The “wrong” misogynistic moment that broke up Linda Rondstadt’s first band
Once the 1970s were in full swing, the world had begun to notice the talents of Linda Ronstadt, and they were ready to accept her as one of the most formidable vocalists in the world of pop and rock music. With several hits to her name during the decade and high demand for her to offer her services to the songs of others, it was hard to escape her for a time, and it was equally difficult to imagine a world where she wasn’t as successful.
However, her journey to the top wasn’t exactly a smooth one, and during the 1960s, she co-fronted folk rock outfit The Stone Poneys, a short-lived group that only achieved limited notoriety with songs like ‘Different Drum’ being minor hits in the US. Regularly dismissive of her time with the group and their output, it’s clear that Ronstadt still doesn’t look back fondly upon these years, but her earliest years as a solo artist playing with other musicians were just as tough for her.
It was a number of factors that led to her having to change the personnel of her backing band on a number of occasions, often in a rather unceremonious fashion. A combination of not enjoying the material, a perceived lack of musical chemistry, and the unfortunately inherent ‘boys club’ attitude of the music industry that surrounded her ended up heralding the downfall of her first backing band, and Ronstadt couldn’t be happier that things didn’t work out.
In a 1969 interview with Fusion Magazine, in which the language used by the interviewer grossly refers to Ronstadt and her contemporaries as “chick singers”, echoing the misogynistic attitudes held towards women in the industry at the time, Ronstadt outlined just how things came to such a bitter end with this lineup. “That group was really more of a learning experience than anything else,” she explained, before adding: “I really wasn’t into singing that kind of music. But anyway… it’s really hard for a single girl to get a band of backing musicians, because there’s all that ego problem of being labelled a sideman for a girl singer, you know.”
Ronstadt would go on to slam her bandmates for how the blame used to get placed upon her despite the problems lying far beyond her own faults. “I was a bad singer at the time,” Ronstadt admitted, “but they were really inadequate. Not only that, but I was singing one kind of music, and they were playing really something else. Like they were inadequate for what I was doing. As individual musicians they were alright, but no one in the band played the same kind of music.”
However, the underlying egos of her male backing band would soon lead to things falling apart. “I found that the musicians wanted to blame me for their bad licks, before they wanted to blame themselves,” she attested. “After that, I went back on the road with a slightly better band, but it was still wrong and I still felt that they wanted to compete with me.”
Ronstadt would then explain how one member of the group was particularly threatened by her being in a position of authority over her and would constantly try to assume the position of leader above her. “Lots of times when we got done with a song, the guitar player would hurry to the microphone and say ‘thank you’ before I could even get my mouth open. Or I wanted to change a song in the set, and he’d decide it wasn’t good for the show, and he’d argue with me. They felt their masculinity was threatened being sidemen to a girl singer, therefore subservient to me.”
This ended up being the final straw for Ronstadt, who saw no other option but to withdraw from being a part of this particular lineup. “Finally, I said, ‘No, thanks. I don’t need to play that bullshit game,’” she told Fusion. “All it is, is a masochistic thing that they’re pulling down on their own heads.” It may not have ended the rampant misogyny within the music industry, but it certainly got her out of a situation that was significantly preventing her from achieving at the highest level.
