Linda Ronstadt’s favourite singer to perform with: “Too much fun”
Being able to engage with an audience is one of the most skilful things a musician can do. Sometimes, it’s the difference between an enthusiastic audience and a bored one. It’s not always that cut and dry, of course, but bringing your all on stage can make all the difference. For Linda Ronstadt, this has been an ongoing battle her entire career.
Emerging from the same scene that introduced some of the most pivotal rock ‘n’ roll acts in history, Ronstadt learnt early the importance of a good stage presence and how vital it was to keep up a basic level of energy to maintain audience interest. Obviously, this differed depending on the musician, but the basic principle was that if you weren’t aware of those standing in front of you enough to acknowledge them and include them in the show, there was a high chance you’d fall flat in front of hundreds of disgruntled faces.
For Ronstadt, this was never an easy game. This was mainly because, unlike someone like Iggy Pop, or Mick Jagger, Ronstadt had to figure out how to pour everything into her performances without giving too much or prancing around on stage like some inauthentic wannabe. She couldn’t make do with playing the rock ‘n’ roll star because that wasn’t exactly her game to begin with, so for her, it was all about establishing that much-needed connection with the audience in a way that made sense for her.
“I like it, but it would be silly for me to do something like that,” she once said, sharing her views on those who moved around a lot on stage, like Jagger. “I’m not naturally that outgoing; it would be very strange,” she added. In all fairness, it only would have seemed strange because that wasn’t the atmosphere she established from the beginning, but it didn’t stop her from dipping her toe into those scenes from time to time, even if it meant remaining loyal to her far less eccentric presence.
This quiet observation also meant that Ronstadt could watch people like Jagger perform and learn more about captivating with energy, even if she didn’t immediately go away and try to replicate his moves in her own shows. For her, that would have been ridiculous, but there was something in his spark she tried to keep as her own. “It was a wonderful show,” she told Rolling Stone in 1978, recalling the moment she flew to Tucson to see The Rolling Stones. “I loved it and I got so many great ideas, he’s a teacher you know.”
While discussing her experience performing with the band, she remembered the fun she had and how much Jagger brought on stage to make sure every single person in the audience felt the electricity in the room. “I loved it. I didn’t have a trace of stage fright,” she said. “I’m scared to death all the way through my own shows. But it was too much fun to get scared. He’s so silly onstage, he knocks you over.”
She added: “I mean you have to be on your toes or you wind up falling on your face. He’s amazing. Mick just scolds all the time, you better do right: he’s usually right when he scolds.”
While she may have been the poster girl for the country boom that transpired at the same time, there’s no denying just how much Ronstadt poured the attitude of the Stones into her own work, even if it just meant being aware of her own presence in a way that most weren’t even capable of. A lot of this was no doubt a learning curve that also meant she’d forever question her place outside of small-town club spaces, but that kind of trepidation also made her well-equipped to bring her best game, without having to force it if it didn’t exactly feel right.
As she put it: “I’ve gone through periods of being able to [engage the audience] and then I’ve gone through periods where I just looked at them and I didn’t know what to say to them.”
