Where did it all go wrong for the humble, well-respected, Bonnie Raitt-like rock legacy that Linda Rondstadt had coming to her all along? I think it was the Mad Love album, her entry into the barely attempted Mainstream Rocker as New Wave Artist race, right after The Stones’ presumed “punk answer” Some Girls and a little before Billy Joel’s Glass Houses. Linda cut her hair, donned a striped shirt and a black jacket, and put out an album primarily of songs written by Mark Goldenberg, some unknown L.A. power pop band leader, as well as a few covers by the New Wave movement’s figurehead, Elvis Costello! She also covered The Hollies’ fantastic “I Can’t Let Go” and Neil Young’s “Look Out for My Love”, but all the vitriol reserved for this album was on the Costello covers. How dare she butcher Elvis’ music! we agreed, despite the fact that most of us had never heard these covers. Maybe her Costello covers really were as lame as a diehard Stones fan could tell you her version of “Tumbling Dice” was, but she tried, and I don’t doubt that she meant well.
Not all was lost on this, the final nail in the coffin in her bid to be a somewhat respected rock ‘n roll interpreter. Another unknown songwriter at the time, Billy Steinberg, contributed the minor hit single, “How Do I Make You”, which I thought at the time and still think was a strong power pop song, definitely as strong as anything by the US band called The Beat, 20/20, and The Knack. Plus, Linda Rondstadt looked a lot better in a striped shirt and black jacket than any of those power pop bozos. Steinberg, I learned while researching this Critical Upgrade, would go on to write my favorite Madonna song – let alone one of the only Madonna songs I like, “Like a Virgin”!
I can’t speak for what would follow: the Nelson Riddle album, the country return stuff with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, the Mexican roots stuff… I like rock ‘n roll, sometimes, even when it’s done fairly well, with good intentions, by a cute brunette.
Hey, Mod —
I love you and all the stuff you do for the RTH collective. Let that be known. HOWEVER: every now and then, you undertake the most painful, pointless, Quixotic efforts to upgrade the most undeserving of artists. This Ronstadt screed is a Grade A slab of such foolishness. Look at how many words you expended… to do what? Get us to favorably compare Linda to Mike Nesmith? Crawl inside your fevered teenage Philly brow so that we might all retroactively contemplate Linda’s panties? What? As far as I can tell, the only thing you got right here was acknowledging that Linda did crappier versions of songs that were much bigger than her meager talents. Hey, I’m grateful to the Blues Brothers for introducing me to Sam and Dave — but that doesn’t mean they deserve any kind of critical upgrade.
Love ya, but… no.
HVB
I think Linda’s early country rock stuff was very cool. Check out her version of Willin’. It’s really good. I like the double album best of the Capitol years.
i always appreciated linda, from “different drum” thru “blue bayou”.
the first time i ever saw Linda, she was singing the national anthem at a dodgers game. she had that beautiful brown hair tucked up under a Dodgers cap, and those doe eyes were peering out from under the brim. she wore denim cutoff short shorts, a tight dodgers t-shirt, and a satin blue dodger’s baseball jacket on.
well, you can imagine my conflicted reactions…a hot young thing with a beautiful voice…in a DODGERS uniform?
And REALLY….it was clear that she had only a little more than half a clue of what to DO with that voice of hers.
it’s no wonder she tried approach after aproach.
when a song is in her wheelhouse, and the production aeshtetic is right, the heavens open.
and mod, you’ve really stacked the deck with these youtubes. (right in *my* wheelhouse).
I’ve always thought she was at her best when the song made her tone it down a bit, and her reading of Paul Anka’s “It doesn’t Matter anymore” is delicate and lovely. it has always been one of my favorites. Her cover of “blue bayou” is another that contains rare moments of subtlety that suggested maturation. Both have the Laurel Canyon sound, early to mid 70s LA session musicians with a good tune to play, and some steel guitar to die for by Neil Young’s boy Ben Keith if my ears don’t betray me.
and with blue bayou, she was pretty much on top of the world….only to follow it up with…what? “livin’ in the usa” and “mad love”?
sigh…another career lost to the committee thinking and demographic research by a conference table filled with “under assistant west coast promo men”.
