The last album Linda Ronstadt was proud of: “Really loved that record”
Life was harder for women at The Troubadour. For legends like Linda Ronstadt, there was also a constant feeling that what you do would never be enough.
The experience varied from person to person. Everybody had to work hard to make ends meet, but for Ronstadt and the countless others who just wanted to sing, no matter what that looked like, there was always an uphill battle that made you feel lonelier than you actually were. The competition that women faced also made them feel like they were the only ones in the game – Stevie Nicks included, who once said, “There weren’t very many women once”.
The sparsity made Nicks naturally gravitate towards working with more men than women. For Ronstadt, it meant navigating the strange dynamics of occupying the same space, and the “they like ya or hate ya” mentality that was commonplace whenever she worked with someone new. Ronstadt also had a unique approach to enjoyment and fulfilment, only finding joy in what she did whenever she was doing it her own way.
As a woman, it means something different to advocate for yourself. And as one in the LA scene, it meant coming to terms with being your own worst critic and not liking everything you put out there. More than most, however, Ronstadt knows the perils of hating your own craft. In fact, she hates most of her own work, mainly because she feels uncomfortable listening to her own voice. But that also comes from the fact that she feels she only really learned how to sing late in her career, by which point most of her earlier work – that she despises – had already become majorly celebrated.
“I hate [all my records],” she said. “I don’t particularly care for the sound of my voice. I’m delighted when anybody likes it, and I always try my best. I generally feel a song when I’m singing it, but I just don’t like to hear it back.”
In fact, trying to find a record – or song, even – that Ronstadt doesn’t turn her nose up at is a challenge. But she did once praise 2006’s Adieu False Heart, saying that it’s one of her proudest moments, being able to sing when it was a struggle and also create music she actually liked when she listened back to it.
Discussing the project for NPR’s Fresh Air, Ronstadt said: “I had no voice left, and I was just crafting whatever I could craft together. But I hung on to Ann, and we sang this harmony duet, and it was an unusual sound. I really loved that record, but I was also really proud of this record because it was really hard to sing at this point when I was recording.”
She also called attention to ‘Tell Him I Said Hello’, sharing some details about the message behind it and how it’s one of the songs on the record that she feels especially proud of. “I love this song,” said Ronstadt. “It’s one of those kind of things, again, where – it’s just a moment where you’re remembering, you know, the regret of a past relationship and you think you want to sort of reach out to that person. Then you realise you better not. And so you just leave it alone.”
One of the things that made it all so magical was that she effectively had to re-learn how to use her voice artistically. She says she approached it like being a painter, toying with different dynamics and techniques to achieve both aspects of light and dark. As someone who judges harshly when it comes to her own voice, the record was something of a reset – an opportunity for her to fall back in love with the one thing that gave her her name.
