A Look At HASTEN DOWN THE WIND

[erik]

Best Classic Bands Magazine looks at Linda's Hasten Down The Wind, which was released 44 years ago this month (YIPE!!!):

bestclassicbands.com/linda-ronstadt-hasten-down-the-wind-8-13-200/

[RobGNYC]

" 'Try Me Again,' mostly written by Andrew Gold with an assist from Ronstadt..." 

No, no, no. 

Sort of mind-boggling--she's written only a handful of songs in her whole career and here she doesn't even get credit for the best one. I sent a message to the author:
-------------------------------------------
Hi Mr. Leviton--good to read your thoughts on what I think is Linda Ronstadt's best album but one statement is incorrect:

“Try Me Again,” mostly written by Andrew Gold with an assist from Ronstadt,..."

Just the opposite. In her own words:

"The story of "Try Me Again" really happened. I broke up with this guy and was driving around and then talked to my friends and got all bummed out. The next day it just came to me in my car and I just pulled over and wrote it on the back of a parking ticket."

"That song just came through me one day, and I went to the studio. I wrote it in the car, but it needed a bridge and another verse. And I sat up late to try to write it and nothing came. I got in the car the next day and went to the studio and the rest of it came. Andrew Gold helped me play the guitar for the bridge, but I wrote the chords and the music and the words. A little story of my life, then. I wrote both the words and the music, but I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I didn’t feel like I had to come up with another song. That’s not my gift, you know? I mean, I could write a song. Anybody can write a song, but I can’t write a good song."

Best regards
Rob Gallagher NYC

[alyn]

I'll happily take that review :-)
It's nice to read one so positive about the album and not just a reaction to it being mostly downbeat... I get weary of people complaining about that... it has many colours and if it has an over-all 'theme' - what the hell - get over it, enjoy it, or not.

For me it has everything, there is not a bad track, they all rate 8s, 9s and 10s in my book, and it stands the test of time.

I recently drew a series of album covers, my interpretations of my ten favourite albums, they weren't great but I enjoying creating them...

Attachments:

[Deleted]

A good review overall, and one that points out that Linda was listening to masters like Fitzgerald and Sinatra even then..

[erik]

Quote by robertaxel:

A good review overall, and one that points out that Linda was listening to masters like Fitzgerald and Sinatra even then..

...and also smart enough to know that she could learn from them but never be them.

Setting aside whether Hasten Down The Wind was a "downbeat" album, I felt that it was one of those albums of hers that set her apart from all of her predecessors, country, rock, or otherwise, and pretty much set the standard for future female artists, notably Trisha Yearwood (who covered "Try Me Again" in 2000), to follow. And it's eclectic in its own way, going from blues ("Down So Low") to rockabilly ("That'll Be The Day") to Mexicana ("Lo Siento Mi Vida") and reggae ("Give One Heart").

And when it comes to her version of "Crazy", at the very least I think it is the only version of that song that holds a candle next to Patsy Cline's original 1961 recording.

[eddiejinnj]

Didn't Patsy hate that song? I always thought she sounded kind of bored in parts. Has anybody had better chart success with it besides Patsy? Linda had a Number 6 Country Hit with it and was on a number one country album. eddiejinnj

[erik]

Quote by eddiejinnj:

Didn't Patsy hate that song? I always thought she sounded kind of bored in parts. Has anybody had better chart success with it besides Patsy? Linda had a Number 6 Country Hit with it and was on a number one country album. eddiejinnj

I don't know that Patsy necessarily hated "Crazy"; in fact, I recall that she joked about the fact that here she was recording another song that might give fans the wrong idea about her own state of health (after all, another song she made into a standard was one called "I Fall To Pieces"--which, even more ironically, Linda herself recorded, in 1971).

And yes, Linda's was the only other version that ever charted besides Patsy's (Patsy's, I believe, hit the top of the C&W singles chart at the end of 1961).