Hrrundi, if all I’ve accomplished is this: “Get us to favorably compare Linda to Mike Nesmith?” then I will rest easy. There’s much more to consider in my words – and the accompanying videos – than you have considered to date. Perhaps part of the problem is that you tend to like white, women rock singers less than I do.
I really like a lot of the songs Mr Mod mentions. She had a great voice, chose great covers, had some choice session musicians play with her, and was cute-as-hell. Not a bad package.
btw, she looks horrifyingly bad in that “how do I make you” spot.
just as i ask you to imagine my delight with her earlier doe-eyed country girl look, imagine my horror at seeing this post-rocky horror, butched-out man/woman look that presages the early 90s camille paglia at her most fetching.
“sheesh” indeed.
I don’t need an upgrade for Linda. I always liked her and I saw her a few times when she came around here. Her shows were fun and rowdier than you might expect. She always had a band any singer would kill to have behind her, too. Some of her album cuts seem to be more about style and glitz, but her hits are terrific.
I really liked the way she did Heatwave. I like when she tones it down, but I like it more when she lets it rip. I thought that Midnight Special video of You’re No Good was great. I didn’t need the percussion, but I really enjoyed the guitar solo. She did Tumblin’ Dice with The Stones a few times, too.
Why does everyone hate Mad Love so much? I always liked it, and I’ve still got it. Party Girl and Girl’s Talk are great, and I think they work better with a female vocal anyway. I can forgive her look then because I’ve seen pictures of her in her Cub Scout uniform. That’s what I see when I see Linda.
wow, 2k.
never expected this from you.
it’s almost like discovering that rosy grier and alex karras do embroidery.
or that brady bunch episode where some major athlete tells peter brady that he was in the “glee club”.
awesomeness.
Mod wrote:
“I never felt she was cashing in, and revisiting these performances, it’s hard to argue with her enthusiasm for the material. She had good taste, and she wanted to share her record collection with us: “When Will I Be Loved”, “It’s So Easy”, “Tracks of My Tears”… This was a good thing, a noble thing.”
Right on target.
i always assumed her selections were from some label exec’s record collection, not hers.
i didn’t care.
liked her anyway.
is there proof that these choices were her own, reflected her vision, and not some handler’s vision of what choice of songs would ensure that her career would flourish given her talents?
I’m pleasantly surprised at the ease with which this Critical Upgrade is passing through the rigors of RTH. If only Hrrundivbakshi, our resident non-fan of white women rock singers, has protested to date, I think Linda’s going to get the mild credit she deserves. If 2K’s memory of the Cub Scout uniform doesn’t put her over the top, I don’t know what will.
true, mod, things are going well. but does it count as an upgrade when everybody pretty much thought she was great to begin with ? you’re preaching to the choir, here.
in order to make things interesting: love her as i do from “drum” to “bayou”, i’m still not so sure about all these different song / genre choices being hers.
even dusty springfield (widely championed much moreso than Linda as being a singer of strong musical substance and good taste), had people choosing songs for her.
what makes you think Linda wasn’t pushed in these directions she took by label execs?
along these lines, what maks her motown phase any different from her “punk” phase (clearly dreamed up by a & r research)?
Ronstadt’s one-of-the-guys tomboyishness is part of her appeal isn’t it? Certainly the best performances here are when she appears to be part of a band. When she’s out front or all alone she tends to oversell the song.
The You’re No Good video was fascinating. I thought the congas were a bit much too, but thanks to the posting of the original you can hear that it definitely had a latin tinge. This version sure rocks more than the record. I’m pretty sure that’s Little Feat’s Richie Hayward on the drums. And the two background singers dance so cool without upstaging the frontwoman.
I was going to mention her version of Tumbling Dice if Mod hadn’t. I like when Ronstadt sings rock. She’s got a powerful voice, and it can overwhelm the softer countryish stuff she often played. (Her El Lay version of Willin’ is just awful.) Supposedly she recorded Tumbling Dice with the blessing of Jagger, who wrote out the words for her. I like the fatcat band she’s playing with there. They keep the tempo slow, and Waddy’s Look is perfect as usual. He even changes guitars midstream.
