The singer with the most “beautiful” melodies Linda Ronstadt had ever heard: “Paralysing and galvanising”
Linda Ronstadt is one of the most perfectly balanced singers of her generation. With a penchant for covering the songs of rock icons, she certainly knew a good track when she heard one, and usually understood the incredible singers behind the originals.
It meant that when she came across arguably one of the finest, but most often forgotten, singers of the 1960s, she was completely in awe of his truly incredible melodies. Brian Wilson was, quite simply, one of the best there ever was.
When Linda Ronstadt first met Beach Boy Brian Wilson, it was back in her Troubadour days. The Los Angeles club was the heartbeat of the burgeoning rock scene of the 1960s and had a vital hand in promoting the likes of the Eagles and Bonnie Raitt. In her memoir, Ronstadt recalled him having just separated from his wife, and the two wound up striking up a friendship as Ronstadt helped him navigate his newfound bachelor lifestyle.
“Several times I discovered him at my back door, studying a little pile of coins he held in his hand, which he said was ten or fifteen cents shy of the price for a bottle of grape juice,” wrote Ronstadt. For whatever reason, he said he needed to drink grape juice to solve a health issue, so she’d cover the remaining cents.
“We would climb into his huge convertible with the top always down, the back stuffed with a sizable accumulation of dirty laundry,” she said. “As a bachelor, he seemed to have difficulty coping with domestic arrangements, so I would suggest a trip to the Laundromat.”
With his washing done and grape juice acquired, they’d sit in Ronstadt’s living room listening to Phil Spector records, because Wilson was a big fan of his. Years later, they’d musically reunite on her collaboration with Peter Asher, 1989’s Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind album. Jimmy Webb had written a sweeping orchestral arrangement for ‘Adios’, a wistful song that Wilson provided backing harmonies on.
Wilson provided crucial direction in the studio and recorded his harmonies for ‘Adios’ in five separate tracks. Ronstadt wrote that he didn’t seem concerned if some parts veered slightly out of tune, and actually took advantage of the “slight chorused effect” it resulted in. “He came back into the control room to mix the harmony tracks into the creamy vocal smoothness instantly recognisable as the Beach Boys,” she wrote.
His process was decidedly unique, with him making up harmonies as he went along. But he would scold himself when he couldn’t master a complicated section, withdrawing behind a piano until he figured it out. Curiously though, when he sat down at the piano, he never played a single part of ‘Adios’. Instead, he’d play a “boogie-woogie song, very loud in a different key”, and would then go back to the mic and sing his parts perfectly.
After seeing his unique creative process first-hand, Ronstadt was quick to compliment his abilities. In an ode to him written on his website, she said she didn’t believe there was anyone his equal in popular music. “They were really deep, profound emotions that came out of a lot of pain,” she said. “‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’ has one of the most beautiful arcs of a melody I’ve ever heard. How can you sing about not talking, about silence? It’s paralysing and galvanising at the same time.”
While the genius composition of Wilson is often heralded as his greatest asset, and quite rightly, more often than not, his impeccable voice is forgotten. Wilson was able to lilt and launch in equal measure, allowing his unique vulnerabilities to embolden every note he sang.
