“Influenced me the most”: The one vocalist Linda Ronstadt called the queen of all singers
Linda Ronstadt was usually the last person to say that she had one of the greatest voices of all time.
She could absolutely wail when she wanted to or dial everything back when she was singing a lush ballad, but there’s a good reason why she didn’t overdub until later in her career and preferred to never listen to her records. Part of the fun of making music was performing those tunes live whenever she could, but she figured there were legions of singers out there that were miles better than anything that she could ever do.
Then again, Ronstadt was already a bit of an oddity when she first started singing rock and roll. She didn’t necessarily fit the mould for what a rock and roll star was supposed to be, but that didn’t matter as long as she could keep pumping out the hits. ‘Tumbling Dice’ and ‘You’re No Good’ are still some of her best rock and roll numbers, but from the minute she started singing those songs live, she realised that she needed to go in a slightly different direction.
She was always going to have a stand-by in country music, but there was a lot more to explore once she started working on Broadway. Getting up on that stage means making it to the big leagues of singing, and while a lot of people would only hope to not make a fool of themselves when they’re performing, Ronstadt wanted to keep going once she found out how much fun she could have singing her heart out.
Stacking up to the rest of the crooners like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole was bound to be daunting, but she had already gone through listening to some of the greatest voices from across the world before she started singing rock and roll. And while she would eventually turn into one of the most eclectic singers of her time, she felt that her heart would always go back to what she heard the first time she laid her ears on Lola Beltran.
Though Beltran wasn’t remotely rock and roll by any stretch, no one could deny the power in her voice whenever she sang. She knew that she was capable of making any song one of the most dramatic performances anyone has ever given, and even compared to some of the greatest crooners that came before, Ronstadt thought that no one could hold a candle to what Beltran was doing.
Other crooners like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday certainly had their place in history, but Ronstadt figured that Beltran would tower over them all whenever her records came on, saying, “The female singer that influenced me the most was a Mexican singer named Lola Beltran. And she is the queen of all, she is it, she’s like what Billie Holliday is to us and Edith Piaf is to France. And her style is what influenced my rock and roll style. My rock and roll style is not based on, and it’s based on this indigenous Mexican rhythm the feeling of that, and American rock and roll is based on gospel, black music, a Protestant black music.”
This probably explains why Ronstadt felt so out of place compared to the rest of the rock and roll world. Everyone seemed to have the same musical forefathers when they were first starting, and while Ronstadt could appreciate what people like Chuck Berry brought to the music business, her favourite artists were often coming from the other side of the world compared to what everyone else was listening to.
And despite her Mexican albums being a bit more of an acquired taste than her other projects, the reason why Ronstadt worked so well had more to do with what Beltran taught her. She had a lot to learn before she could start singing properly, but if she could harness the same power that her idol did, chances are she could have accomplished anything that she set her mind to.
