Linda Ronstadt
160760
226174232
2008-07-17T04:14:16Z
Paul A
7104
trim redundant category tags
{{Infobox musical artist <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians -->
| Name = Linda Ronstadt
| Img =
| Img_capt =
| Img_size =
| Landscape =
| Background = solo_singer
| Name = Linda Ronstadt
| Alias = Queen of Rock <br /> Queen of Country Rock <br /> First Lady of Rock
| Born = {{birth date and age|1946|7|15}}<br>[[Tucson, Arizona]], [[United States]]
| Instrument = Vocals, [[Guitar]], [[Percussion]]
| Genre = [[Rock music|Rock]], [[rock and roll]], [[New wave music|new wave]], [[Folk music|folk]], [[Country music|Country]], [[ranchera]], [[Mariachi]], [[Latin music|Latin American]], [[rhythm & blues]], [[opera]], [[Cajun music|cajun]], [[big Band]], [[jazz]], [[children's music]], [[Pop music|pop]], [[adult contemporary]], [[art rock]], [[acoustic rock]]
| Occupation = <font color=red>[[Singer-Songwriter]], [[Musician]], [[Record producer]], [[Actress]]
| Years_active = 1967 - present
| Label = [[Capitol Records|Capitol]], [[Elektra Records|Elektra]], [[Asylum Records|Asylum]], [[Verve Records]], [[Vanguard Records|Vanguard]]
| Associated_acts = [[Stone Poneys]] (1966-68)<br />[[Swampwater]] (1969-1970)<br /> [[The Eagles]] (1972-1975, 1999)<br /> [[Nelson Riddle]] (1982-86)<br />Trio <small>(with [[Dolly Parton]],[[Emmylou Harris]])</small> (1987 & 1999)<br />[[Aaron Neville]] (1989)<br />[[Emmylou Harris]] (2000)<br />The Zozo Sisters <small>(with [[Ann Savoy]])</small> (2002 & 2006)
| URL =
| Current_members =
| Past_members =
| URL =
}}
'''Linda Maria Ronstadt''' (born [[July 15]], [[1946]] in [[Tucson, Arizona]]) is an [[United States|American]] popular [[vocalist]] and [[entertainer]] who has earned multiple [[Grammy]] Awards, an [[Emmy Award]], numerous United States and internationally certified [[Music recording sales certification|gold]], [[Music recording sales certification|platinum]] and [[Music recording sales certification|multiplatinum]] albums, in addition to [[Tony Award]] and [[Golden Globe]] nominations. A [[singer-songwriter]] and [[record producer]], she is better known as a definitive [[cover version|interpreter]] of songs.<ref name=USRonstadt>{{cite web | title=US Magazine | work=The Queens of Rock | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artus78.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-13}}</ref><ref name=interpreter>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work=Artist Page| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/68452/biography artist page | accessdate = 2007-05-13}}</ref> A prolific recording artist, Ronstadt has recorded over 30 studio solo albums, and has made guest appearances on over 100 other albums.<ref name=Guest>{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt | work= Album and Guest Appearances, research by Eric Herni| url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/eric_herni/guest.htm | accessdate = 2007-08-30}}</ref>
Remaining one of the most celebrated artist to date, Ronstadt has recorded studio albums in many genres outside the rock field and is known throughout the music industry as one of the most versatile, durable, and commercially successful female singers of all time. Branching out, she has recorded [[Traditional Pop]], [[mariachi]], [[jazz]], [[folk]], Broadway and opera. Attaining regional fame in the mid 1960's and in early 1970s as a cult favorite on the tour circuit, by the mid 1970's greater fame and superstardom came to her as she became the first female artist in music history to have highly anticipated arena and stadium tours - coinciding with a string of blockbuster albums, thus making her able to command sell-out concerts.<ref name=hirshey>{{cite web | title=We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock| work=By Gerri Hirshey, Grove Press, p.86| url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-SiL4_ay5zoC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=%22highest+paid+woman+in+rock%22&source=web&ots=u64mUypwvx&sig=RLgcUp7wli2ZWZKVsfS2snCY1i8#PPA86,M1| accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref><ref name=playboy>{{cite web | title=Playboy Interview| work=The Ronstadt Interview | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/playboy80.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref>. By the end of the decade, she solidified her role as one of rock and pop's most successful solo female acts of all time, and for a time, the highest paid woman in rock. As she moved on to other genres in the 1980s she maintained this consistent commercial success, scoring many more platinum albums, and remaining one of the best-selling solo album artists of this decade. From the 1990s on till today, Ronstadt has continued her success, releasing many Grammy winning, celebrated and critically acclaimed recordings. To date, Ronstadt has charted over 30 albums on the [[Billboard 200]] pop album chart, 10 of which have reached top 10, and three of those have peaked at No. 1. She also has 21 Top 40 hits on the [[Billboard Hot 100]], 10 of which have reached the top 10, three peaking at No. 2, and the No. 1 hit, "[[You're No Good]]."
==Career overview==
Establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s at the forefront of [[California]]'s emerging [[folk rock]] and [[country rock]] movements, genres which later defined post-60s [[rock music]], Linda Ronstadt became the lead singer of a successful folk rock group, [[The Stone Poneys]]. Later as a solo artist, she released ''[[Hand Sown ... Home Grown]]'' in 1969, considered the first [[alternative country]] record by a female recording artist.<ref name=McGrath>{{cite web | title=Dirty Linen Issue#106| work= Linda Ronstadt Silver Threads & Golden Needles by T.J. McGrath| url=http://www.dirtylinen.com/106/ronstexc.html | accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref> During these years as greater fame eluded her, Ronstadt actively toured with [[Jackson Browne]], [[The Doors]], [[Neil Young]] and others, made television show appearances, and began to contribute her voice to a variety of albums such as [[Carla Bley]]'s jazz opera ''[[Escalator Over the Hill]]''. However, with the successful release of chart-topping albums such as ''[[Heart Like A Wheel]]'', ''[[Simple Dreams]]'', and ''[[Living In The USA]]'', coupled with the fact that Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star, setting records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade Ronstadt became a star of the highest magnitude. <ref name=hirshey>{{cite web | title=We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock| work=By Gerri Hirshey, Grove Press, p.86| url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-SiL4_ay5zoC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=%22highest+paid+woman+in+rock%22&source=web&ots=u64mUypwvx&sig=RLgcUp7wli2ZWZKVsfS2snCY1i8#PPA86,M1| accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref><ref name=megasuccessful>{{cite web | title=Dirty Linen, Issue #106| work= Linda Ronstadt Silver Threads & Golden Needles by T.J. McGrath| url=http://www.dirtylinen.com/106/ronstexc.html| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> and the most successful female rock singer of her era<ref name=RocksVenusSuccess>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work= Cover Story, Rock's Venus| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/rolling78.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref>.<ref name=Rock>{{cite web | title=New York Magazine | work=Linda Ronstadt, Pirate Queen
| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artny80.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref><ref name=Rockwell>{{cite web | title= Stranded- Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, essay by John Rockwell | work=Living in the USA
| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/desertisle.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> Labeled the ''First Lady of Rock'',<ref name=playboy/> and one of ''The Queens of Rock'', Ronstadt was voted the Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s.<ref name=playboy/> Her rock and roll image was equally as famous as her music, appearing six times on the cover of ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine, ''[[Newsweek]]'' and ''[[Time magazine|Time]]''. In the early 1980s Ronstadt went to [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]], garnered a Tony nomination, she also teamed with composer [[Phillip Glass]], she recorded traditional music, and collaborated with famed conductor [[Nelson Riddle]], an event at that time viewed as an original and unorthodox move for a rock and roll artist. This venture paid off,<ref name=gambleoff>{{cite web | title=Family Week= | work=Linda Ronstadt: The Gamble Pays off Big | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/famwkly.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-09}}</ref> and Ronstadt remained one of the best-selling vocalists throughout the 1980s with multi-platinum selling albums such as: ''[[What's New(Linda Ronstadt album)|What's New]]'', ''[[Canciones de Mi Padre]]'' and ''[[Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind]]''. Ronstadt has continued to successfully tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums such as: ''[[Winter Light (Linda Ronstadt album)|Winter Light]]'', ''[[Hummin' to Myself]]'' and ''[[Adieu False Heart]]''. Ronstadt's thirty-plus album catalog continue to be best-sellers, with a majority of them certified [[Music recording sales certification|gold]], [[Music recording sales certification|platinum]] and [[Music recording sales certification|multiplatinum]].<ref name=certifications>{{cite web | title=Joel Whitburn's The Billboard Albums | work=Linda Ronstadt's Top Pop Albums | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/toppopa.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-19}}</ref> Selling in excess of 100 million records worldwide and setting records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade, Linda Ronstadt was the most successful female rock singer of the 70s and one of the most successful female recording artist in US History. A consummate American artist, Ronstadt opened many doors for women in rock and roll and in music by achieving success and being at the [[Avant-garde|vanguard]] of many musical movements.<ref name=Vanguard>{{cite web | title=Dirty Linen Issue#106| work= Linda Ronstadt Silver Threads & Golden Needles by T.J. McGrath| url=http://www.dirtylinen.com/106/ronstexc.html | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref>
==Private life==
===Early life===
Linda Ronstadt was born in [[Tucson, Arizona]] in 1946 to Gilbert Ronstadt (1911-1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the ''F. Ronstadt Co.'',<ref name=fredronstadt>{{cite web | title=Borderman: Memoirs of Federico José María Ronstadt | url=http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid1482.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> and Ruthmary Copeman Ronstadt (1914-1982), a homemaker with a gift for science. She was raised along with her brothers Peter (served as Tucson's [[chief of police]] from 1981-1992) and Michael and her sister Gretchen (Suzy), on the family's 10-acre ranch. The family was featured in ''[[Family Circle]] Magazine'' in 1953.<ref name=family>{{cite web | title= Gilbert Ronstadt | work=Biography on Glbert Ronstadt(1911-1995) | url=http://www.ronstadt.com/GilbertRonstadt.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-17}}</ref>
Her father, Gilbert, came from a leading and [[settler|pioneering]] Arizona ranching family<ref name=playboy/>being of [[Mexican-American]], with some [[German American|German]] and [[English Americans|English]] ancestry. Her father's grandfather, Frederick Augustus Ronstadt (who used ''Federico Augusto Ronstadt'') immigrated to the [[Western United States|West]] (then a part of Mexico) in the 1840s from [[Hanover, Germany]] and married a Mexican citizen. The marriage resulted in several children, including Federico José María Ronstadt (Linda's grandfather) who eventually settled in Tucson.<ref name=helmut>{{cite web | title=The People| work=Early Pioneers of Tucson | url=http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:pN4aVEzrblEJ:www.emat-tucson.org/Germany/People.html+%22Ronstadt+Transit+Center+%22+LINDA&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us | accessdate = 2007-05-16}}</ref><ref name=lindar1>{{cite web | title=Songs From Her Heart | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/fordtimes.htm | accessdate = 2006-10-30}}</ref>
The Ronstadt Family has contributed much to arts and culture in the American Southwest.<ref name=tucsonsronstadtfamilyhistory>{{cite web | title=Tucson'sRonstadtFamily | work=The Arizona Library | url=http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/ronstadtfamily/ | accessdate = 2007-04-09}}</ref> So great are their contributions to Arizona that their history and influence, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies and music, is chronicled in the library of the [[University of Arizona]], her alma mater.<ref name=tucsonsronstadtfamily>{{cite web | title= The Ronstadt Family | work=The University of Arizona Archives | url=http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/ronstadt/index.html | accessdate = 2007-10-03}}</ref>
Her mother, Ruthmary, was of [[English-American|Anglo-American]] descent with [[Germans|German]], English and Dutch heritage. Ruthmary was the daughter of the prolific American inventor [[Lloyd Groff Copeman]], and was raised in [[Michigan]]. Lloyd, with nearly 700 [[patents]] to his name, invented an early form of the [[toaster]], many [[refrigerator]] devices, the grease gun, the first [[electric stove]] and an early form of the [[microwave oven]]. His flexible rubber [[ice cube|ice cube tray]] earned him millions of dollars in royalties.<ref name=LloydCopeman>{{cite web | title=Lloyd Copeman Homepage | work=TheBiography | url=http://www.lloydcopeman.com/| accessdate = 2007-04-09}}</ref> He once told his grandson that he could walk into any store or home and find one of his inventions.
