Month: August 2013

“Different Drum: The Power of Linda Ronstadt’s Voice”, The New Yorker. Following the sad news of the singer having Parkinson’s disease, Sarah Larson reminds us of uniquely spectacular career of this beloved artist, “This seems as good a time as any to reflect on Ronstadt’s greatness, which might cheer us up a little. She has made several decades’ worth of records: her Stone Poneys era, in the sixties, which included the sterling Mike Nesmith cover “Different Drum,” the song that introduced the world to her amazing voice. Her fantastic seventies rock-meets-country solo recordings, in which she covered everyone from the Everly Brothers to Smokey Robinson to Waylon Jennings. (Also notable from that era: one day, her backing band went off and formed the Eagles.) Her eighties forays into Gilbert and Sullivan (remember “The Pirates of Penzance,” with Kevin Kline?) and the Great American Songbook, with Nelson Riddle, as well as guest vocals on Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” A couple of Fievel numbers on the “American Tail” soundtracks. Her “Trio” country collaborations with fellow-legends Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, and her Spanish-language canciones recordings, on which she sings the traditional Mexican folk songs that her family loved when she was growing up, in Tucson. Later, more jazz and standards… The sound of Ronstadt’s voice—invincibility, bravery, emotion channelled into intelligence and art—is the sound of overcoming anything.”