to record that many songs during a session. I don't know if that was due to financial considerations or what have you. Linda appeared to have recorded a number of songs in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, but it seemed to come up a few songs shy to be released as an album. Or did it? One of those songs was (She's a) Very Lovely Woman, which charted but not well enough to put it on the album Linda Ronstadt. But, it raises the question did Linda record an album's worth of songs in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with the view of releasing the songs as an album, but the failure of Very Lovely Woman to successfully make the Top 40 chart doom a potential follow up album? The song barely limped into the Top 100, so it was one of Linda's worst charting songs at the time. If Linda did record enough songs in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, she joined a number of artists who recorded albums that were rejected by their record labels. That's a list of artist that includes the likes of Ringo Starr, Neil Diamond, Petula Clark, the Bee Gees. Even Elvis had an album on the schedule to be released but which was withdrawn by RCA so that the Madison Square Garden concert album could be released. The Petula Clark album, Blue Lady: Petula in Nashville was finally released in the 90s, with three additional songs that had been released on 45s. The Nashville songs were pleasant but none that had hit single potential. The albums by the others have never been released to my knowledge, although the Bee Gees title has been bootlegged two or three times. Linda, to my knowledge, has not been bootlegged, at least as far as studio recordings are concerned. Bootlegged concert recordings, audio and video, yes, studio, no. Maybe with Universal now the owner of the Capitol catalog, maybe they will get around to releasing the Muscle Shoals recordings. There may not be enough recordings for an album, but one can't say absolutely as Linda's studio recording history is fragmented and incomplete at best.
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Post by RobGNYC on Sept 18, 2021 19:15:53 GMT -5
She was also the Susie of Webb’s “Where’s the Playground Susie.” Linda said it was on her list of songs that got away. "...she never appeared to record that many songs during a session. I don't know if that was due to financial considerations or what have you." We know (from Dolly, for one) what a perfectionist Linda is in the studio but I don't think that she was ever a studio rat like Jimi Hendrix, for example, so there aren't hundreds of alternate takes and unreleased tracks. Linda said (Rolling Stone, October 19, 1978): "Making albums is physically tough on me. I always wind up looking like I got run over by a cement truck. I get up in the morning, put on my track shoes and shorts and I go down there. We try to keep bankers’ hours, bankers’ hours being regular hours. My feeling is that if you’re in there for more than seven hours you’ve really gone stale."
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2021 6:09:36 GMT -5
Linda did admit to being a "studio rat" in an interview, but that was because she felt at home, in control, and had backup. Also no public to scare her I expect.
I wonder though when Linda started not wanting (as opposed to needing) to perform live. Probably when she went solo, as she seemed OK early on as a band member.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2021 11:14:57 GMT -5
For Hummin' 2
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Post by erik on Sept 19, 2021 12:42:38 GMT -5
Quote by heartbreaker:
I think she alluded to it in THE SOUND OF MY VOICE, something to the effect that live performing is not the first thing she'd ever want to do; but when you are involved in singing, when it is integral to your being, then you can't not do it, even if it's in front of hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of people. You then also have the fact that the music business has always been at least about the business (though perhaps to a more-than-unhealthy degree now than ever before) as the music itself. And of course Linda's exposure was magnified by the sheer determinative force of the voice she had for all those decades. She recognized the conundrum from the start, and did as much as she could in balancing the needs of her chosen profession with her own inherent shyness; and ironically, and perhaps without even realizing it, she succeeded in ways that nobody else has matched, or likely ever will (IMHO).
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 20, 2021 10:02:59 GMT -5
We know (from Dolly, for one) what a perfectionist Linda is in the studio but I don't think that she was ever a studio rat like Jimi Hendrix, for example, so there aren't hundreds of alternate takes and unreleased tracks. Linda said (Rolling Stone, October 19, 1978):
I don't think Linda was a studio rat in her younger days as a singer. Financial considerations would've kept her from running up a large bill in the studio. Recording sessions were never cheap and starting in the 70s, the cost started going up. That said, however, I don't think it would've been out of the ordinary for Linda to have recorded as many songs as she could get down on tape before the time alloted for a recording session ran out. And also spending less time on recording alternate takes (remakes) of the songs she did record.
"Making albums is physically tough on me. I always wind up looking like I got run over by a cement truck. I get up in the morning, put on my track shoes and shorts and I go down there. We try to keep bankers’ hours, bankers’ hours being regular hours. My feeling is that if you’re in there for more than seven hours you’ve really gone stale."
Linda would've been totally run down physically if she had been participating on an Elvis session. His sessions would typically start at midnight and normally run to seven or eight the next morning, sometimes as late as nine or ten of the morning. He was a work horse, recording anywhere from 20 to 36 songs during a session. And getting that many songs down even with countless alternate takes and informal jam sessions. He would have food and refreshments brought in and would enjoy himself most of the time.
Elvis was a perfectionist and I suspect Linda became a perfectionist as well once the money started coming in. Something I hadn't thought of until just a few moments ago was that one reason Linda didn't think much of her recordings during the early days was in not having enough time to work on her vocals. And maybe she didn't like her choice of musicians. In her book, she spoke about not being able to hire musicians like Elvis's lead guitarist James Burton, because his services didn't come cheap and she couldn't afford him. Linda probably would like to have had the services of the Wrecking Crew, but their services didn't come cheap either.