I was a big fan of Mark Goldenberg, who had a skinny tie band called the Cretones that I really liked. He eventually became Jackson Browne’s majordomo when he still kept a band on retainer. Which brings up another interesting point – the continuity between the different generations of LA rock. Even when Ronstadt goes new wave she’s still got Russ Kunkel of the drums.
I don’t think she was critiqued for recording the old songs except in the sense that she smoothed them out too much, not on moral grounds. And playing those songs was also noble because fortunately she never felt compelled to imagine herself a songwriter. She made a lot of money for songwriters who needed it, Zevon for example.
I love the video of Different Drum with the tabla. Different drum indeed.
It is a rare day when I side with Hrrundie’s put-downs over Mr. Mod’s aw-shucks quasi-Of-The-People mis-steps into fluffy Healing-based feelgoodery. But here we are. I thought it was an interesting idea, so I read along (and waited for more eye candy to pay off my reading.) But over the course of it, my trajectory was like the 70s encapsulated, as far as she goes. An adequate singer with a pretty enough voice, a straight forward delivery style, and a clear fondness for good pop mixed with bilge. And cute as a button. This is an upgrade? My vitriol against her popness is now the mellowed version of an old man. Her cuteness now need not be held up against that of Suzie Quatro, or even of Lady Aberlin, for that matter. It now pays its way easily for songs that mercifully no longer hammer upon me at every turn as they did back then.
You compare her to Bonnie Rait? I’m not the biggest fan of hers, but the woman plays a decent slide and sings a bunch of her own tunes, and to my ears does so with more oomph than this perusal of adequacy. After your article and your vids, I remain less moved than by the peep shot on the RTH banner. But keep swinging, Mod!
In defense of the Mod, I thought there would be more residual vitriol for Ronstadt. I would not really count myself a fan, but I wouldn’t really accuse her of being the puppet of record execs. Andrew Gold was the creative force behind her breakout album I think.
Ronstadt’s even listed as producer on one of my favorite albums, El Rayo Ex/David Lindley’s Very Greasy, though I can’t imagine what Uncle Dave really needed her for, probably as with some producers just the ability to say “that was a good take.”
I haven’t heard it in ages, but I remember really liking that Trio album she made with Emmylou and Dolly.
Yeah, Steve, I’m not even sure if the word “puppet” is exactly the one I’m looking for. Probably a little too harsh for what I was envisioning.
but dr. john highlighted a comment by the mod about linda simply wanting to “share her record collection” with us that seemed at least a bit disingenuous.
and I just wanted to push the discussion of her “vision” back into a more balanced place. Surely, she had a mind of her own, and surely she brought her own good taste to bear on her song choices and career direction.
But by the same token, and as you say where you mention Gold, there were handlers. The post-bayou dive into “new wave” was almost certainly a calculated move.
not that these ‘career moves’ are any great sin where a pure vocalist with no band or songwriting is concerned.
re. “Trio”, I liked the idea better than the results. I had problems with the production.
Do you guys think Linda can’t make her own decisions? She may have had “handlers,” but certainly no more so than anyone else. I can’t imagine some record exec making a decision that recording songs by The Cretones that no one had ever heard would be a brilliant career move. She left Stone Poneys, and they had a hit record so playing it safe, which a label handler would demand certainly wouldn’t be to leave a known hit making entity and striking out on her own. Later on she did the Nelson Riddle and Spanish stuff, too. I think she’s one of the few artists that’s been able to do what she wants most of the time.
Then again, she was friends with some heavy hitting songwriters and musicians, so she may have had some advantages some people could only dream of. But it looks to me like she’s pretty driven and has managed to do what she wanted, how she wanted to do it much more than most major label artists get to.
From what I’ve read, she had to struggle with the good old boys network in the LA music scene. I think she identified more with misfits like Warren Zevon and Lowell George, than scenesters like Don Henley and Glen Frey.
I’m with you, Dr. John and 2000 Man. I see no signs that Linda Rondstadt’s career was shaped any more than a number of her successful male peers, who also went their own way for better or for worse. I don’t know why her New Wave album would be seen as any different. Maybe she was just ahead of the mainstream curve in realizing that Elvis Costello wrote great songs. So she cut her hair. Get over it, Saturnismine.
