“Extraordinaire”: The legendary musician Linda Ronstadt was honoured to kiss
Linda Ronstadt is one of the most dignified artists in all of music history. But this trait came from her childhood home, when her exposure to voices from all over unknowingly formed the basis of her own style and career.
“My background at home had that kind of diversity, so I resonated with it,” she once said, recalling how sounds from all corners – The Beatles to Louis Armstrong – were her family’s bread and butter. “We listened to all kinds of different music when I was growing up,” she added. “My father and mother loved a lot of different types of music.”
All of this also meant that Ronstadt had a different mindset from most at a really young age. When she left Tucson for California, it wasn’t money or fame-motivated. It wasn’t even to prove she could do anything. She just wanted to be a singer, that was all. And she fell so in love with the music of her ancestors that she approached singing like she was a male soprano, mimicking her heroes with the kind of enthusiasm she’d later describe as amateur. Others might see it as her way of reviving those she admired before she found her own voice, but for her, she didn’t have anything special just yet.
Either way, that mindset and clear-cut path when it came to all the reasons why she wanted to pursue music is also why she was never delusional about why it mattered. A crucial figure of the Troubadour scene, Ronstadt never kidded herself about the importance of her own presence, just as she never played down just how great the place was for getting your start and influencing others.
This unique mindset is also why Ronstadt has better stories and recollections than most. Obviously, there are more interesting things about her and her upbringing than is possible to count. But mainly, the fact that she was just simply happy to be there, not just in the Troubador but the music industry in a general sense, meant she observed more than most. And it also meant she was able to do the one thing others couldn’t – enjoy it all for what it was.
Most of these gems of Ronstadt’s musical pilgrimage can be found in her memoir, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. There’s much to sink your teeth into over there, like what she thinks of Bob Dylan, and her crush on Smokey Robinson. She also remembers a moment when she kissed Marvin Gaye at a Motown reunion show, saying, “Oh my God, I kissed Marvin Gaye one night. He was vocalist extraordinaire. He was a good kisser.”
She also called ‘What’s Going On?’ an “art song”, which is high praise coming from someone who is also a “vocalist extraordinaire”. The entire interaction probably didn’t mean much outside of what it actually was, but that’s also what makes Ronstadt the most dignified artist. She seizes moments, romanticises the present, and enjoys beauty when it’s right there in front of her.
It’s also why she later earned such labels herself. Ronstadt wasn’t just a singer who imitated others; she absorbed cultural importance and delivered stories with fresh emotion, blending worlds with her own voice in a way that endeared new audiences. She might have hated listening to her own voice, but to others, she was the ultimate emblem of musical diversity.
