The 1983 concert Linda Ronstadt called her best show: “The highest peaks of my career”
It was going to be a hard sell for Linda Ronstadt to give herself a compliment on some of her best work.
She was already one of the greatest country-rock artists that the world had ever heard when she debuted, but when she listened to a lot of her recordings, all she could hear were those little inaccuracies and the kind of moments that would have made any other singer cringe. She had insanely high standards for what her music was supposed to sound like, but she knew that she needed to bring the fire when she was performing with someone who really knew what they were doing.
Because as much as Ronstadt could hold her own next to the biggest rock and roll stars in the world, the most important part for her was being able to compete with musicians from other genres. She was interpreting songs by some of her favourite songwriters back in the day, but she had her work cut out for her the minute that she started working with people like Nelson Riddle on some of his arrangements.
Hardly anyone would have had the bravery to work with the same man behind Sinatra’s greatest hits, but Ronstadt felt that she had what it took to sing like that if she applied herself to the right song. And while What’s New was a great way of expanding her horizons, it’s not like she was willing to walk away from the pop song format entirely. She still had a soft spot for country music, but she kept her ears open for good singers, no matter what genre she was listening to.
She did have a bit of a distaste for heavy metal, but when listening to everyone from Sinead O’Connor to Annie Lennox, she knew that the future was in good hands in terms of female singers. But for a genre that’s built on having great belters like soul music, she was absolutely enthralled with how Smokey Robinson sounded whenever she heard The Miracles on the radio. His voice was like heaven to her, but to sing with him was something else entirely.
Given her status as a country queen, it didn’t seem like the greatest fit to pair her with one of Motown’s most popular voices, but being able to sing with him at the 25th anniversary of Hitsville was a dream come true for her. Everything that happened that night was going to be overshadowed by Michael Jackson breaking out the moonwalk later in the show, but Ronstadt still regarded this as her finest performance.
She was never all that keen on her recorded output, but since her greatest moments happened live, she felt that nothing could touch what she did with Robinson, saying, “He invited me to sing with him. Smokey was unfailingly supportive and gracious, but my knees were knocking together. Singing ‘Ooh Baby Baby’ while staring into Smokey’s eyes was both intimidating and exhilarating, and remains one of the highest peaks of my career.”
Given how she had sounded in the past, though, it’s not like Ronstadt needed to learn a lot about what to do in front of a legend like Robinson. She had already recorded tunes like ‘Tracks of My Tears’ on her own albums, so she clearly knew that kind of material, but being able to hear that same raspy voice that she heard on her favourite records harmonising with her was one of the greatest thrills that anyone could ever have.
And given how many fantastic songs she has sung over the years, the fact that Ronstadt still holds this performance as one of the gold standards for herself really says a lot about what she was working on. She didn’t feel the need to showboat all that much about what a great singer she was, but she knew that everything was right with the world when she heard the sounds she heard in her head being played live.
