The best band Linda Ronstadt could have asked for: “As good as it gets”
Anything that Linda Ronstadt ever made had to be more than just her singing a rock and roll tune.
The last thing she wanted to do was make tunes that anyone could have sung, and even if she was insanely critical of her voice, there was no way that anyone was getting in the way of her singing some of the greatest vocals that anyone ever laid down during her career. She was willing to take her voice as far as she could, but if she was going to reach the stars, she needed the right people to help her fly that particular ship.
Then again, it’s not like she was exactly suffering in the backing band department. Anyone who had Eagles as their backing group was clearly going to be going places, and even when looking at some of the songwriters that she worked with, she wasn’t going to rest until she had the songs she could stand behind. She wasn’t the songwriting type, but that didn’t matter so long as everyone from Jackson Browne to JD Souther had the perfect tunes for her to translate every single night.
But rock and roll wasn’t the vehicle that she wanted to use for the rest of her life. She liked the idea of playing for anyone within earshot but the idea of music getting heavier and heavier didn’t really appeal to her that much when she started. She felt like she needed a better outlet, and so began some of the strangest detours that any pop star had ever gone down. No one would have guessed that she would have traded in her country rock roots to play Broadway showtunes, but she fit surprisingly well working over songs in Pirates of Penzance.
So if she managed to knock it out of the park on her first try on Broadway, maybe she did have what it took to be the crooner that she always wanted to be. She was a pop singer first and foremost, but the biggest legends in pop are normally the ones who focus on people like Frank Sinatra as the gold standard, and if Ronstadt was going to make that turn, she wanted to have the same person that Ol’ Blue Eyes worked with behind the scenes.
That’s a lot easier said than done, though. Working with someone like Nelson Riddle would have been a great idea for anyone looking to broaden their musical scope, but being able to sing like Sinatra is a lot harder than it looks, and it doesn’t look easy. Sinatra could be pitch-perfect at all times of day, and while What’s New was hard work, Ronstadt couldn’t have asked for anything more.
In her mind, there were legends in rock and roll like Ry Cooder, but no one seemed to be able to capture what she was looking for more than Riddle, saying, “It was really hard, but it was worth it when I got to when I was singing, and I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just swimming. I used to say it felt like I was swimming in cream. The first time I ever started singing with Nelson Riddle and the Orchestra, I just thought, ‘This is heaven. This is as good as it gets.’”
That mentality may have worked with her for a good few years, but that wasn’t where she wanted to stay by any stretch. She had a lot more work to do throughout her career, and when she started singing in a different language, she took all those lessons Riddle had taught her and went one step further. She wanted that international audience, and being able to sing perfectly in tune was everything that she was looking for.
And while it’s a shame that we will never hear that voice again since her retirement, there is something to respect about the way that she worked throughout her career. She wasn’t going to give anything less than 110% every time she performed, and when she realised that she couldn’t sing up to those standards anymore, there was no way she was going to sell her audience short.
