The musician Linda Ronstadt said will never be seen again: “They don’t make any more like him”
Rock and roll has never run short of a few masters of their craft. As much as people think that playing rock music for hours on end seems like the easiest thing in the world, everyone from Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Pete Townshend never got into the business intending to wing it throughout their time in the spotlight. It was always about chasing after that next piece of perfection, and Linda Ronstadt had a front row seat to see some of the greatest musicians at work.
Then again, it’s not like Ronstadt was any less compared to her peers. As much as she has been incredibly humble throughout her career, Ronstadt was always one of the finest voices to ever come out of California. The late 1960s had already shown Los Angeles to be a darker place thanks to Altamont and the luring ghost of Jim Morrison, but when Ronstadt came out with her versions of ‘When Will I Be Loved’ and ‘Heart Like A Wheel’, she made music sound like fun all over again.
But her take on rock and roll was only one facet of what she could do. She wasn’t called one of the godmothers of country rock by accident, and whenever she wrapped her voice around a country song, she always put far more swagger into it than anyone, whether it was jamming with Eagles in the early days on ‘Lovesick Blues’ or holding her own next to Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris when making the Trio albums.
If there was one move that would have been seen as a risk, though, it was turning her back on rock altogether. She had seen that her brand of music wouldn’t work in the era of MTV, so seeing her go from a ballad crooner to an easy-listening songstress made all the sense in the world. But if she wanted to do right by her fans, she wanted to make sure she had the best of the best behind her, and Nelson Riddle was perfect for the job.
“There was only one Nelson Riddle. They don’t make any more like him. And, you know, it was the end of an era in a certain way.”
Linda Ronstadt
Having served time working with some of the greatest balladeers like Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra, Ronstadt felt that Riddle was one of the most singular musical geniuses she ever worked with, saying, “It was devastating [when he died] ’cause there was only one Nelson Riddle. They don’t make any more like him. And, you know, it was the end of an era in a certain way. And we still had one song, one track to record after he died. And we did. The musicians were crying in the orchestra ’cause they all loved Nelson.”
But that love went beyond simple lip service from one of the rock’s greatest vocalists. Before Ronstadt had teamed up with Riddle and began shouting his praises, he already had an influence on what Brian Wilson was doing when making his first hits for The Beach Boys, eventually taking those overlapping elements into some of his finest arrangements.
Not every one of Ronstadt’s standards was going to strike a nerve like she used to, but it was never about making something for the mainstream market. She wanted to make music that suited her voice, and with the right collaborator behind her, she found a new market for her sound that didn’t always have to cater to people wanting to hear the same old Everly Brothers songs.
And considering how many people followed Ronstadt’s lead of making sophisticated pop music, it’s not like his influence is going away anytime soon. Because whenever someone like Paul McCartney or Rod Stewart comes out with an album meant for the easy-listening market, they’re always going to be pulling from Riddle every time the strings come in and make audiences weep.