Ronstadt's early life was filled with music and tradition, which influenced her musical choices.<ref name=Ronstadtinterview>{{cite web | title=AARP Segunda Juventud Online | work=Linda Ronstadt, The music legend opens up to AARP Segunda Juventud Online: by Anita Mabante Leach, August 2007| url=http://www.aarpsegundajuventud.org/english/entertainment/2007-AS/07AS_ronstadt.html | accessdate = 2007-09-16}}</ref> A product of the American radio of the 1950s and 1960s with its eclectic broadcasting.<ref name=starbulletin>{{cite web | title=Star Bulletin | work=The Linda Ronstadt Interview | url=http://starbulletin.com/2006/03/28/features/story01.html | accessdate = 2007-04-09}}</ref> Growing up she listened to all types of music, and credits her mother for her appreciation of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] and the [[Traditional Pop]] music that she herself would in turn help reintroduce to an entire generation.<ref name=creditmother>{{cite web | title=Everlasting Linda| work=Linda Ronstadt Interview
17 June 1998 at Linda's home in Tucson, Arizona| url=http://www.debbiekruger.com/writer/freelance/ronstadt_transcript.html | accessdate = 2007-07-06}}</ref><ref name=starbulletin/> Staying true to any musical tradition Ronstadt sticks to “what... the music demand(s)”.<ref name=Demands>{{cite web | title=The Independent Weekly| work= Songbird Sisters, South Louisiana’s Ann Savoy teams up with pop icon Linda Ronstadt for their new CD, "Adieu False Heart": by Joshua Clegg Caffery,7/26/2006 | url=http://www.theind.com/cover2.asp?CID=-1710469275 | accessdate = 2007-05-13}}</ref>
===Personal life===
In the 1970s her private life was given publicity because of a relationship with then-Governor [[Jerry Brown]] of California, a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] [[presidential candidate]]. They shared a ''[[Newsweek]]'' magazine cover in April 1979.<ref name=Newsweek>{{cite web | title=Newsweek | work=The Pop Politics of Jerry Brown| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artnw79.htm | accessdate = 2006-11-12}}</ref> Ronstadt and Brown also took a trip to [[Africa]] which became fodder for the media.
In the mid-1980s, Ronstadt was engaged ("ring on the finger and all") to ''[[Star Wars]]'' director [[George Lucas]].<ref name=Engaged>{{cite web | title=US Magazine| work= Linda Ronstadt Checking in with the ex-flower child at home in Tucson: by Jonathan Schwartz | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artus00.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref>
In the early 1980s, Ronstadt was criticized by some (mainly rock critics) for playing two concerts in what was then [[apartheid]] South Africa, at a time when artists like [[Ray Charles]], [[Frank Sinatra]], [[Shirley Bassey]], [[Stevie Wonder]], and [[Cher]] were also performing there. ''Rolling Stone'' magazine covered the trip. The controversy eventually died out and apartheid ended.
Ronstadt is a major supporter and admirer of sustainable agriculture pioneer [[Wes Jackson]], of [[Salina, Kansas]], saying in 2000 "the work he's doing right now is the most important work there is in the ([[United States]])",<ref name=WesJackson>{{cite web | title=''Id''| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/US2000.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref> and dedicating the rock [[anthem]] ''Desperado'' to him at an August, 2007 [[Kansas City, Kansas]] concert of hers.<ref name=WesJackson1>{{cite web | title=Ex-Interior Department secretary says The Land Institute on right track | work= Salina Journal Online | url=http://www.saljournal.com/rdnews/story/Prairie100107| accessdate = 2007-10-01}}</ref>
She has two adopted children, Mary and Carlos. Her daughter has made her a fan of musician [[Pink (singer)|Pink]]. Her son, who prefers [[death metal]], has introduced her to the music of [[Rob Zombie]]. Of his work, Ronstadt says "There's real power and energy (to his music)",<ref name=robzombie>{{cite web | title=Cape Cod Times| work= More than music on Ronstadt's mind, August 10, 2007] | url=http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070810/LIFE/708100301l| accessdate = 2007-10-22}}</ref> and on [[ACDC|AC/DC]] she says "I really love [[Back in Black]]. I appreciate it musically (and) how good the rhythm guitar player is."
Ronstadt is a big fan of [[J. K. Rowling]]'s [[Harry Potter]] novels, and even persuaded friend and noted ''[[New York Times]]'' book critic [[Michiko Kakutani]] to start reading them.<ref name=Michiko>{{cite web | title=US Magazine| work= Linda Ronstadt interview by Jonathan Schwartz| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/US2000.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref>
Ronstadt says her favourite female vocalist is [[Maria Callas]], saying "There's no one in her league. That's it. Period.".<ref name=MariaCallas>{{cite web | title=''Id''| work= Interview | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artnyt95.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref> "I learn more...about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays." "She's the greatest chick [[singer]] ever".<ref name=MariaCallas1>{{cite web | title=New York Times, April 1995 | work= And This Is What 48 Looks Like: by Stephen Holden | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artnyt95.htm| accessmonthday= | September 23| accessyear=2007}}</ref> She admires Callas for her musicianship and her attempts to push 20th century singing, particularly opera, back into the [[Bel Canto]] "natural style of singing".<ref name=kqed>{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt radio interview on KQED| work=Michael Krasny, Forum, July 19, 2006| url=http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R607191000 | accessdate = 2007-07-06}}</ref> Ronstadt defines her voice as a [[soprano|coloratura soprano]].
In 2007 Ronstadt resided in the [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]] area, while also maintaining her home in [[Tucson, Arizona]].<ref name=sfchronicle>{{cite web | title=San Francisco Chronicle | work=Linda Ronstadt, at 60, is back in San Francisco, raising kids, and singing what she wants to sing | url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/28/DDG2PK61T81.DTL | accessdate = 2006-11-12}}</ref> That same year she drew criticism and praise<ref name=azstar1>{{cite web | title= Linda Ronstadt draws readers' ire | work=Arizona Star | url=http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/186398 | accessdate = 2007-06-24}}</ref> from some Tucsonians by observing that the local city council's failings, developers' [[strip mall]] mentality, [[greed]] and growing [[dust]] problem had rendered the city unrecognizable and poorly developed.<ref name=azstar>{{cite web | title= Ronstadt: Dust drove me away | work=Arizona Star | url=http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/185781 | accessdate = 2007-06-24}}</ref>
In an [[August 14]], [[2007]], interview she commented on all her well publicized outspoken views, in particular her, [[Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts]] incident (see ''Political controversy'' below), by noting, "If I had it to do over I would be much more gracious to everyone... you can be as outspoken as you want if you are very, very respectful. Show some grace".<ref name=grace>{{cite web | title=Interview: Linda Ronstadt, Written by Nancy Dunham | work=Blogcritics Magazine | url=http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/14/085901.php| accessdate = 2007-10-02}}</ref>
On [[September 23]], [[2007]], Ronstadt, was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame. Among other inductees were [[Stevie Nicks]], [[Buck Owens]] and filmmaker [[Steven Spielberg]].<ref name=Halloffame>{{cite web | title= Hall of Fame celebrates new faces, new home | work=The Arizona Republic | url=http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0922halloffame0922.html | accessdate = 2007-09-29}}</ref>
===Political controversy===
Major criticism and praise involving Ronstadt's politics arose during a [[July 17]], [[2004]] performance at the [[Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts]] in [[Las Vegas Strip|Las Vegas]]. Towards the end of her performance, as she had done across the country, Ronstadt spoke to the audience, praising [[Michael Moore]]'s [[documentary film]] ''[[Fahrenheit 9/11]],'' a movie discussing the [[Iraq War]], and dedicated the song "Desperado" to Michael Moore.<ref name=aladdin2>{{cite web | title=The Progressive | work=Linda Ronstadt Gets the Hook at Aladdin: by Matthew Rothschild [[July 21]], [[2004]]
|url=http://www.progressive.org/mag_mclindar | accessdate = 2007-05-12}}</ref>
Accounts say the crowd's initial reaction was mixed, with "half the crowd heartily applauding her praise for Moore, (and) the other half booing".<ref name=aladdin2/> However, the situation escalated into what Tyri Squyres, director of public relations at the Aladdin, described as a "mob scene.... It's amazing how ugly it got," with people walking out, tearing down posters, throwing drinks and demanding a refund.
Following the concert, news accounts reported that Ronstadt was "evicted" from the hotel premises.<ref name=aladdin>{{cite web | title=Las Vegas Review-Journal | work=Aladdin officials defend eviction of singer after political comments| url=http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/July-20-Tue-2004/news/24348468.html | accessdate = 2007-05-12}}</ref> Ronstadt claimed she wasn't physically taken off stage but was ordered by Aladdin staff to wait to speak with Aladdin President Bill Timmins. She claims to have refused to wait and to have left, and later remarked that while Aladdin staff attempted to detain her, she thought, ''"Or they were going to make me start writing on a chalkboard or read me my Miranda rights?"'' Later she said, "Apparently..(the Aladdin)... called up one of the people that was traveling with us and went, 'She's talking about Michael Moore, and this is a place for entertainment, not politics'."