[eddiejinnj]

There was one of her bigger songs she said she disliked a lot. I just can't remember. My second guess would be IFTP. Patsy fans? Thanks, Erik. eddiejinnj

[musedeva]

Try me AGAIN/Down So Low/Give One Heart; all FANtabulous top of the Mark FAVORITES ever!! of Linda and to sing

Linda should of been supported more to write...she aBSOLUTELY had it in her to write/co write...but obviously she was a great

meal provider for alot of unheard (Enough) fantastic writers/musicians Goddess Bless her....(where's that piano?)

I adore Down so Low..its like a brand icon for me, sooo much...really suprised we didn't get more gut bucket blues out of her too!

AND!  imho, whatever that is worth...her CRAZY set the STANDARD...period!

Aug 14, 2020 8:45:24 GMT -5 erik said:

Quote by robertaxel:

A good review overall, and one that points out that Linda was listening to masters like Fitzgerald and Sinatra even then..

...and also smart enough to know that she could learn from them but never be them.

Setting aside whether Hasten Down The Wind was a "downbeat" album, I felt that it was one of those albums of hers that set her apart from all of her predecessors, country, rock, or otherwise, and pretty much set the standard for future female artists, notably Trisha Yearwood (who covered "Try Me Again" in 2000), to follow. And it's eclectic in its own way, going from blues ("Down So Low") to rockabilly ("That'll Be The Day") to Mexicana ("Lo Siento Mi Vida") and reggae ("Give One Heart").

And when it comes to her version of "Crazy", at the very least I think it is the only version of that song that holds a candle next to Patsy Cline's original 1961 recording.

[Latin from Manhattan]

Wow, they corrected the story of "Try Me Again". Bravo. Came to Linda on this album - never left. Her voice is killer on this album and the tour, in her despised arenas and stadiums, was something special. Never had a female pop/rock performer commanded such an audience.

[RobGNYC]

On the discussion above about HDTW being a "down" or "downbeat" album, here's what Linda said (comparing it with "Simple Dreams") in Circus magazine (October 27, 1977):

"I was definitely laughing a lot on this album ["Simple Dreams"]. After all. I do have a sense of humor. That's why the feeling on this new album is different. It's completely different. 'Hasten Down the Wind' was so DOWN...I was very depressed then. But this new album is kind of like oh yeah, OH YEAH, what else are ya gonna hit me with? This new album is a real two-fisted record."

www.ronstadt-linda.com/circus167/circus2.html

[fabtastique]

intersting that she was depressed while choosing and recording those songs for HDTW ..... but I love the moody / downbeat tunes !

[vikingfan]

This was the first Linda album I bought for myself. I wore it out. Before then, it was my older sisters records that turned me on to Linda. This is a terrific review. His comments on Down So Low prompted me to check out Cyndi Lauper's version because I think she's got a terrific, unique voice. But, oof, I couldn't get through it. Anyway, Hasten Down the Wind is a damn near perfect album.

[Partridge]

Tracy Nelson, the writer of Down So Low, never achieved mass popularity. I recall an interview that she said she was considering giving up the music business because she could not afford to sustain it. But when Linda Ronstadt recorded Down So Low, Tracy used the royalties to purchase a farm near Nashville and that allowed her to remain in the music business. Around the time of the Cyndi Lauper version, the farm was destroyed by fire. I never heard what happened to Tracy, but I doubt the earnings from Cyndi Lauper's recording were significant because Lauper's career was past its prime. Hopefully, there was some insurance.

Tracy Nelson’s Home Destroyed By Fire

[PoP80]

According to Tracy Nelson's website, she continues to tour at age 75. Even though her house burned downed, she's still going strong!

[RobGNYC]

The author of the Best Classic Bands HDTW article made the correction--it now reads:

“ 'Try Me Again,' mostly written by Ronstadt with an assist from Andrew Gold..."

[eddiejinnj]

Good work, man!!!! eddiejinnj

[ted]

The album has “ Someone to lay down beside me”.

Nuff said.

[Partridge]

Aug 21, 2020 14:51:33 GMT -5 RobGNYC said:

The author of the Best Classic Bands HDTW article made the correction--it now reads:

“ 'Try Me Again,' mostly written by Ronstadt with an assist from Andrew Gold..."

