The artist Linda Ronstadt would give anything to sing with: “We could become the Everly Sisters”
Not every artist is meant to necessarily work well with others. Although some artists make their living by bouncing off of some of their best collaborators to create a masterpiece, there are other times when everything falls apart the minute that someone else starts sticking their nose into the mix and starts suggesting how a song should sound. Linda Ronstadt might have never been too much of a snob about who she worked with, but she knew that certain artists were considered her musical holy grail.
But throughout her career, Ronstadt was never afraid to work in any medium that her voice fit into. She might be known today for being the pioneering woman of country rock, but there were more than a few times when she could stretch out and make the kind of song that left audiences scratching their heads, like her delve into non-English tunes or the odd track when she started to work on standards.
At the time she started, though, Ronstadt couldn’t have asked for better collaborators if she tried. Despite Don Henley and Glenn Frey not yet soaring with Eagles, having that golden tenor of Henley behind the kit gave a lot more punch to songs like ‘Love Sick Blues’ whenever she sang them live. Her version of ‘Desperado’ was miles above anyone else’s as well, but that wasn’t necessarily enough.
She knew that there were more places she could go, and that meant finding some other women who could fill out that sound like she could. And while it took years to get an album like Trio off the ground, Ronstadt already had her eye on what Emmylou Harris was doing on the other side of the country-rock sphere.
Both of them may have come out of the same stomping grounds in California, but Harris had a more softspoken approach to her than Ronstadt did. Ronstadt certainly had her slower moments like ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’, but listening to the kind of songs that Harris was singing at the time and her collaborations with Gram Parsons made her one of the titans in the singer-songwriter scene.
Although it took a few years for Ronstadt to realise the potential of making a female version of Crosby, Stills, and Nash with Harris and Dolly Parton, Ronstadt said that she was far more interested in Harris than the country legend, saying, “When I met her, I thought, ‘I would give anything to be able to sing with Emmylou Harris. I wish we could become the Everly Sisters.’ Well, she had a singing partner, Gram, and I thought it was a wonderful combination. And I said, ‘She just does this so well, I think I’ll stop fighting this.’ Because she just does it better than anybody.”
Even if some of Harris’s parts were impossible to duplicate, that didn’t seem to matter when they made Trio. It was clear that every member of the band knew what they were good at, and they would spend time handing off the reins to whoever they thought could do any of their songs justice when recording every track.
Ronstadt and Harris may have each been perfectly fine on their own, but having both of them under one roof alongside one of the geniuses felt like the musical version of a superhero movie half the time. We all didn’t think it could get this epic in scale, but when someone has the right idea, musical miracles can happen.