Ronstadt's comments, as well as some audience members and the hotel reactions, became a topic of discussion nationwide, as Timmons and Michael Moore all made public statements on the controversy.<ref name=aladdin1>{{cite web | title=Michael Moore | work=Open Letter to Bill Timmins, President Aladdin Casino and Hotels| url=http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-07-19 | accessdate = 2007-06-24}}</ref> The incident prompted international headlines and debate on an entertainer's right to express a political opinion from the stage. The Aladdin Incident made the editorial section of the ''[[New York Times]]''.<ref name=Desperadoes>{{cite web | title=New York Times| work= Opinion piece on how Ronstadt was thrown out of the Aladdin casino, Desperadoes, ''New York Times'' [[July 21]], [[2004]]| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/opinion/21wed4.html?ex=1248148800&en=309ab430bf797d55&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland | accessdate = 2007-05-12}}</ref>
Following the incident, many friends of Ronstadt's, including [[The Eagles]], immediately cancelled their engagement at the Aladdin.<ref name=kqed/> Ronstadt also received immediate telegrams of support from her rock 'n' roll friends around the world, such as [[The Rolling Stones]], The Eagles, and [[Elton John]].
Despite reports of this public response, Ronstadt continued in her praise of Moore and his film throughout her 2004 and 2006 summer concerts across North America, which evidently continued to have a polarizing effect on the public. At a 2006 concert in Canada, Ronstadt told the ''[[Calgary Sun]]'' that she was "embarrassed George Bush (was) from the United States.... He’s an idiot.... He’s enormously incompetent on both the domestic and international scenes.... Now the fact that we were lied to about the reasons for entering into war against Iraq and thousands of people have died — it’s just as immoral as [[racism]]." This Canadian incident drew international headlines. Politician turned political pundit [[Joe Scarborough]] referenced Ronstadt's controversial comments on his [[MSNBC]] show. This was subsequently posted on [[You Tube]] and has attracted over 2.3 million hits or views and thousands of comments.<ref name=BushIdiot>{{cite web | title=Joe Scarborough on Linda| work=You Tube, | url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhbPVrb5KM | accessdate = 2007-12-27}}</ref>
As [[Peter Asher]] noted, "Linda is an extremely determined woman, in every area".<ref name=determined>{{cite web | title=M O J O, the Rock'n'Roll Magazine| work= Homecoming Queen, April 1995| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artmojo.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref>
==Career biography==
At 14, Ronstadt formed a folk trio with brother Peter and sister Suzy. They billed themselves as "The New Union Ramblers", "The Union City Ramblers", and "The Three Ronstadts", and the trio played around coffeehouses, fraternity houses, and small joints and supposedly had a 45 single pressed with two of their songs which they sold at their gigs. Their repertoire included the music they grew up on - folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican.<ref name=ramblers>{{cite web | title=Country Music Magazine, October 1978| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artcm78.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref> But increasingly, Ronstadt wanted to make a union of folk music and rock 'n' roll,<ref name=hamill>{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt, Pirate Queen, New York Magazine, [[July 21]], [[1980]]: by Pete Hamill
| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artny80.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref> and in 1964, at 17, she decided to move on to [[Los Angeles]].
===The Stone Poneys===
[[Image:Evergreenv23.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The cover of the [[Stone Poneys]]' 1967 LP, ''[[Evergreen, Volume 2]]''.]] While Ronstadt was a student at Arizona State University, she met guitarist Bob Kimmel. Together they moved to Los Angeles. In 1964, guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards joined the pair, co-writing several folk-rock songs with Kimmel. They recorded "So Fine" for [[Curb Records]]. The record company wanted them to change the group's name to "The Signets" and sing [[surf music]], which the trio chose not to do.
[[The Stone Poneys]] were discovered and signed with [[Nik Venet]] and [[Capitol Records]], recording their first album in 1966, ''[[The Stone Poneys (album)|The Stone Poneys]]'' (released in January 1967). Ronstadt was the lead singer, although she performed only a handful of solos on the album. They became a leading attraction on California's folk circuit with Ronstadt usually performing on stage in mini skirts and bare feet,<ref name=FolkCircuit>{{cite web | title=Hit Parader | work= Sanity on the Line Every Show
Hit Parader, February 1971| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/arthitp1.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> and also acted as a supporting act for [[The Doors]] on tour. "[[The Lizard King]]" didn't endear himself to Ronstadt who remarked, "We thought they were a good band, but we didn't like the singer".<ref name=thedoors>{{cite web | title=M O J O, the Rock'n'Roll Magazine| work= Homecoming Queen, April 1995| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artmojo.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref>
A second album followed in June 1967, ''[[Evergreen, Volume 2]]''. The ''album cover'' shows all three Stone Poney members clearly (the two male bandmembers were in the background on the first album cover). ''Evergreen'' was significant for the group's hit single "[[Different Drum]]", which reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was written by [[Monkees]] member [[Michael Nesmith]], along with songs "Back on the Street Again" (Steve Gillette) and "One for One" (Al Silverman and Austin DeLone).
The beginning of the end for the Stone Poneys occurred when their then-manager announced at [[The Troubadour]] one night, ''Well, I can get your chick singer recorded, but I don't know about the rest of the group.'' Capitol Records released ''The Stone Poneys'' in January 1968, although Kenny Edwards recorded and toured with Ronstadt for many years thereafter.
A third album with only a photograph of Ronstadt on the cover, ''[[Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III]]'' – consisting mostly of outtakes and other unreleased material – was issued in April 1968 and included the single "Up To My Neck In High Muddy Water". The album stalled at No. 93, but at that stage the group had already disbanded, and Ronstadt went solo.
===Solo career===
[[Image:Silk23.jpg|thumb|190px|left|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1970, on the backside cover of the album ''[[Silk Purse]]''.]]
Still contractually obligated to Capitol Records, Ronstadt released her first solo album, ''[[Hand Sown ... Home Grown]]'' in 1969, considered the first [[alternative country]] record by a female recording artist.<ref name=AlternativeCountry>{{cite web | title=Dirty Linen Issue#106| work= Linda Ronstadt Silver Threads & Golden Needles by T.J. McGrath| url=http://www.dirtylinen.com/106/ronstexc.html | accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref>
Ronstadt also vocalized in some commercials. A famous one was the late 1960s commercial for [[Remington Products|Remington]] electric [[razors]], with a multi-tracked Ronstadt and [[Frank Zappa]] saying that the electric razor ''"cleans you, thrills you... may even keep you from getting busted"''.<ref name=Remington>{{cite web | title=Frank Zappa and Linda Ronstadt's 1968 Recording | work= "Remington Electric Razor"| url=http://home.comcast.net/~westhamptonpg/razor.html | accessdate = 2007-06-16}}</ref>
Ronstadt released her second solo album titled ''[[Silk Purse]]'' in March 1970. It was the only one of her studio discs that was recorded entirely in Nashville. She hired [[Elliot Mazer]] to produce the album. He had been recommended by her friend [[Janis Joplin]], who had worked with him on her ''Cheap Thrills'' album.<ref name=Capitol>{{cite web | title=Press Release | work=The Best of Linda Ronstadt: The Capitol Years| url=http://home.comcast.net/~westhamptonpg/razor.html | accessdate = 2007-09-30}}</ref> The ''Silk Purse'' album cover was the first to establish a trend in many other Ronstadt album covers - bold, colorful and memorable. It showed Ronstadt in a muddy pig pen, with the back and inside cover showed Ronstadt in bold red, on stage. Ronstadt has stated that she wasn't pleased with this album although it provided her with her first solo hit, the multi-format single, "Long Long Time". Also ''Silk Purse'' earned Ronstadt a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance - Female, the first of her 27 Grammy nominations.
Ronstadt began incorporating new sounds into her stage [[concerts|gigs]], with the help of various backing bands. However, she noted in a 1969 interview for ''Fusion Magazine'', that it was difficult being a single ''chick singer'' with a decidedly all-male backup band.<ref name=backupband>{{cite web | title=Fusion | work= Linda Ronstadt: Female Rocker, [[December 26]], [[1969]]| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intfus2.htm | accessdate = 2007-06-17}}</ref> According to her, it was difficult for a single woman to get a band of backing musicians because of their ego problem of being labeled a sideman for a female singer. For example, the guitar player would hurry to the microphone and say "thank you" before she could even get to the mic after their set. Or she'd find that musicians felt their masculinity was threatened being sidemen to a girl singer.<ref name=backupband2>{{cite web | title=Fusion | work= Linda Ronstadt: Female Rocker| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intfus2.htm | accessdate = 2007-06-17}}</ref>
Soon after she went solo in the late 1960s, one of her first backing bands was the pioneering country-rock band [[Swampwater]], famous for incorporating [[cajun music|cajun]] and swamp-rock elements into their music. Its members included cajun [[fiddler]] [[Gib Guilbeau]] and [[John Beland]], before either of them joined [[The Flying Burrito Brothers]],<ref name=swamprock>{{cite web | title=The Rising Storm| work= Swampwater on Swampwater| url=http://therisingstorm.net/swampwater-swampwater/ | accessdate = 2007-06-14}}</ref> Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell and Eric White, brother of [[Clarence White]] of [[The Byrds]]. Swampwater went on to back Ronstadt on TV in the [[The Johnny Cash Show (TV series)|The Johnny Cash Show]],<ref name=swampwater>{{cite web | title=The Barking Spider| work= John Beland| url=http://www.barkingspider.abelgratis.com/artists/beland.shtml?functions | accessdate = 2007-06-14}}</ref> [[The Mike Douglas Show]] and ''The Big Sur Folk Festival''.<ref name=BigSur>{{cite web | title=Gib Guilbeau, 1970-1972| work= Swampwater| url=http://members.chello.at/thomas.aubrunner/gib4.htm | accessdate = 2007-06-14}}</ref> Another backing band featured players [[Don Henley]], [[Glenn Frey]], [[Bernie Leadon]] and [[Randy Meisner]] who later formed [[The Eagles]], who became one of the best-selling American group ever in the US.<ref name = RIAA/> They toured with her for a short period in 1971, and were her studio band for her third solo album, the self-titled ''Linda Ronstadt'' album.