Tonight I did something that is uncharacteristic of me. Someone posted on Facebook that Linda and Andrew wrote Try Me Again, and that Andrew Gold wrote a lot of her songs. So I argued about her inaccurate information. If I disagreed every time someone wrote an untrue Ronstadt factoid, I could spend my entire life arguing.

[sliderocker]

Oct 11, 2023 0:22:06 GMT -5 Partridge said:

Aug 21, 2020 14:51:33 GMT -5 RobGNYC said:

The author of the Best Classic Bands HDTW article made the correction--it now reads:

“ 'Try Me Again,' mostly written by Ronstadt with an assist from Andrew Gold..."

Tonight I did something that is uncharacteristic of me. Someone posted on Facebook that Linda and Andrew wrote Try Me Again, and that Andrew Gold wrote a lot of her songs. So I argued about her inaccurate information. If I disagreed every time someone wrote an untrue Ronstadt factoid, I could spend my entire life arguing.

Good to see the writer corrected his article. Other writers who made similar gaffes would've posted a later stand alone notice, advising they were in error. Back in the print days, it would've been almost impossible to track down a copy of the original article. Or the writer or magazine would've left the gaffe standing, no correction.

Interesting the writer knew Andrew didn't write a lot of Linda's songs, but initially believed Andrew was primarily responsible for TMA. The writer also asserted Joan Baez and Judy Collins wrote very little of their own songs, although both had songwriting credits on almost all of their albums.

More than what Linda had on her albums. Have to assume the writer had some kind of bias which favored male songwriters over female songwriters, and probably assumed Andrew was the songwriter and Linda was given a cowriting credit as an incentive to record the song. By the 70s, I assume the practice of giving a singer part of the songwriter credit as an incentive was a thing of the past. Getting part of the music publishing was still something to be dealt with, yet was largely unknown to the public.

Hasten Down the Wind was a great album, one I would argue as being Linda's best. Linda's capability as a songwriter was unknown up to that album, but she proved her worth as a songwriter with the two songs she wrote. I just wish she had been writing all along as it would've been better if her albums contained some Ronstadt originals instead of the numerous covers which made up her albums.

It wouldn't have mattered if her songs weren't any good, especially at the beginning of her career, as her songwriting would only have improved over time. Try Me Again was a stunning knockout for such a novice songwriter. It gives the impression that maybe somewhere in one of her closets or her rooms, there is a whole cache of songs she actually wrote but never performed out of fear the public at large wouldn't like her songs. Her fan base, sure, but maybe she didn't trust her fan base to be 100% honest with her when it came to telling her that her songs were clinkers. More likely, it may be her shyness also applied to any songwriting efforts.

Still, I would've loved to have had as many Linda albums as possible wherein all the songs were written by Linda. Knowing now she was capable of writing songs and instead chose to record songs written mostly by her friends, makes me wish she had taken that road which was less traveled. What an adventure it could've been for her.

[PoP80]

I would also venture to say that Linda probably never thought she could write a book. Nonetheless, she turned out to be an excellent writer of her memoir, which she wrote by herself. If she had more belief in herself early on, most likely she could have written other quality songs. 

[erik]

Quote by sliderocker:

Try Me Again was a stunning knockout for such a novice songwriter. It gives the impression that maybe somewhere in one of her closets or her rooms, there is a whole cache of songs she actually wrote but never performed out of fear the public at large wouldn't like her songs. Her fan base, sure, but maybe she didn't trust her fan base to be 100% honest with her when it came to telling her that her songs were clinkers. More likely, it may be her shyness also applied to any songwriting efforts.

I think all of that is likely true, particularly her shyness and her reluctance to believe that she had abilities that could help her stretch out artistically. At the same time, however, you have to wonder why she may not have wholly trusted her fan base, particularly that part of it that are also her fellow female singers, to be honest with her. Did she listen to too many of the wrong people early on who were actively discouraging her? After all, her first manager Herb Cohen didn't think she should even be tinkering with the idea of mixing country and rock, telling her she'd end up nowhere. And God knows there were many esoteric rock critics who just didn't think she had anything on the ball upstairs (the "Wenner mentality" at work almost from the beginning).

