The 1973 album Linda Ronstadt never wanted to hear again: “I was in a very bad frame of mind”
Linda Ronstadt wasn’t exactly unique when she said that she couldn’t stand the sound of her own voice in places.
Every single vocalist normally goes through that moment when they think that their voice is like nails on a chalkboard, but when you have someone who’s in full control of their instrument like she was, there was hardly anything to complain about once she started singing. At the same time, there were also more than a few moments where Ronstadt could have dropped everything and been gone for good.
That’s not to say that her voice ever failed her whenever she got into the studio. She always abided by the rule of singing everything within the first few takes, and even if she didn’t use that many overdubs over the course of her career, she made every single one of her notes count whenever she worked on her records. She figured it was best to make her idols proud every time she played, but right after folding her original plans for a group, there came a point where she began wondering if she had anything to offer.
After all, her music wasn’t the kind of deep introspective confessions that you get out of someone like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, and even though she looked at herself in the same way that Dolly Parton did, her voice wasn’t reaching the heights that she wanted it to by the mid 1970s. The rest of the country rock world was thriving, but by the time that she went into the studio to make Don’t Cry Now, she wondered if she really had what it took to be on the same level as her peers.
Anyone else would have considered her crazy, but you have to look at how Ronstadt felt about her career. Some of her greatest influences were the genius of pop music like Frank Sinatra, and even if she could throw together a decent rock and roll tune, she felt like her voice was never going to reach the level that she wanted it to if she kept making songs that she didn’t really believe in.
She did a fantastic job on tunes like Eagles’ ‘Desperado’, but when looking at her frame of mind, Ronstadt remembered being ready to fold the entire operation, saying, “I forgot how to sing in the middle of it somehow. I was in a very bad frame of mind during that time. I was very discouraged, and I thought I was a terrible singer, and I was going through that number.”
“My personal life was in shambles at that point. It always is, but especially in shambles then. I was on the road all of the time, and I was just very depressed, you know?”
Linda Ronstadt
In fact, this kind of humility actually sounds a little bit familiar, doesn’t it? Though Ronstadt wasn’t quite at the same level, it’s easy to see her having a lot in common with someone like Brian Wilson when it comes to her genius. I know that sounds a little bit strange, but I promise I have a point. Keep reading.
Wilson was also one of the most humble men in the music industry, and since he was also struggling to hold himself to the same standards every time he made a record, you can see a lot of parallels between what Ronstadt was going through trying to make everything sound perfect and Wilson chasing after the same kind of high that he got when he made Pet Sounds for the first time.
No one was going to blame them if they were slightly less perfect than before, if they still tried, but Ronstadt was the one who learned to accept the instrument that she was given. There were bound to be a few rough edges in her mind, but it’s better for her to have made a record like Heart Like A Wheel instead of burying herself underneath all of those insecurities whenever she performed.
