The album Linda Ronstadt was desperate to redo: “I’d been out of action for a year”
Linda Ronstadt understood one of the most important things that musicians should be aware of: you shouldn’t just restrict yourself to one genre. If you do that, then your music will become stale, and people will soon grow tired of what you have to offer. Ronstadt is best known for her work in rock, but she never wanted to stay within that genre and had plenty of influences from various subsections of music.
For instance, she loved classical music and admitted that you can learn a great deal about singing by listening to opera singers. She was particularly a big fan of Maria Callas and said that she learnt more listening to her than she ever did listening to some of her contemporaries within rock.
“There’s no one in her league. That’s it. Period,” claimed Ronstadt when talking about how much of an influence the opera singer is. “I learn more… about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays… She’s the greatest chick singer ever.”
Her variation meant that she wasn’t happy just making one genre of music. By the time the 1980s came around, Ronstadt was worried about cementing herself as a stadium rock act and was keen to explore different styles of music. She enquired at a few theatres to see if she could expand her vocal range and explore some of the other styles she was so keen on playing.
“I wanted to find different ranges that I always knew were there in my voice but that I wasn’t getting to access with rock ‘n’ roll,” she said, “I didn’t like playing those huge arenas. I went to Joe Papp at The Public Theater in New York, not realising that there was a huge line of people begging him for a job, and said, ‘I’d like to come and play’.”
Ronstadt ended up working on Broadway for a year, doing The Pirates of Penzance. It was a nice break for her and something that allowed her to engage with her voice differently. It also led to her meeting Jerry Wexler, who was keen on working with Ronstadt in a bid to put together an album which was a lot more jazz-oriented. They managed to put a record together, but she wasn’t happy with how it sounded and wanted to redo it.
“Next thing I knew, we were recording in a studio, but the way Jerry produced was very different to what I was used to,” she recalled, “I didn’t think the arrangements suited my voice. I wanted to redo it”.
Her record company was against her redoing the album, as she had already been on Broadway for a year; they didn’t want her wasting time before she put out another record. Instead, she had to release an album, which she did in 1982, before returning to the jazz style of music and finally getting to redo her work with Peter Asher.
“The record company said it would be the end of my career because I’d been out of action for a year already on Broadway. So I made [1982’s] Get Closer, but I was still thinking about those Sinatra songs,” she said. “As soon as Peter Asher heard the quality of Nelson Riddle’s arrangements, he was convinced. Nelson was at the top of his talent when he wrote my charts. His string-quartet arrangement of ‘My Funny Valentine’ is my favourite of any I’ve ever heard.” It took some time, but she finally worked it out.