In 1973, Ronstadt hired producer [[Peter Asher]], then producer for [[James Taylor]]. Asher at first was hesitant because Ronstadt had a reputation throughout the music business of being a ''"woman of strong opinions and knew what she wanted to do (with her career)"''. Asher was also strong-willed, at the time when opinionated qualities in a woman were considered a ''"negative, whereas in a man they were perceived as being masterful and bold"'', but he agreed to become her producer.<ref name=asherlinda>{{cite web | title=Peter Asher Interview by Caroline Ryder | work= SWINDLE Magazine| url=http://swindlemagazine.com/issueicons/peter-asher/ | accessdate = 2007-10-08}}</ref> Their relationship continued through the late 1980s. Asher went on to produce numerous other artists and win two Grammy Awards for [[Producer of the Year]]. He later remarked that Linda Ronstadt remains his ''"favorite female singer of all time. Her voice is just astounding and ... (with) very clear ideas herself about what she (wants) to do, but also she could just sing the shit out of anything"''.<ref name=favoritefemalesinger>{{cite web | title=Jam! Music | work=Peter & Gordon back in harmony: by David Scheichel -- Sun Media | url=http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2007/06/07/4241162.html | accessdate = 2007-05-14}}</ref>
Ronstadt released her fourth solo album in 1973, ''[[Don't Cry Now]]'', the first of her studio releases for [[Asylum Records]]. The album covers continued her theme of bold, colorful and memorable. It featured her first 'Country' hit with the 1950s song, "[[Silver Threads and Golden Needles]]," which she had first recorded on her 1969 ''Hand Sewn... Home Grown'' album, which this time hit the Top 20.
In 1973, Ronstadt toured as the opening act for [[Neil Young]]'s ''Time Fades Away'' tour. This tour was significant in that she was introduced to [[Emmylou Harris]]. Backstage at a concert in [[Texas]], [[Chris Hillman]] put the newcomer Harris together with Ronstadt, telling them, "You two could be good friends".<ref name=goldmine>{{cite web | title=Goldmine Magazine Issue#418| work= And then there were two...
Linda Ronstadt talks about her friend Emmylou Harris, and about the unhappy end of the Trio project, [[August 2]], [[1996]]| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intgm.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref>
In the 1974 book ''Rock'n'Roll Woman'', author [[Katherine Orloff]] interviewed Ronstadt stating, "her own musical preferences run strongly to rhythm and blues, the type of music she most frequently chooses to listen to... (and) her goal is to... be soulful too. With this in mind, Ronstadt fuses country and rock into a special union".<ref name=Soulful>{{cite web | title=Rock'n'Roll Woman | work=1974 by Katherine Orloff, interview with Linda Ronstadt| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intwom2.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref>
By this stage of her career Ronstadt had established her niche in the field of Country-rock. She, along with other musicians such as [[The Flying Burrito Brothers]], [[Emmylou Harris]], [[Gram Parsons]], [[Swampwater]], [[Neil Young]], and [[The Eagles]], helped free country music from stereotypes and showed rockers that country was OK. However, she stated that she was being pushed hard, into singing more [[rock n roll]].<ref name=goldmine/>
====Most successful female rock singer of her era====
Author [[Andrew Greeley]] in his book ''God in Popular Culture'', described Ronstadt as "the most successful and certainly the most durable and most gifted woman Rock singer of her era".<ref name=Greeley>{{cite web | title=God in Popular Culture | work=Andrew Greeley, Chapter 14| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artgod88-1.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> Author [[Gerri Hirshey]] explains in her book ''We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock'', Linda Ronstadt became the first "arena-class rock diva", with "hugely anticipated tours",<ref name=hirshey/> signaling her wide popularity as a concert artist, outside of the singles charts and the recording studio.
[[Dirty Linen]] magazine describes her as the "first true woman rock 'n' roll superstar.....(selling) out stadiums with a string of mega-successful albums".<ref name=McGrath/> [[Amazon.com]], defines her as ''the'' American female rock superstar of the decade.<ref name=medecade>{{cite web | title=Official Amazon Review| work=The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt,[[September 24]], [[2002]] | url=http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Linda-Ronstadt/dp/B00006J424 | accessdate = 2007-05-14}}</ref> By the end of the 1970s, ''[[Cashbox]]'' gave Ronstadt a ''Special Decade Award'',<ref name=cashbox>{{cite web | title=Cashbox | work=Special Decade Award | url=http://www.lindaronstadt.com/files/pwoi/Decade.html | accessdate = 2007-06-24}}</ref> as the top female pop singer of the decade.<ref name=playboy/> Coupled with the fact that her album covers, posters, magazine covers - basically her entire rock n roll image conveyed - was just as famous as her music.<ref name=RonstadtImage>{{cite web | title=Goldmine | work=Home at Last: The Journey of Linda Ronstadt by Bill DeYoung | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/gold03.htm| accessdate = 2007-07-05}}</ref> By the end of the decade, [[Redbook]] defined her as, "the most successful female rock star in the world... (who) has survived in the mostly male world of rock".<ref name=Redbook>{{cite web | title=Redbook | work= Linda Ronstadt: Why Is She The Queen Of Lonely? Interview by Elizabeth Kaye - Redbook Magazine | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intrb.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref>
[[Image:Linda Ronstadt-Heart Like a Wheel (album cover).jpg|thumb|170px|left|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1974, on the cover of the Grammy winning album and 2x platinum certified studio disc, ''[[Heart Like a Wheel]]''.]]
Having been a ''cult favorite'' on the music scene for several years, 1975 was "remembered in the music biz as the year when 29 year old Linda Ronstadt ''belatedly'' happened".<ref name=cult>{{cite web | title=People| work=WHEN WILL SHE BE LOVED? LINDA RONSTADT FINDS THE TIME, AT LAST, IS NOW, [[November 17]], [[1975]]| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artpeo75.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-18}}</ref> With the release of ''Heart Like A Wheel'', Ronstadt reached No. 1 on the Billboard Album Chart (it was also the first of four No. 1 Country Albums for Ronstadt) and the disc was certified Double-Platinum<ref name = RIAAsearch>[http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH_RESULTS RIAA Certifcations]</ref> (over 2 million copies sold). Ronstadt also developed a knack for picking good songs, finding obscure songs, and shining a light on up and coming songwriters. In many instances, her own interpretations were more successful than the original recordings and many times new songwriters were discovered by a larger audience as a result of Ronstadt interpreting and recording their songs. Interestingly, Ronstadt had major success interpreting songs from a diverse spectrum of artist. This skill would eventually serve her later in her career, as a noted master song interpreter. Rolling Stone Magazine stated, that considering Ronstadt's mass appeal and mass audience, a whole generation "but for her, might never have heard the work of [[Buddy Holly]], [[Chuck Berry]], or [[Elvis Costello]]." <ref name=interpreter2>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work=Artist Page| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/68452/biography artist page | accessdate = 2007-05-13}}</ref> Therefore, it appeared that Ronstadt didn't just "cover" songs as some of her detractors would sometimes claim but she "exposed" and "uncovered" obscure songs, while introducing many songwriters and songs to a new generation of listeners.
''Heart Like a Wheel''s first single release was "[[You're No Good]]," - a rootsy rockified version of a song written by Clint Ballard, Jr. - climbed to No. 1 on the Pop singles chart.<ref name=bronson>The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits: by Fred Bronson - ISBN 0-8230-7677-6</ref> The album's second single release was "When Will I Be Loved," - an uptempo country rock version of a song written by Phil Everly - climbed to the No. 2<ref name=bronson/> on the Pop singles chart and the No. 1 slot on the Country singles chart<ref name=bronson/>
The album showed a physically attractive Ronstadt on the cover but, more importantly, its critical and commercial success was due to a fine presentation of country and rock with ''Heart Like A Wheel'' her first of many major commercial successes that would put her on the path as one of the best-selling female artists of all time. Ronstadt won her first [[Grammy]] Award<ref name = 1stgrammy>{{cite web | title=''Grammy.com: Grammy Award Winners''| work=1975 - 18th Annual GRAMMY Awards| url=http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/Winners/Results.aspx | accessdate = 2008-02-23}}</ref> for [[Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance|Best Country Vocal Performance/Female]] for "[[I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)]]" - originally recorded and written by [[Hank Williams]] - with Ronstadt interpretation, peaking at No. 2 on the Country charts. The album was nominated for [[Grammy Award for Album of the Year|Album of the Year]]''.
Immediately, ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine put her on its cover in March 1975, for the first time. The cover was the first of six ''Rolling Stone'' magazine covers and photographed by famed photographer [[Annie Leibovitz]]. It also included her as featured artist with a full photo layout and an article by [[Ben Fong-Torres]], discussing her many struggling years in rock n roll, home life and what it meant to be a women on tour in a decidedly all-male environment.
Later this same year, 1975, her album ''[[Prisoner in Disguise]]'' was released. It climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard Album Chart and sold over a million copies.<ref name = RIAAsearch/> It became her second in a row to go platinum, "a grand slam" in the same year (Ronstadt would eventually be the first female artist in popular music history to have three consecutive platinum albums and would go on to have eight consecutive platinum albums and then another six between 1983 and 1990).<ref name=platinum>{{cite web | title=''Id''| work=People| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artpeo75.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-18}}</ref> The disc's first single release was "[[Love Is A Rose]]". It was climbing the Pop and Country charts but [[(Love is Like a) Heat Wave|Heat Wave]], a rockified version of the 1963 hit by [[Martha and the Vandellas]], was receiving considerable airplay. Asylum pulled the "Love Is A Rose" single and issued "Heat Wave" with "Love Is A Rose" on the B-side. "Heat Wave" hit the Top Five on Billboard's Hot 100 while "Love Is A Rose" hit the Top Five on Billboard's Country chart.
[[Image:Simple Dreams Album Cover.jpg|thumb|170px|left|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1977, on the cover of the Grammy winning album design and 3x platinum certified<ref name = RIAAsearch/> studio disc, ''[[Simple Dreams]]''.]]
In 1976 Ronstadt reached the Top 3 of Billboard's Album Chart and won her second career Grammy Award for [[Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female]] for her third consecutive platinum<ref name = RIAAsearch/> album ''[[Hasten Down the Wind]]''. The album showcased Ronstadt the [[singer-songwriter]], composing two songs, "Try Me Again" and "Lo Siento, Mi Vida". It also included interpretation of Willie Nelson's classic "Crazy", which became a Top 10 Country hit for Ronstadt in early 1977.