I think anyone with such a great voice who’s been through so many different styles is open to the criticism that someone else must be the power behind the voice. Let’s face it, especially if it’s a gurl. You could also just say that she chose a series of different collaborators.
Isn’t it weird that is almost every clip she’s referred to as a country singer? It’s closer to the truth that she was pursuing the American dream of mixing white and black styles. For a pure example, just listen to the amazing but invisible band on that first song on the Johnny Cash show. They rule. A little reminder that Memphis and Nashville are in the same state.
easy guys…
2k, which part of my last post suggests that she can’t make her own decisions?
was it the part where I wrote:
“Surely, she had a mind of her own, and surely she brought her own good taste to bear on her song choices and career direction”?
My saying “…by the same token .. there were handlers. The post-bayou dive into “new wave” was almost certainly a calculated move.”
is not a condemnation, nor a suggestion that she had no hand in her career. it’s just a realistic reading of how her career unfolded.
and didn’t I also say…
“not that these ‘career moves’ are any great sin where a pure vocalist with no band or songwriting is concerned.”?
remember, i was the first one to jump in and praise her at length in this thread. i like her alot.
unbunch your panties, especially, YOU, mr. mod!
Sat, my panties aren’t clumped. I was just curious because to be truthful, I always thought she seemed very in control of her career. If I came across as indignant or something then it’s just my poor choice of words. One thing the videos showed me is that if I had been paying even just a little attention, the Spanish music Linda got into shouldn’t have surprised me like it did (You know that sound for “I coulda had a V-8?).
Anyway, I mostly just wondered if there was some kind of Col. Tom or Sven Jolly in her career. I don’t think there was, but I’m not a die hard fan, I just like her.
Oh, and I think I should make sure to include a Cub Scout photo with obligatory Stones quote by Linda. If this ain’t proof my panties aren’t in a bunch, the you’ll have to smell my finger!
http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/hit7806.jpg
saturn,
Sure, she had guidance. But did any rock band ever succeed without the help of handlers or managers? Especially in that era, which gave rise to guys like Geffen and Azoff.
Sorry for chiming in late on this, but I just wanted to bring up a few points that have yet to be addressed.
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of hers by any means, but I have 3 of her albums. Admittedly, I bought 2 of them because they both had Elvis Costello songs on them. I’m surprised that no one mentioned that she actually covered EC several years earlier than Mad Love, namely her version of “Alison” on the Living in the USA album. This version made EC a lot of money, of course, though he said he didn’t like it at the time. Of course he changed his tune after it became a hit. Anyway, this is yet another example of what BigSteve pointed out, namely her making money for songwriters who needed it at the time.
As for her versions of those EC songs on Mad Love, I think that in particular her version of “Party Girl” gets more vitriol than the other 2 songs (“Talking in the Dark” and another one I can’t remember right now) simply because she changed the song’s perspective completely by changing the opening line to “They say I’M nothing but a party girl”. But yeah, I’m sure there was an element of “how dare she cover EC” in there as well.
As for “You’re No Good”, I’m sure that I did indeed hear her version first, but honestly I was so young that I don’t remember. The first version I bought was actually Elvis Costello’s, which was the B-side of “Veronica”. It further highlights the Latin influence of the original and thus is a bit more similar to Linda’s than to the origiinal.
After that, I found Betty Everett’s Hard to Hold record in a store in Corvallis, OR. It should be noted that not only is her original version terrific, but that the record I got also includes her original version of “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss”), which was covered by Cher in the late ’80s and I’m sure others as well.
Therefore, I don’t think I even own the record that Linda’s version is on. I also have Simple Dreams, but aside from her version of “It’s So Easy” (which I love), I’ve never really listened to it. Nor have I ever really listened to any of the other songs on the other 2 records I have aside from the EC covers and judging by this thread, it doesn’t sound like there’s too much on there that would be appeal to me.
However, I always thought she had a good voice and I’d like to hear the early country-ish stuff a bit more at some point, especially since the She and Him record has been getting all sorts of comparisons to that period.
these are instrumental but sound like sailing tunes –
Wedding Cake Island – Midnight Oil
Albatross – Fleetwood Mac