The two artists Linda Ronstadt called musical “masters”
Not every rock and roll singer has to be the greatest songwriter. Many people might claim that no one sings a song better than the person who wrote it, but many of the greatest composers are in search of the best voice to sing their songs rather than hog the spotlight all the time. And while Linda Ronstadt has a few great songs of her own under her belt, she always knew when she could find a fantastic melody out in the wild.
After all, some of her greatest tunes came from her trying to walk in the footsteps of some of her heroes. She did have her moments that some rockers might not have approved of like going into the standards world on What’s New, but whether it was a rock and roll song, Broadway showtune, or a heartbreaking ballad, Ronstadt was always going to 110% whenever she got in front of the microphone.
But Ronstadt’s song pedigree also came from the company that she kept when she was first starting. She already had tracks like ‘Heart Like A Wheel’ and ‘You’re No Good’ under her belt, but by working in close proximity to people like JD Souther and Jackson Browne, she had some of the finest songwriters of the time sitting in her backyard. All she needed was the right song to work with.
Even when Eagles Glenn Frey and Don Henley left her to form their group, Ronstadt eventually gave them a massive hit when she covered ‘Desperado’, which managed to outshine the original when it first came out. But there was always something more interesting going on outside of California, and listening to Neil Young gave Ronstadt a fresh look at songwriting when working with him on Harvest.
Young had a no-nonsense approach to many of his songs, and there was no doubt that he would say what was on his mind regardless of whether there was a market for it. And while Ronstadt tried her hand at turning Young’s tracks into gold wherever she could, she also knew that Paul Simon was in a class by himself to put someone in a certain mood when making records like Graceland.
She certainly knew how to interpret their songs, but Ronstadt said she never came close to what they could do as writers, saying, “Neil liked to have everyone playing at once, giving his records a raw, spontaneous sound. When I recorded in Graceland with Paul Simon, he built his records a few tracks at a time. Neil’s work is more like a pen and ink drawing. They are both masters.”
But that all has to do with serving the song in the correct way. There was no one asking for a version of ‘Heart of Gold’ or ‘Old Man’ that sounded like it had Brian Wilson-levels of production, and Simon was never going to get the same sound of ‘You Can Call Me Al’ if he didn’t have people punching in whatever instrument that he needed for a certain section.
Then again, being able to figure that out on the spot is one of the most neglected aspects of being a songwriter. Someone like Ronstadt might have the unenviable task of providing the voice for some fantastic songs, but it takes a true technician to look at their own song and see what it needs in the studio rather than trying to preserve every last second they spend tracking a guitar part.