In late 1977 Ronstadt surpassed the success of ''Heart Like A Wheel'' with her album ''[[Simple Dreams]]'', which held the No. 1 position for five consecutive weeks on the Billboard Album Chart. The album has been certified triple platinum (over 3 million US copies sold). The album was released in September of 1977, and by December, it had replaced [[Fleetwood Mac]]'s long running No. 1 album ''[[Rumours]]'' in the top spot. ''Simple Dreams'' spawned hit singles on both the pop and country singles charts as well. It included the [[RIAA]] platinum-certified single "[[Blue Bayou]]" - a Country Rock interpretation of a [[Roy Orbison]] written song - as well as "[[It's So Easy]]" previously sung by Buddy Holly - and "[[Poor Poor Pitiful Me]]" a song written for the album, by Warren Zevon, an up and coming songwriter of the time whom Ronstadt elected to highlight and record. The album, garnered several Grammy Award nominations - including Record Of The Year and [[Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female]] for "Blue Bayou" - and won its art director, [[Kosh (art director)|Kosh]] a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, the first of three Grammy Awards he would win for designing Ronstadt album covers.
''Simple Dreams'' became one of the singers most successful international selling albums as well, reaching No. 1 on the Australian and Canadian pop and country album charts.<ref name=international">{{cite web | title=Ronstadt Facts, Investigative International Sales | work=Linda Ronstadt Record Sales Information Page (German Site)| url=http://lindaronstadt.de/facts.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-17}}</ref> ''Simple Dreams'' also made Ronstadt the most successful international female touring artist as well. The same year, she completed a highly successful concert tour around [[Europe]]. As, ''Country Music Magazine'', wrote in October 1978, ''Simple Dreams'' solidified Ronstadt's role as "easily the most successful female rock and roll and country star at this time."<ref name=mostsuccessful>{{cite web | title=The Queen of Rock & Roll is also a Queen of Country Music
| work=Country Music Magazine, October 1978| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artcm78.htm | accessdate = 2008-07-8}}</ref>
Also in 1977, she was asked by the [[L.A. Dodgers]] to sing the [[U.S. National Anthem]] at game three of the [[World Series]] against the [[New York Yankees]].<ref name=nationalanthem>{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt Singing the National Anthem at Game three of World Series | work=You Tube | url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxYYwE_ezE | accessdate = 2007-08-11}}</ref>
====''Time Magazine'' and Image====
Ronstadt has remarked that she felt as though she was "artificially encouraged to kinda cop a really tough attitude (and be tough) because [[rock n roll]] is kind of a tough (business)" which she felt wasn't worn quite [[Authenticity (philosophy)|authentically]].<ref name=identitycrisis>{{cite web | title=NPR | work=Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, [[April 28]], [[2007]] Music legend Linda Ronstadt plays a game called "They Said We Were Mad at the Academy! Mad I Tell You!" Three questions about strange, but real, patents in recent years| url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888452 | accessdate = 2007-05-10}}</ref> Female rock artists like her and [[Janis Joplin]], whom she described as lovely, shy and very literate in real life and the [[antithesis]] of the "red hot mamma" routine she was artificially encouraged to project, went through an [[identity]] [[crisis]].<ref name=identity>{{cite web | title=''Id'' | url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888452 | accessdate = 2007-05-10}}</ref> Ironic, as Ronstadt noted in the 1974 interview with publicist [[Katherine Orloff]], was that "women in rock and roll... have to compete with the boys... (which is) to talk as dirty and (to) have just as callous an attitude," even as a kid hunting with her father and brother she "wanted to (be tough) and just like my brother, carry my .22, which was bigger than I was".<ref name=identitycrisis>{{cite web | title=Rock'n'Roll Woman | work= interview with Linda Ronstadt| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intwom2.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref>
[[Image:RonstadtTime.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Linda Ronstadt, on the cover of the [[February 28]], [[1977]] issue of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''. ''Click on image'' and go to the "Summary" section to read article and TIME reader's opinion on article.]]
Eventually, Ronstadt's [[rock n roll]] image became just as famous as her music by the mid 1970s.<ref name=FamousImage>{{cite web | title=Goldmine | work=Home at Last: The Journey of Linda Ronstadt: by Bill DeYoung | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/gold03.htm| accessdate = 2007-07-05}}</ref> The 1977 appearance on the cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine under the banner "Torchy Rock" , especially for the most famous woman singer of the 1970s,<ref name=rockwell>{{cite web | title=Living in the USA| work= Stranded- Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, John Rockwell, 1978| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/desertisle.htm | accessdate = 2007-07-06}}</ref> was controversial for Ronstadt, considering what the image appeared to project about the most famous woman in rock.<ref name=controversial>{{cite web | title=NPR | work=Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, [[April 28]], [[2007]] Music legend Linda Ronstadt plays a game called "They Said We Were Mad at the Academy! Mad I Tell You!" Three questions about strange, but real, patents in recent years| url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888452 | accessdate = 2007-05-10}}</ref> At a time in the industry when men still told women what to sing and what to wear,<ref name=Asherscomment>{{cite web | title=M O J O, the Rock'n'Roll Magazine| work= Homecoming Queen, April 1995| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artmojo.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref> Ronstadt hated the image of her that was projected to the world,<ref name=controversial/> on the cover of Time magazine no less, and she noted recently how the photographer kept forcing her to wear a dress, which was an image she did not want to project,<ref name=controversial/> (although she wore a rather revealing dress for the cover of Hasten Down the Wind which projected an image of her not all that different from the Time magazine cover). In 2004, she was interviewed for [[CBS This Morning]]<ref name=cbs>{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt | work=CBS News Sunday Morning [[December 5]], [[2004]]
Interview| url=http://www.lindaronstadt.com/files/CBSNSM/CBS_SundayAM.html | accessdate = 2007-07-12}}</ref> and stated that this image ''was not her'' because she didn't ''sit'' like that. The Time magazine cover did not deter critics and they regarded it as affirming their claim that Ronstadt was her producer's puppet. It also encouraged them to belittle her music along with her image. Asher noted this irony, ''"anyone who's met Linda for 10 seconds will know that I couldn't possibly have been her [[Svengali]]. She's an extremely determined woman, in every area. To me, she was everything that feminism's about."''<ref name=Asherscomment/> Qualities, which Asher has stated, were considered a ''"negative (in a woman), whereas in a man they were perceived as being masterful and bold"''.<ref name=negativequalities>{{cite web | title=Peter Asher Interview by Caroline Ryder | work= SWINDLE Magazine| url=http://swindlemagazine.com/issueicons/peter-asher/ | accessdate = 2007-10-08}}</ref> As noted, since her solo career began, Ronstadt has fought hard to be recognized as a solo female singer in the world of rock,<ref name=solofemale>{{cite web | title=Fusion | work= Linda Ronstadt: Female Rocker, [[December 26]], [[1969]]| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intfus2.htm | accessdate = 2007-06-17}}</ref> and her portrayal on the ''Time'' cover didn't appear to help the situation. As evidence of how troublesome this cover was to her, Ronstadt later refused to acknowledge that she was reclining and insisted that she was ''"sitting down... looking stupid"''<ref name=controversial/> .
Later in 1977, ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' published for its cover, an alluring collection of photographs taken by [[Annie Leibovitz]], which helped to further the image that Ronstadt later said she wasn't pleased with. Ronstadt and Asher claim to have viewed the photos prior to publication and, when asked that they be removed and the request was denied, they unceremoniously threw Leibovitz out of the house.
In 1978, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine declared Ronstadt, "by far America's best-known female rock singer".<ref name=Rocksbest>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work=Rock's Venus| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/rolling78.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-05}}</ref> She had a third No. 1 album on the Billboard Album Chart, with ''[[Living In The USA]]'' - a [[Chuck Berry]] song - and a major hit single with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles' "[[Ooh Baby Baby]]", which hit all four major singles charts (Pop, AC, Country and R&B). Another song is [[Warren Zevon]]'s, ''"Mohammed's Radio,"'' in which [[Waiting for Godot|Godot]] turns out to be rock & roll and ''Mohammed's radio'' is the grail. ''Living In The USA'' was the first album by any recording act, in music history, to ship double-platinum (over 2 million advanced copies).<ref name=hirshey/> The album eventually sold 3 million US copies.
[[Image:Living in the USAconcert.jpg|190px|thumb|left|Linda Ronstadt's promotional poster, for the 1978 ''[[Living In The USA]]'' album and concert]]
[[Billboard Magazine]] crowned Linda Ronstadt with Four No.1 Awards for the Year: No.1 Pop Female Singles Artist of the Year; No.1 Pop Female Album Artist of the Year; No.1 Female Record Artist of the Year; and the No.1 Female Vocalist of the Year.<ref name=TopFemale>{{cite web | title=Billboard Magazine | work=Congratulations, [[December 23]], [[1978]] | url=http://www.lindaronstadt.com/files/pwoi/BB_23Dec1978_Congrats.html | accessdate = 2007-06-24}}</ref>
''Living In The USA'' showed the singer on roller skates with a newly short haircut on the album cover. Ronstadt continued this theme on concert tour promotional posters with photos of her on roller skates in a dramatic pose with a large [[American flag]] in the background. By this stage of her career, she was promoting every album released, with posters<ref name=FamousImage/> and concerts - which at the time were recorded live on radio and/or TV. Ronstadt was also featured in the 1978 film [[FM (film)|FM]], where the plot involved [[disc jockeys]] attempting to illegally record and broadcast live, a Linda Ronstadt concert. The movie also showed Ronstadt in concert singing the hit song [[Tumbling Dice]] - a cover of a [[The Rolling Stones]] song.
Keeping with this theme, Ronstadt conducted successful disc promotional tours and concerts. In one concert in 1978 Ronstadt made a guest appearance onstage with [[The Rolling Stones]] at the ''Tucson Community Center'' on [[July 21]], [[1978]] in her hometown of Tucson, where Ronstadt and [[Mick Jagger]] vocalized on "Tumbling Dice".
====Highest paid woman in rock====
By the end of 1978, Ronstadt had solidified her role as one of rock and pops most successful solo female acts, and due to her commercial success and her ability to command sell out concerts, a feat for a female solo artist at the time, Ronstadt became the "highest paid woman in rock",<ref name=hirshey/> and the first-ever woman able to command sell-out concerts in arenas and stadiums hosting tens of thousands of fans.<ref name=playboy/> She had three No. 1 Pop albums, six platinum certified albums and numerous charted Pop singles. In 1978 alone, she made over $12 million (equivalent to $38,000,000 today),<ref name=playboy/> and in the same year her albums sales were reported at being 17 million in sales - worth $60 million".<ref name=USMagazine>{{cite web | title=US Magazine | work=The Queens of Rock | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artus78.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-13}}</ref>
As ''Rolling Stone magazine'' dubbed her "Rock's Venus",<ref name=RocksVenusSuccess/> her record sales continued to multiply and setting ''records'' themselves. By the end of the 1970s, Ronstadt had collected eight [[Gold album|gold]], six platinum and four multi-platinum certifications for her albums, an unprecedented feat at the time. Her 1976 ''[[Greatest Hits (Linda Ronstadt)|Greatest Hits]]'' album would sell consistently for the next 25 years and in 2001 was certified by the [[RIAA]] for 7 times platinum<ref name=RIAAsearch/> (over 7 million US copies sold). In 1980 ''[[Greatest Hits (Linda Ronstadt)|Greatest Hits Volume II]]'' was released and certified platinum)<ref name=RIAAsearch/> (over 1 million copies sold).