Modesty and shyness aside (which, by the way, her fans understand and appreciate in her), I think these things contributed to her not only not writing (or at least coming out with) more songs, but her reluctance to even do more of her own acoustic guitar playing onstage--the latter of which she herself later admitted was a huge mistake.

I guess it is what it is. But it is kind of sad that, even if she didn't cheat her fans by not doing more, she may have cheated herself (IMHO).

[sliderocker]

Oct 19, 2023 8:44:16 GMT -5 erik said:

I think all of that is likely true, particularly her shyness and her reluctance to believe that she had abilities that could help her stretch out artistically. At the same time, however, you have to wonder why she may not have wholly trusted her fan base, particularly that part of it that are also her fellow female singers, to be honest with her. Did she listen to too many of the wrong people early on who were actively discouraging her? After all, her first manager Herb Cohen didn't think she should even be tinkering with the idea of mixing country and rock, telling her she'd end up nowhere. And God knows there were many esoteric rock critics who just didn't think she had anything on the ball upstairs (the "Wenner mentality" at work almost from the beginning).

I believe it to be possible some of the people Linda thought of as friends had ulterior motives when it came to her musical talent. Guys were likely to be sexist when it came to thinking of Linda as a musician. She was quite capable of playing the guitar and given she said she was capable of writing songs all along and she didn't want to contribute to the world's list of bad songs, who put that thought in her head? The male musicians who didn't think much of her musicianship as a guitarist and who possibly wrote songs? Female singer-songwriter-musicians who saw Linda as competition? There were any number of female artists in the AT 40 and Top 100 and Top 200 in any given week, but radio airplay helped with the sales and Linda oozed sex appeal, something that couldn't be said for every female artist. Jealousy had to be a factor with the male singers-songwriters-musicians as well because if Linda had a good song, the airplay and sales were a guarantee.

Linda didn't always have good sales in the 60s and early 70s. Capitol didn't know how to market her, granted, but Herb Cohen didn't seem to have a clue as to how to manage Linda's musical career. I have to wonder what kind of talks did he have with her? Or with Capitol? Did they even communicate? I have to believe Capitol wasn't happy with Linda's album material and if they told Cohen that, I don't think he told Linda that. Linda should've been getting original songs instead of the too numerous retreaded covers she did. And by originals, I mean songs written by songwriters who wrote for non-writing artists, in addition to Linda writing one or two songs per album.

Granted, she didn't do any of that, not even when John Boylan took over managerial duties. I think Linda's managers failed her the most, along with Capitol, whose bright idea seemed to have been that Linda should've recorded Help Me Make It Through the Night and Stand By Your Man. What were they thinking? But, even when Linda was offered the first option on I Don't Know How to Love Him, she took a pass on the song. I don't think Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were all in favor of Yvonne Elliman doing the song. I think she got it only because Robert Stigwood was backing Jesus Christ Superstar and Elliman was his client. He pushed for his clients in those days. 


Modesty and shyness aside (which, by the way, her fans understand and appreciate in her), I think these things contributed to her not only not writing (or at least coming out with) more songs, but her reluctance to even do more of her own acoustic guitar playing onstage--the latter of which she herself later admitted was a huge mistake.

Shyness tends to come from someone who has made fun of you and whatever you were doing that called attention to you from others, be it family or friends. I think of Linda's second verse in TMA, in which she sings of driving around the town and feeling just like a beginner, and how her friends just brought her down and who were cynical and bitter towards Linda because she had made it. And then she observes that she guesses she's just like them and never thought she would've turned out like that. Linda said those lyrics flowed out of her like toothpaste out of a tube. Her success had been a long time coming and I suspect it was her musical contemporaries who were cynical and bitter because she had made it. Jealous not only because she had made it, but because her trajectory was far more successful than was that of those who were supposedly her friends. I still wonder who they were, but If I would have known her, I would've encouraged her to have written more songs and play her guitar in the studio and in the concerts, and not to worry about what the critics had to say.

I guess it is what it is. But it is kind of sad that, even if she didn't cheat her fans by not doing more, she may have cheated herself (IMHO).

