Linda Ronstadt never identified with rock and roll: “I was making a conscious effort”
Linda Ronstadt never bothered trying to categorise her music every time she went into the studio.
She was the consummate artist whenever she came up with a new idea for an album, and even if she had a handful of great rockers under her belt, she was the first to say that she was far from the most credible rock vocalist anyone could have asked for.
Because compared to every other rock singer who ever lived, it’s not like Ronstadt has the grittiest voice in the world. She was always looking to sing the most gorgeous ballads that anyone had ever performed, and even if not everything sounded perfect, it was better for her to make an album she could be proud of rather than phone it in and make all the fans who loved ‘You’re No Good’ happy all over again.
She was no doubt proud of being one of godmothers of country-rock whenever she performed, but there’s also a reason why Eagles ended up leaving her to form their own outfit. Any struggling artist in the 1970s wouldn’t have thought twice about taking a gig playing with Ronstadt, but if they wanted the chance to embrace rock and roll, it’s not like Ronstadt was the most credible artist in the world.
I mean, look at a lot of the covers that she performed during her lifetime. Sure, they were all written by rock performers like Don Henley, Elvis Costello, and Randy Newman, but all of them are far more downtempo and relied more on the melody to carry everything along rather than some hard-rocking blues lick or anything.
Even when promoting some of her more eclectic albums like her bout with Mexican music, Ronstadt was the first to say that rock wasn’t her most comfortable genre, saying, “People say this is a departure for me. Well it’s not. Rock and roll was a departure for me. We sang a lot of Mexican music, country music, and folk music. I heard [rock] on the radio, but really, stylistically, I was more influenced by the singing of Lola Beltran. Even singing ‘Different Drum’, I was making a conscious effort to sound like her.”
While most rock fans would have been pissed listening to Ronstadt turn their back on them, it’s not like she didn’t have good reason to in some respects. None of her songs had been meant to soundtrack a massive stadium show, and even when she had millions of people singing along with her material when opening for Neil Young, it’s not like she was going to be joining Young onstage whenever he went into ‘Cinnamon Girl’.
And listening to her voice, that smooth soprano ends up suiting a downtempo genre a lot better. Even when she was working on Broadway, her habit of belting was far better used in a song that was meant to tell a story rather than trying to get the lead out in the same way that Robert Plant or Mick Jagger was doing.
Because, really, Ronstadt was far from the same kind of singer that someone like Janis Joplin was trying to be in her prime. Joplin was more in line with rock and roll every time she sang ‘Ball and Chain’, but there’s nothing wrong with being to sing a bit of rock here and there and transition to Mexican music or even the Great American Songbook over the course of a few albums.