In 1979 , Ronstadt went on a successful international tour, playing in arenas across Australia to Japan, including the [[Olympic Park Stadium]] in [[Melbourne, Australia]] and the [[Budokan]] in [[Tokyo, Japan]]. She also participated in benefit concert for her friend [[Lowell George]], held at the [[The Forum (Inglewood, California)|The Forum]], in Los Angeles, California.
By the end of the decade, Ronstadt had outsold her female competition, no other female artist to date had five straight platinum LPs: ''[[Hasten Down the Wind]]'', and ''[[Heart Like a Wheel]]'' among them.<ref name=PeopleMagazine>{{cite web | title=People | work= ON THE CHARTS AND IN MEN'S HEARTS LINDA RONSTADT IS NO. 1 WITH A BULLET | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artpeo77.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> US Magazine reported in 1978, that Linda Ronstadt, [[Stevie Nicks]], [[Carly Simon]] and [[Joni Mitchell]] had become "The Queens of Rock"<ref name=USMagazine/> and 'Rock is no longer exclusively male. There is a new royalty ruling today's record charts'.<ref name=USMagazine/>
She would go on to parlay her mass commercial appeal with major success in interpreting [[The Great American Songbook]], made famous a generation prior by [[Frank Sinatra]], and [[Ella Fitzgerald]] and later the Mexican folk songs of her childhood.
====From rock to Broadway====
In 1980, Ronstadt recorded ''[[Mad Love (Linda Ronstadt album)|Mad Love]]'', her seventh consecutive platinum selling album. ''[[Mad Love (Linda Ronstadt album)|Mad Love]]'' is a straightforward [[rock n roll]] album with strong post-punk, new wave influences, including tracks by songwriters such as Elvis Costello, [[The Cretones]], and musician Mark Goldenberg who played on the record himself. This same year she also made the cover of ''Rolling Stone Magazine'' for a record-setting sixth time. ''[[Mad Love (Linda Ronstadt album)|Mad Love]]'' entered the [[Billboard 200]] in the Top Five its first week (a record at that time) and climbed to the No. 3 position. In 1980, she continued her streak of Top 10 hits with "How Do I Make You?", "Hurt So Bad", originally recorded by [[Little Anthony & the Imperials]], and the Top 40 hit [[I Can't Let Go]] — a cover of a song by [[The Hollies]]. The album earned Ronstadt a 1980 [[Grammy Award]] nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (but she lost to [[Pat Benatar]] for "[[Crimes of Passion]]"). However, this same year Benatar praised Linda Ronstadt by stating, ''How can I be the best (female) rock singer, Ronstadt is still alive!''.<ref name=recordreview">{{cite web | title=Pat Benatar: Rock's Reluctant Sex Symbol| work=Record Review, December, 1980|url=http://www.lemuseumdebenatar.com/vintage4.html| accessdate = 2007-07-05}}</ref>
[[Image:Pirates-of-penzance-DVDcover.jpg|thumb|140px|left|[[Rex Smith]], Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline, ca. 1980, from the ''The Pirates of Penzance'' Central Park production.]]
In the summer of 1980, Ronstadt began rehearsals for the first of several leads in [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] musicals. [[Joseph Papp]] cast her as the lead in the [[New York Shakespeare Festival]] production of [[Gilbert and Sullivan|Gilbert and Sullivan's]] ''[[The Pirates of Penzance]]'', alongside [[Kevin Kline]].<ref name=Pirates>{{cite web | title=Hit Parader | work=Rock Queen Conquers Broadway And Lives Happily Ever After, September 1981|url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/arthp81.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref>
However, this endeavor wasn't, to Ronstadt, as far a left field endeavor as it might have appeared to Ronstadt's popular music audience. She recounts that singing ''Gilbert and Sullivan'' was a natural choice for her, since Grandfather Fred Ronstadt is credited with creating [[Tucson]]’s first [[orchestra]], the ''Club Filarmonico Tucsonense'' and had once created an arrangement of ''Pirates of Penzance'', likewise, her mother, Ruthmary Copeman Ronstadt, owned a large Gilbert and Sullivan collection.<ref name=GilbertandSullivan>{{cite web | title=AARP Segunda Juventud Online | work=Linda Ronstadt, The music legend opens up to AARP Segunda Juventud Online, By Anita Mabante Leach, August 2007| url=http://www.aarpsegundajuventud.org/english/entertainment/2007-AS/07AS_ronstadt.html | accessdate = 2007-09-16}}</ref>
The ''Pirates of Penzance'' revival turned out to be a major hit on Broadway. The musical opened for a limited engagement in [[New York City|New York City's]] [[Central Park]] and moved its production to Broadway where it ran from [[January 8]], [[1981]] to [[November 28]], [[1982]].<ref name=imbd>{{cite web | title=IBDB Internet Broadway Database, an official database presented by The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. In association with Theatre Development Fund and New York State| work=Linda Ronstadt|url=http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?id=58306| accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref> Newsweek was effusive in its praise: "...she has not dodged the coloratura demands of her role (and Mabel is one of the most demanding parts in the G&S canon): from her entrance trilling 'Poor Wand'ring One,' it is clear that she is prepared to scale whatever soprano peaks stand in her way".<ref name=bronson/>
A [[DVD]] of the [[Central Park]] production was released in October 2002, but there is no recording of the Broadway run which followed. The "Central Park" disc has somewhat mediocre videotaping and sound quality, both a result of the outdoor location. Ronstadt also co-starred with Kline and [[Angela Lansbury]] in the 1983 motion picture version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Ronstadt received a [[Golden Globe]] nomination for the role in the movie version. The two versions (stage and for-film) are distinguishable by cover art.
For her effort on Broadway, she garnered a [[Tony Award]] nomination for [[Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical|Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical]] and ''[[The Pirates of Penzance]]'' won several Tony Awards, including a [[Tony Award for Best Revival]].
In 1984, Ronstadt had discovered ''[[La Boheme]]'' through the silent movie with [[Lillian Gish]] and was determined to play the part of Mimi. When she mentioned it to her friend, opera superstar [[Beverly Sills]], she was told, ''"My dear...''every'' soprano in the world wants to play Mimi!"'' Ronstadt was later cast in the role of Mimi at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre.<ref name=Mimi>{{cite web | title=Newsweek | work=A Pop Star Goes Puccini by Jack Kroll,[[December 10]], [[1984]]|url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artnw84.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref>
In 1988, Ronstadt returned to Broadway, for a limited run engagement in the musical show adaptation of her 1988 album of Mexican folk songs, ''[[Canciones de Mi Padre]]'' - "My Father's Songs".<ref name=imbd2>{{cite web | title=IBDB Internet Broadway Database| work=Linda Ronstadt's Canciones|url=http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4514| accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref>
After her stint on Broadway, Ronstadt went back to the studio to record more rock 'n' roll music. In 1982, Ronstadt released ''[[Get Closer]]'' a primarily rock album with some country and pop music as well. It is her only album from 1975 (''Heart Like A Wheel'') to 1990 (''Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind'') that wasn't officially certified Platinum. It peaked at #31 on the [[Billboard]] Album Chart. In 1982, she continued her streak of Top 40 hits with "Get Closer", and "I Knew You When" - a 1965 hit by [[Billy Joe Royal]], and the Jimmy Webb song "Easy For You To Say" which was a Top 10 AC hit. The album earned Ronstadt two [[Grammy]] Award nominations for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female as well as Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. The album won its art director, [[Kosh (art director)|Kosh]] his second Grammy Award for [[Grammy Award for Best Recording Package|Best Album Package]].
Along with the release of her ''Get Closer'' album, Ronstadt also embarked on a very successful North American tour, remaining one of the top rock concert draws that summer and fall. One famous concert was her [[November 25]], [[1982]] ''Happy [[Thanksgiving Day]]'' concert held at [[Dallas, Texas]]'s [[Reunion Arena]] and broadcast live via [[satellite]] on radio stations across the [[United States]].<ref name=dallas>{{cite web | title=Billboard Magazine| work=Linda Ronstadt's promo ad for live Dallas radio concert broadcast|url=http://www.lindaronstadt.com/files/scans/1982_dallas_radio_concert.jpg| accessmonthday=Novemeber 4 | accessyear=2007}}</ref>
===Branching out===
Ronstadt has remarked that in the beginning of her career "(she)..was so focused on folk, rock and country that..(she) got a bit bored and started to branch out, and..(has) been doing that ever since".<ref name=bored12>{{cite web| title=The Press Enterprise| work=Linda Ronstadt to play at Fantasy Springs, By PAUL SAITOWITZ, Special to The Press-Enterprise| url=http://www.pe.com/entertainment/stories/PE_Ent_Guide_D_ronstadt01.19591ed.html| accessdate = 2007-06-06}}</ref> By this stage of her career, in 1983, Linda Ronstadt was reportedly worth over $40 million (equivalent to $81,000,000 today), mostly from successful [[rock n roll]] records and concerts.<ref name="Reported worth">{{cite web| title=People Magazine, March 26, 1984| work=WHAT'S NEW WITH LINDA RONSTADT? SHE'S SINGING HER LOVE SONGS TO STAR WARS CZAR GEORGE LUCAS| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artpeo84.htm| accessdate = 2007-07-12}}</ref>
Ronstadt eventually became tired of playing arenas.<ref name=identitycrisis/> She didn't feel that arenas, where people milled around lighting joints and buying beer, were "approriate places for music". She wanted ''"angels in the architecture"'' - a reference to a lyric in the [[Paul Simon]] song ''[[You Can Call Me Al]]''. Likewise, she has noted that she wanted to sing in places similar to the [[Theatre of ancient Greece]], where the attention is focused on the stage and performer.<ref name=angels>{{cite web | title= The Gazette |work=Great musicians and their legions of paying fans deserve a great venue| url=http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3d66e8e0-b5c8-4106-a56b-95d023c067c3 | accessdate = 2007-07-20}}</ref>
Ronstadt's recording career in the 1980s proved to be just as commercially and critically successful as her 1970's recordings. Between 1983 and 1990 Ronstadt scored six additional platinum albums: two of which have been certified triple platinum (each with over 3 million US copies sold); one which as been certified double platinum (over two million copies sold); and one Gold (over 500,000 US copies sold) double disc album.<ref name=1980splatinum>{{cite web | title=Joel Whitburn's The Billboard Albums | work=Linda Ronstadt's Top Pop Albums | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/toppopa.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-19}}</ref> By electing to record [[traditional pop]], traditional country and adult contemporary popular music, Ronstadt won over new fans, thus sending her career into a new stratosphere and whole new direction.
