The artist Linda Ronstadt always wanted to sound like: “I tried to copy her so much”
Every artist has those few inspirations who gave them their careers. Whether that’s someone who helped them get their foot in the door or the one who inspired them to pick up an instrument in the first place, everyone has those few people who manage to make them dream bigger than what they were destined to be in their nowhere town. And while Linda Ronstadt might be responsible for leaving many female singers with a model for how to sing, she wasn’t without her own cradle of influences.
As much as she’s known as one of the forebearers of country rock, though, Ronstadt was never limited to the smooth sounds of country music. Anyone would have grown up idolising someone like Dolly Parton in that area, but Ronstadt listened to everything growing up, whether that was the sounds of jazz and classical music or the kind of Spanish songs that made her want to make her own Spanish album against her label’s wishes.
But that’s the beauty behind any great artist. Anyone can spend their time trying to find their niche and put themselves in the neat boxes that their label wants them to be in, but there is always a wealth of music to discover once everyone has their key influences under their belt. And when Ronstadt first got her start in the music industry, the country music scene had shifted towards the sounds of folk music.
Even before the days of The British Invasion, songwriters with nothing but songs in their hearts and a guitar in their hands were having as much of an influence as The Beatles were. Whereas the Fab Four were turned onto people like Bob Dylan once they started discovering American music, there was something much different in the way Joan Baez translated her songs to the public.
Despite her contentious back-and-forth with Dylan throughout her career, Baez had pure singing chops over Mr Zimmerman. While she may have been singing traditional tunes between her original songs, hearing her booming voice ring out over crowds of people was a far cry from the traditional soft-spoken female singers who tried to play up their reserved voices.
Even though Peter, Paul and Mary also gave folk fans a female voice to stand behind, Ronstadt felt that no one else compared with what Baez could do, saying, “Joan Baez. Oh god, I was all over Joan Baez. I tried to copy her so much. But that’s how you find your own voice, by copying. You have to start somewhere. I sang in a little, sort of unenergised soprano voice then. I wasn’t a belter yet.”
And while Ronstadt did eventually find that booming voice, there are still traces of Baez in the way she delivered her tunes. She could also get the job done with only a guitar and her voice half the time, and when she got a band behind her, hearing her belt out tunes like ‘When Will I Be Loved’ sounded like she took the raw drama behind some of Baez’s best works and blended it with the earnest songwriting voice of Carole King.
But Ronstadt isn’t someone who really needs to say that Baez’s sound inspired her. She has become the kind of star that has become part of American folklore at this point, and anyone who chose not to be defined by the male performer next to her is following in Baez’s footsteps to this day.