She cheated herself more than she cheated her fans, and while she bears part of the blame for that, her managers, record companies and friends in the music industry share in the blame. If they knew she could write songs or didn't inquire about her songwriting capability and didn't encourage her, how good she could've been can only be seen in TMA, the one song she wrote by herself.

[MokyWI]

Not sure Linda would have hooked me like she did had she played the guitar regularly. There was something about watching her sing at that microphone just pouring her heart out in song that I have always felt was the focus for me. I agree it would have been good for her to keep at the guitar and had she done so I think it may have lead to more songwriting. But on stage, no,I preferred Linda alone in front of the microphone. It was as visually fascinating to watch as it was to hear. She poured herself into her vocals, the guitar would have been a distraction to that IMO.

[eddiejinnj]

I agree that she should not have a guitar for much of a concert as I concur that watching Linda at the mic is awe inspiring. There are songs though that might benefit her at the guitar. A song like "Old Paint", "Louise", "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", perhaps "Rambler Gambler" would be cool if she played guitar while singing. Just some thoughts. All have a great safe weekend!! eddiejinfl

[MokyWI]

Oct 28, 2023 7:56:58 GMT -5 eddiejinnj said:

I agree that she should not have a guitar for much of a concert as I concur that watching Linda at the mic is awe inspiring. There are songs though that might benefit her at the guitar. A song like "Old Paint", "Louise", "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", perhaps "Rambler Gambler" would be cool if she played guitar while singing. Just some thoughts. All have a great safe weekend!! eddiejinfl

I agree Eddie. On those country/folk acoustic songs I second that.

[sliderocker]

Oct 28, 2023 7:25:32 GMT -5 MokyWI said:

Not sure Linda would have hooked me like she did had she played the guitar regularly. There was something about watching her sing at that microphone just pouring her heart out in song that I have always felt was the focus for me. I agree it would have been good for her to keep at the guitar and had she done so I think it may have lead to more songwriting. But on stage, no,I preferred Linda alone in front of the microphone. It was as visually fascinating to watch as it was to hear. She poured herself into her vocals, the guitar would have been a distraction to that IMO.

On Linda playing the guitar on stage, one reason I can think of is that unlike a lot of other solo artists, Linda didn't move around the stage as much. Or if she did, it was to get out of the way and let Andrew or Waddy or Dan Dugmore solo on their electric guitars and let the spotlight be on them. Later on, when Danny Kortchmar was in the band, he was quite a mover on the stage. And Linda didn't seem to mind sharing the spotlight.

But, if Linda played her guitar in concert, it could've been for part of her concert, not all of her concert. Some of her recordings featured her on acoustic guitar, so I could've seen a segment of her concerts where she performed the songs and accompanied herself on the acoustic guitar. She played the arpeggios on It Doesn't Matter Anymore in concert, which she did not play on in the recording studio. And she did remarkably well too.

And it would've just been something for her to do besides just standing on the stage and looking pretty while the guys did their thing. Linda was just as much a musician as Andrew, Kenny, Dan Dugmore and all the others. And I don't think any of Linda's mid-70s bands and later would've discouraged her from playing the guitar, especially the songs she knew how to play or happened to write.

[PoP80]

This looks pretty cool to me:

www.shivearchive.com/lead-singers/linda-ronstadt-1

[erik]

Quote by sliderocker:

Her success had been a long time coming and I suspect it was her musical contemporaries who were cynical and bitter because she had made it. Jealous not only because she had made it, but because her trajectory was far more successful than was that of those who were supposedly her friends. I still wonder who they were, but If I would have known her, I would've encouraged her to have written more songs and play her guitar in the studio and in the concerts, and not to worry about what the critics had to say.

If it were any of her friends who were supposedly saying that to or about her, then why would she need any enemies? I'm not saying it wasn't, but by all accounts over the years they've seemingly had nothing but good things to say about her. I'm willing to wager that there were more critics out there who were ragging on her for her alleged "flaws". In truth, when you look at songs like "Try Me Again", "Lo Siento Mi Vida", "I Want A Horse" (admittedly a children's song that she wrote with gal pal Wendy Waldman), and "Winter Light", it's kind of clear that she had the ability to write songs; she had the heart and the mind and the discipline, which isn't true with the by-cmmmittee way songs are written these days, when somebody can get credit on a song for one single word.