====What's New====
[[Image:Ronstadt WhatsNew.jpg|180px|left|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1983, from the disc [[What's New(Linda Ronstadt album)|What's New]] ]]
In 1983, a then 37-year old Ronstadt embarked on an unorthodox and original approach in rehabilitating the [[Great American Songbook]] when she recorded the first of what would be a trilogy of highly successful [[traditional pop]] albums alongside, the then 62-year-old grand master of pop orchestration, conductor [[Nelson Riddle]]: ''[[What's New (Linda Ronstadt album)|What's New]]'' (1983); ''[[Lush Life (Linda Ronstadt album)|Lush Life]]'' (1985); and ''[[For Sentimental Reasons (Linda Ronstadt album)|For Sentimental Reasons]]'' (1986). The three have a combined sales of over 8 million copies sold in the U.S. alone.
The album design for ''What's New'' by designer [[Kosh (art director)|Kosh]] was unlike any of her previous disc covers. But in keeping with the themes of her other discs it was bold, colorful and memorable. The cover seemed to playfully suggest ''what's new?'' It showed Ronstadt in a vintage dress lying on shimmering satin sheets with a [[Walkman]] headset. At the time, Ronstadt received a lot of ridicule for both the album cover and her venture into what was then considered "elevator music" by cynics. In a 1984 ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' skit, comedienne [[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]] parodied Ronstadt by dressing and posing in a copy of the ''What's New'' cover while the title track played in the background. Louis-Dreyfus sang things like "I sing old songs for you, ‘Cause I can’t do what’s new!", referring to the fact that these 1920's and 30's written songs that Ronstadt chose and elected to perform were too old to cover, un-hip, not rock 'n' roll and therefore, unmarketable.
Ronstadt faced considerable pressure not to record ''What's New'' or record with Riddle. According to [[jazz]] [[historian]] Peter Levinson, author of the book ''[[September In The Rain]] - a Biography on Nelson Riddle'', Joe Smith, president of [[Elektra Records]], was terrified that the Nelson Riddle album would turn off Ronstadt's rock audience.<ref name="lindaronstadtwithnelsonrddle">{{cite web | title=Jerry Jazz Musician | work=The Peter Levinson Interview | url=http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=levinson.html | accessdate = 2007-06-14}}</ref> Nonetheless, Ronstadt remained determined to record with Riddle, despite an ill-fated attempt in 1981 to create an album of Jazz standards with famed producer [[Jerry Wexler]]. The project titled "Keeping Out Of Mischief" was never released because of Ronstadt's disappointment with the final product, although ten tracks were recorded and the album cover was finalized. Ronstadt went on to call them her most "expensive rehearsal sessions". ''What's New'' was released in September of 1983, it spent 81 weeks on the [[Billboard]] Album Chart and climbed to the No. 3 position (held out of the top spot by Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and Lionel Richie's 'Can't Slow Down') and the [[RIAA]] [[certified]] it triple platinum<ref name = RIAAsearch/> (over 3 million US copies sold). The album earned Ronstadt another [[Grammy]] nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female and critical raves, with [[Time Magazine]] calling it "one of the gutsiest, most unorthodox and unexpected albums of the year".<ref name="TimeWhatsNewReview">{{cite web | title=
Music: Linda Leads the Band, September 26, 1983 | work=Time Magazine | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/arttm83.htm | accessdate = 2007-09-29}}</ref>
''What's New'' brought Nelson Riddle to a younger audience. According to Levinson "the younger audience hated what Riddle had done with [[Frank Sinatra]],<ref name=nelsonriddle>{{cite web | title=''Id'' | work=Interview | url=http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=levinson.html | accessdate = 2007-06-14}}</ref> which in 1983 was considered "Vintage Pop". Working with Ronstadt, Riddle brought his career back into focus in the last three years of his life.<ref name=nelsonriddle/> Stephen Holden of the ''[[New York Times]]'' wrote, ''[[What's New(Linda Ronstadt album)|What's New]]'' "isn't the first album by a rock singer to pay tribute to the golden age of the pop, but is ... the best and most serious attempt to rehabilitate an idea of pop that [[Beatlemania]] and the mass marketing of rock LPs for teen-agers undid in the mid-60s ... In the decade prior to Beatlemania, most of the great band singers and crooners of the 40s and 50s codified a half-century of American pop standards on dozens of albums ... many of them now long out-of-print".<ref name=nytimes>{{cite web | title=The New York Times| work=LINDA RONSTADT CELEBRATES THE GOLDEN AGE OF POP: by Stephen Holden Published: [[September 4]], [[1983]]|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=9D06E3DC1538F937A3575AC0A965948260| accessdate = 2007-05-10}}</ref> ''What's New'' is the first album by a rock singer to have major commercial success in rehabilitating the [[Great American Songbook]].<ref name=nytimes/>
In 2004, Ronstadt released ''[[Hummin' to Myself]]'', her first album for [[Verve Records]]. It was her first foray into [[traditional jazz]] since her sessions with Jerry Wexler and her records with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, but this time with a smaller [[jazz]] [[musical ensemble|combo]]. The album was a quieter affair for Ronstadt, receiving few interviews and only one television performance as promotion. The album debuted at No. 2 on the [[Billboard Charts#Top Jazz Albums|Billboard Top Jazz Albums]] Chart, and not having the mass distribution [[Warner Music]] gave her, ''Hummin' To Myself'' sold over 75,000 copies in the US alone within the first 6 months of its release, quite successful for a small record label like Verve Records and it did achieve critical acclaim from the jazz cognoscenti.<ref name=JazzTimes>{{cite web | title=Jazz Times Review | work=Humming To Myself | url=http://jazztimes.com/reviews/cd_reviews/detail.cfm?article_id=15185§ion=CD%20Reviews&issue=200412 | accessdate = 2007-04-19}}</ref>
==== The Trio recordings====
In 1978, Ronstadt, with [[Dolly Parton]] and [[Emmylou Harris]], began recording a ''Trio'' album. The attempt was not successful. Ronstadt later remarked that not too many people were focused at the time and everyone was too involved with their own careers. This concept album was put on the back burner for almost ten years.
In 1987, the three eventually did make their way into the recording studio and released the album ''[[Trio (album)|Trio]]'', which they first had conceived of ten years earlier. It was a considerable hit, holding the No. 1 position on Billboard's Country Albums chart for five weeks running and hitting the Top 10 on the Pop side also. Selling two million copies and winning them a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, it produced four top-ten country singles including "To Know Him Is To Love Him" which hit No. 1. The album was also a nominee for overall Album of the Year, in the company of Michael Jackson, U2, Prince, and Whitney Houston.
In 1999, Ronstadt reunited with Parton and Harris for the ''[[Trio 2 (album)|Trio 2]]'' album, the long-anticipated follow up to their 1987 ''Trio'' album. It included "After The Gold Rush" which became a popular music video. The effort was certified Gold (over 500,000 copies sold) and won them a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for the track. Ronstadt co-produced the album with [[George Massenburg]].
====Canciones - songs of her family====
[[Image:Cancionesdipadre12.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1987, on the cover of the Grammy winning album and 2x platinum certified ''[[Canciones de Mi Padre]]'' - "My Father's Songs.".]]
At the end of 1987, Ronstadt released an album of traditional Mexican folk songs, or what she describes as ''"world class songs"'', titled ''[[Canciones de Mi Padre]]'' - "My Father's Songs". Keeping with the Ronstadt theme, her cover art was dramatic, bold, and colorful. For ''Canciones De Mi Padre'' Ronstadt was in full Mexican regalia and her musical arranger was famed Mariachi musician [[Rubén Fuentes]].
These canciones were a big part of Ronstadt's family tradition and musical roots. For example, the history of this album goes back half a century. In January, 1946, the [[University of Arizona]] published a booklet by Luisa Espinel entitled ''Canciones de mi Padre''.<ref name=MyFathersSongs>{{cite web | title=Tucson'sRonstadtFamily | work=The
Arizona Library | url=http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/ronstadtfamily/music/cancintr.html | accessdate = 2007-05-30}}</ref> Luisa Espinel was Linda Ronstadt's aunt and an international singer in the 1920s. Ms. Espinel's father was Fred Ronstadt (Linda Ronstadt's grandfather), and the songs she had learned, transcribed and published were some of the ones he had brought with him from [[Sonora]]. Ronstadt researched and extracted from the favorites she had learned from her father Gilbert and she called her album by the same name as her aunt's booklet and as a tribute to her father and his family. Though not fully bilingual, she has a fairly good command of the Spanish language, allowing her to sing Latin American songs with little discernible accent; Ronstadt has often identified herself as Mexican-American.<ref name=MexAm>{{cite web | title=American Way | work=Linda Ronstadt's New Old Flame- Mexican Music| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artamway.htm| accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> Her formative years were spent with her father's side of the family.<ref name=rollingstone>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work=The
Rolling Stone Interview | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intrs78.htm | accessdate = 2006-10-29}}</ref> Also, Ronstadt has credited Mexican singer [[Lola Beltran]] as an influence in her own singing style, and she recalls how a frequent guest to the Ronstadt home, [[Lalo Guerrero|Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero]], father of [[Chicano]] music, would often [[serenade]] her as a child.<ref name=lolabeltran>{{cite web | title=AARP Segunda Juventud Online | work=Linda Ronstadt, The music legend opens up to AARP Segunda Juventud Online, By Anita Mabante Leach, August 2007| url=http://www.aarpsegundajuventud.org/english/entertainment/2007-AS/07AS_ronstadt.html | accessdate = 2007-09-16}}</ref>
This album won Ronstadt a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance. The real achievement however is the disc's [[RIAA]] double-platinum<ref name=RIAAsearch/> (over 2 million US copies sold) certification - making it the biggest-selling non-English language album in US music history.
Ronstadt produced and performed a theatrical stage show in [[concert halls]] across the United States and Latin America to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences, including on the [[Great White Way]]. She called the stage show by the same name ''Canciones de mi Padre''. These performances were released on DVD. Ronstadt elected to return to the Broadway stage, 4 years after she performed La bohème, for a limited run engagement. [[PBS]] Great Performances aired the celebrated stage show during its annual fund drives and the show was a hit with audiences, earning Ronstadt an [[Emmy Award]] for [[Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program|Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program]].