And once Linda became successful, she worked harder to perfect what she was hearing in her head. She had ace musicians in the form of Andrew, Waddy, Kenny and Dan Dugmore, augmented by people like Mike Botts and Dan Grolnick. But, she still considered her work to be imperfect because it did not match what she was hearing in her head. I doubt she could actually have gotten what she wanted, because she couldn't get out what she was hearing in her head and putting it on tape.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2021 14:56:52 GMT -5
Surprising Linda let Glenn Frey, Don Henley etc. go. She might have been left anyway if not though. Kenny Edwards leaving must have hurt her early on.
Was Linda too perfectionist? I reckon most successful artists are.
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Post by PoP80 on Sept 20, 2021 15:30:57 GMT -5
Linda did admit to being a "studio rat" in an interview, but that was because she felt at home, in control, and had backup. Also no public to scare her I expect. I wonder though when Linda started not wanting (as opposed to needing) to perform live. Probably when she went solo, as she seemed OK early on as a band member. I also think Linda had a great deal of stage fright performing live, especially in those huge arenas. It's difficult when you love to sing, but performing doesn't come easily. Many performers suffer from performance anxiety and some are better at overcoming it than others. Appearing on Broadway seemed to have helped bolster Linda's self-confidence and comfort in front of an audience.
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Post by erik on Sept 20, 2021 18:17:57 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I'm almost willing to believe that what initially started in her head eventually evolved into something else when it was put in practice in the studio, ironically in part because Linda herself somehow got additional ideas going into the mix. This happens a lot more in pop music than I think a lot of us may realize; and perfectionist or not, Linda is no more or less immune to these kinds of impulses than anyone else. She may start out with a specific plan for something, but it just can't end up exactly the way she wants.
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 22, 2021 22:02:54 GMT -5
I'm almost willing to believe that what initially started in her head eventually evolved into something else when it was put in practice in the studio, ironically in part because Linda herself somehow got additional ideas going into the mix. This happens a lot more in pop music than I think a lot of us may realize; and perfectionist or not, Linda is no more or less immune to these kinds of impulses than anyone else. She may start out with a specific plan for something, but it just can't end up exactly the way she wants. I recall Linda mentioning she didn't know how to talk to the musicians in what she was hearing, so she couldn't convey her ideas to them in order for the musicians to translate the ideas. She also may not have been able to have conveyed her ideas as to what she wanted on the playing and singing. My belief is no one who produced Linda up to Peter Asher provided her with the knowledge she needed to give to the recording engineer. Linda became more knowledgeable in the recording studio the more she was in the studio. That said, she was never satisfied with her own vocals. I suspect she was hearing notes or phrasing in head she could never hit for some reason. Perhaps she did hit the notes or phrasing she wanted, but because of her quest for perfection, she didn't catch the fact that she had. Or once she did, then something else went wrong with the song.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2021 7:40:08 GMT -5
Linda could not read music much she said. Though she had a piano and guitars etc, she learned by ear, instinct and others teaching her how songs should be sung. JDS, Andrew Gold, Don & Glen, Brian Wilson, Emmylou, Waddy, Lowell George and everyone she jammed and sang with inspired and taught her, an apt pupil with tremendous intake ability from a remarkable family. Its what her memoir is good about.
Linda learned how to teach herself as well.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Sept 23, 2021 8:18:48 GMT -5
She always seemed to absorb musical knowledge as she has a desire to be authentic. She seems to love the creative process and collaborations with others she learns as well. eddiejinfl
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 23, 2021 11:15:10 GMT -5
Linda could not read music much she said. Though she had a piano and guitars etc, she learned by ear, instinct and others teaching her how songs should be sung. JDS, Andrew Gold, Don & Glen, Brian Wilson, Emmylou, Waddy, Lowell George and everyone she jammed and sang with inspired and taught her, an apt pupil with tremendous intake ability from a remarkable family. Its what her memoir is good about. Linda learned how to teach herself as well. I can read music and I play guitar and a little piano, but as to reading the music, I can't sing the melody until I have played it on a piano. And I can write songs. Linda knew how to write songs and she knew how to write from her very beginnings. I always wondered why she didn't write songs and initially, I thought she didn't know how. And to find out she did and just didn't want to contribute the world's list of bad songs was just being lazy. When I think of the songs she shouldn't have done ( We Need A Whole Lot More of Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock and Roll) comes to mind), made me want to ask her, "You didn't want to write songs because you didn't want to contribute to the world's list of bad songs, but then you did certain songs that were just dreck?" I wonder how many of her managers or songwriter or producers knew she could write but didn't encourage her to write? Or did they just assume she couldn't write songs? I wanted to write for Linda, but if I had known she could write, I would've encouraged her to write and not rely on the songs of her friends. If she wrote bad songs, she could've taken her lumps like they did when they wrote bad songs. Same for taking accolades when she wrote songs that were gems. Not every song a songwriter writes is a gem; if you don't write songs that are bad, you won't know when you write a song that is a gem. If Linda had written songs from the beginning, she would've learned through her own trial and error the art of writing good songs consistently.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2021 13:35:46 GMT -5
Perhaps Linda didn't want flak for bad songs on top of anything else. Also the gender thing perhaps. "Try Me Again" is so good though, Linda by then could have.
Those Capital albums had some tracks that were very good, and awful. Linda's by-the-numbers belters were at least feeding her. I like her Bob Dylan covers and the slower ones most. Dolly P wished Linda had sung the last verse of "I Will Always Love You".
Linda IMO was overwhelmed in her early days. She was paying back Capital for money owed after the Stone Ponies broke up. In her book she says Capital took Kenny E & Bobby K off their books & off any contracts. Linda had all the debt dumped on her, and she wrote got no income from recording for 8 years. No wonder she was unhappy, and that was before leaving Capital for Asylum.
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