As for her guitar playing, here are the songs where she has played, either on record or in concert, to the best of my knowledge:

"Long Long Time"
"Colorado"
"It Doesn't Matter Anymore"
"I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You"
"I Never Will Marry"
"Old Paint"
"Crazy Arms"
"Rambler Gambler"

...and in the podcast interview with Genny Schorr, an interview that featured Bangles lead singer (and LR super-fan) Susanna Hoffs, Genny said that Linda was "a good picker in her day":

[sliderocker]

Oct 29, 2023 18:59:20 GMT -5 erik said:

If it were any of her friends who were supposedly saying that to or about her, then why would she need any enemies? I'm not saying it wasn't, but by all accounts over the years they've seemingly had nothing but good things to say about her.

I was thinking of friends Linda may have known over the course of her 40 plus years, who could have come and gone in her life. I'm sure Linda was like the rest of us in that she had friends who have been in her life forever, while knowing others who were friends for a short time before she dropped them or they dropped her. And again, the second verse of TMA is about some of her so called friends who brought her down over her success, being cynical and bitter about her success. She never elaborated about who those friends were, but they were out there. And she also never said if any of those friends were still around. I could just imagine that unless they made up, some of those former friends were nowhere to be found. And Linda's remaining friends were the ones who had nothing but good things to say about her.  

I'm willing to wager that there were more critics out there who were ragging on her for her alleged "flaws". In truth, when you look at songs like "Try Me Again", "Lo Siento Mi Vida", "I Want A Horse" (admittedly a children's song that she wrote with gal pal Wendy Waldman), and "Winter Light", it's kind of clear that she had the ability to write songs; she had the heart and the mind and the discipline, which isn't true with the by-cmmmittee way songs are written these days, when somebody can get credit on a song for one single word.

All that is true, but the question in my mind was how far back was Linda able to write a song by herself? From the few times she has talked about it, I've gathered she's always had the ability to do it. And she just didn't believe in herself as a songwriter to write a few songs for her albums or as B-sides of her singles, and preferred to rely on the songs written by her friends.

That's something anyone who was managing her should've sat her down and find out why she'd rather have relied on a song from the likes of, say, Jackson Browne or J.D. Souther or Karla Bonoff. And no disrespect to any of them. Linda should've been told to have brought some of her songs to the recording studio. In the original state Linda's songs were recorded, it was probably just Linda and her acoustic guitar playing and nothing else. In the recording studio, the producer for the recording session or a musical arranger could've determined what additional instrumentation was needed, if anything, if changing the song's key or time signature would help flesh out the song.

I doubt the producer or arranger would've told her that her songs were bad, but TMA was so good of a song, so majestic too, one gets the impression Linda had been writing songs for years. There's nothing about the song that conveys Linda as an amateur songwriter. True, she had Andrew help flesh out the song and David Campbell arranged the strings but it's strange that Linda suddenly felt confident enough to actually bring a couple of her songs into the studio to record, rather than in keeping them locked away.

As for her guitar playing, here are the songs where she has played, either on record or in concert, to the best of my knowledge:

"Long Long Time"
"Colorado"
"It Doesn't Matter Anymore"
"I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You"
"I Never Will Marry"
"Old Paint"
"Crazy Arms"
"Rambler Gambler"

I had always thought I'd seen video of Linda performing Crazy Arms on guitar, but my memory of that performance had faded. Wonder if it's on Youtube? She played her own guitar on Long, Long Time? I'd like to hear how she did. Linda's version of Colorado is a favorite of mine, and I know she did the song during much of her 1973 appearances, but I can't remember any televised appearances where she did the song, playing guitar. I remember seeing Linda playing guitar on I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You on Dolly Parton's TV show and in a concert I think from Maryland and It Doesn't Matter Anymore


...and in the podcast interview with Genny Schorr, an interview that featured Bangles lead singer (and LR super-fan) Susanna Hoffs, Genny said that Linda was "a good picker in her day":

Linda probably would've said no, she wasn't, but I think many of us would've seconded Genny's observation. I know I do.