She recorded two additional discs of Latin music in the early 1990s. Although their promotion, like all her albums in the 1990s, was a quieter affair for Ronstadt, where she appeared to do the "bare minimum" to promote. They were not as successful in terms of sales as ''Canciones De Mi Padre'', but were critically acclaimed. The first one she recorded was ''[[Mas Canciones]]'', a follow up to the first ''Canciones''. For this effort she won a Grammy award for [[Grammy Award for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album|Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album]]. The same year she stepped outside of Mariachi genre and decided to record well known "afro-Cuban" songs. This disc was titled ''[[Frenesi(Linda Ronstadt album)|Frenesi]].'' Like her second Latin recording venture, this third Latin album won Ronstadt another Grammy award, this time for [[Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album|Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album]].
In 1991, Ronstadt participated in ''La Pastorela'', a musical filmed at ''San Juan Bautista''. It was written and directed by Luis Valdez. from ''Canciones de Mi Padre'' fame, and like ''Canciones'', the production was part of the PBS "Great Performances" series. It currently exists on VHS format but has not been released on DVD.
====Defining mainstream pop====
Still enjoying the success of her traditional pop collaborations with Nelson Riddle and the sleeper hit success of her Mariachi recordings, by the late 1980s Linda Ronstadt elected to record mainstream pop music once again, a decision that ended up producing a couple of hit singles and one highly successful pop album entitled ''[[Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind]]''. Of the album, [[Amazon.com]] wrote that Ronstadt recorded "an album that defines virtually everything that is right about adult contemporary pop." .<ref name=CryReview>{{cite web | title=Review | work=Amazon.com essential recording | url=http://www.amazon.com/Cry-Like-Rainstorm-Howl-Wind/dp/B000002H7E | accessdate = 2008-07-10}}</ref>
Beginning in 1987, Ronstadt made a return to the top of Billboard Hot 100 singles charts with "[[Somewhere Out There (James Horner song)|Somewhere Out There]]", which peaked at No. 2 on [[14 March]] [[1987]]<ref name=bronson/> - being a sentimental duet with [[James Ingram]] and featured in the animated film ''[[An American Tail]]''. The song was nominated for several Grammy Awards, eventually winning the Song Of The Year category. It also received an [[Academy Award]] for Motion Picture song and achieved high sales, earning a million-selling Gold single in the US - one of the last 45s ever to do so. On the heels of this success, [[Steven Spielberg]] asked Ronstadt again to record the title song, for the sequel to ''An Americal Tail'', titled ''[[An American Tail: Fievel Goes West]]''. The song she recorded was "Dreams To Dream". Although it failed to achieve the same success as its predecessor, the song did give Ronstadt an Adult Contemporary hit in 1991.
Ronstadt made a full return to the mainstream pop charts in 1989, releasing both an album and several popular singles. This effort titled ''[[Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind]]'' became one of the singers all-time biggest albums, in terms of production, arrangements, chart sales, and critical acclaim. The album returned Ronstadt, as a solo artist, back to the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Chart, reaching the #7 position and being certified triple-platinum<ref name=RIAAsearch/> (over 3 million US copies sold). The album also received critical acclaim, being nominated for numerous Grammy awards. She even featured American soul singer [[Aaron Neville]] on four of the twelve disc cuts.
Ronstadt incorporated the sounds of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, [[Tower of Power]] horns, the [[Skywalker Symphony]] and numerous musicians. It had duets including "[[Don't Know Much]]" (Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit - Christmas 1989<ref name=bronson/>) and "[[All My Life]]" (Billboard Hot 100 #11 hit), both long-running No. 1 Adult Contemporary hits. These duets with singer [[Aaron Neville]] received much critical acclaim, garnering several Grammy nominations and won both 1989's and 1990's Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal award, shared with Aaron Neville.
Her last live Grammy Award appearance was in February 1990 when she and Neville performed the song for the public for the first time since it became a hit the previous year. She hasn't watched the Grammys since then<ref name=kqed/> despite winning five subsequent awards.
In December 1990, Linda Ronstadt participated in a concert to commemorate [[John Lennon|John Lennon's]] 50th birthday, and to raise awareness of environmental issues, held in [[Tokyo]] at the [[Tokyo Dome]]. Other participants included [[Miles Davis]], [[Lenny Kravitz]], [[Hall & Oates]], [[Natalie Cole]], Japanese artists, [[Yoko Ono]] and [[Sean Lennon]]. A CD resulted, titled ''Happy Birthday, John''.<ref name=Lennon>{{cite web | title=Tokyo Dome | work=Concert to commemorate John Lennon's 50th birthday | url=http://www.jeclique.com/onoweb/dreampower2001.html | accessdate = 2007-05-12}}</ref>
Ronstadt continues to be original and explore different manners in which to introduce classic music, in a new and unorthodox fashion. For example, in 1996, Ronstadt produced ''[[Dedicated to the One I Love (Linda Ronstadt album)|Dedicated to the One I Love]]'', an album of [[Rock and Roll|rock 'n roll]] songs reinvented as [[children's music]]. This effort won her and longtime collaborator, [[recording engineer]] [[George Massenburg]], Grammys for [[Grammy Award for Best Album for Children|Best Album for Children]].
On [[November 16]], [[1999]] [[Warner Music Group|Elektra/Wea]] released ''[[The Linda Ronstadt Box Set]]''. The Box Set includes a total of four discs arranged thematically rather than chronologically with five hours of eighty-six songs that highlight Ronstadt’s eclectic career. There are two CDs that essentially serve as best-of sets. Disc three consists of duets with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Aaron Neville, and Frank Sinatra. Disc four offers rarities, including her contributions to [[Randy Newman]]'s Faust and a contribution to [[Carla Bley]]'s jazz opera ''Escalator Over the Hill'' and songs off 1978's Living in the USA and 1980's Mad Love period that didn’t make it onto the albums. In addition, some live contributions including "All I Have To Do Is Dream" with [[Kermit the Frog]].
In 2000, Linda Ronstadt completed her long contractual relationship with [[Elektra Records|Elektra/Asylum]] which had now become part of the [[Warner Music Group]]. The fulfillment of this contract was the release of ''A Merry Little Christmas'', her first holiday collection, which included rare choral works, the song "River" by [[Joni Mitchell]], and a rare recorded duet with [[Rosemary Clooney]] on her signature song, [[White Christmas (song)|White Christmas]].
Since leaving Warner Music, Ronstadt has gone on to work under the [[Verve]] and [[Vanguard Records|Vanguard]] Record labels.
===A return to roots music===
One of the world's leading magazines for commercial and project studio recording, MIX Magazine, stated that "Ronstadt (has) left her mark on more than the record business; her devotion to the craft of singing influenced many audio professionals.... (and is) intensely knowledgeable about the mechanics of singing and the cultural contexts of every genre she passes".<ref name=mixmag>{{cite web | title=MIX, Magazine on professional audio and music production Audio| work=Linda Ronstadt
December 1, 2000 by Dan Daley| url=http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_linda_ronstadt/index.html | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref> In 2004 Ronstadt wrote the Forward [[Introduction (essay)|Introduction]] to the book titled ''The [[NPR]] Curious Listener's Guide To [[American folk music]]'',<ref name=forward>{{cite web | title=Amazon | work=The NPR Curious Listener's Guide To American Folk Music, by Kip Lornell (Author), Linda Ronstadt (Foreword) | url=http://www.amazon.com/Curious-Listeners-Guide-American-Music/dp/0399530339 | accessdate = 2007-05-17}}</ref> and in 2005 she wrote the Introduction to the book titled ''Classic Ferrington Guitars'', about guitar-maker and [[luthier]] [[Danny Ferrington]] and his custom [[guitars]] that have been created for various musicians from Ronstadt, [[Elvis Costello]], and [[Ry Cooder]] to [[Kurt Cobain]].<ref name=forwardguitars>{{cite web | title=Barnes & Noble | work=Classic Ferrington Guitars: by Kate Giel (Editor), Linda Ronstadt (Introduction) | url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780760776056| accessdate = 2007-05-17}}</ref> On [[August 3]], [[2007]], Ronstadt headlined the [[Newport Folk Festival]], making her debut at this prestigious event, where she incorporated jazz, rock and folk music into her repertoire.
[[Image:WeRan.jpg|thumb|170px|left|Linda Ronstadt, ca. 1998, from the disc ''[[We Ran]]'']]
Continuing with her crafted approach to more mainstream-oriented material, Ronstadt released the highly acclaimed ''[[Winter Light (Linda Ronstadt album)|Winter Light]]'' album at the end of 1993. It included New Age arrangements such as the lead single "Heartbeats Accelerating" as well as the self-penned title track and featured the unique glass armonica instrument. 1995's ''[[Feels Like Home (Linda Ronstadt album)|Feels Like Home]]'' was Ronstadt's much heralded return to Country-Rock and included her version of [[Tom Petty]]'s classic hit "[[The Waiting (song)|The Waiting]]". The following year saw the release of ''[[Dedicated To The One I Love]]'', an ethereal disc of children's lullabies which earned Ronstadt her ninth Grammy Award. Recent Ronstadt albums have been much quieter promotional affairs for Ronstadt, receiving few interviews - mostly print interviews, and only one or two television performances on selective shows as promotion. During this period, Ronstadt raised her two children, and she only agreed to do the "bare minimum" to promote her albums.
In 1998 Ronstadt recorded ''[[We Ran]]''. The disc has a non-dramatic photo, unlike previous covers that over the years had won three Grammy Awards for artist [[Kosh (art director)|Kosh]]. Although inside the disc, the music harkens back to Ronstadt's country-rock and folk-rock heyday. She returned to her ''rock 'n' roll'' roots with vivid interpretations of songs by [[Bruce Springsteen]], [[Doc Pomus]], [[Bob Dylan]] and [[John Hiatt]]. The disc was produced by [[Glyn Johns]]. The album is one of Ronstadt's few albums to not hit the Top 100 on the Billboard album chart. ''We Ran'' also did not chart any hit singles on either the Pop or Adult Contemporary charts. The album however was well received by critics. Her vocal performance on the track "Cry 'till My Tears Run Dry" is particularly worthy of note, and demonstrated how much her voice had grown, since her early, somewhat raw, country music performances.
Despite the limited success of ''We Ran'', Ronstadt kept towards this adult rock exploration. She released ''[[Western Wall — The Tucson Sessions]]'' (1999), a folk-rock oriented project with EmmyLou Harris. It earned a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and made the Top 10 of Billboard's Country Albums chart and the Top 100 of the Billboard album charts, debuting at No. 73. They had a modest alternative rock hit with ''Sweet Spot'', a song that was written with and recorded with [[Jill Cunniff]] of [[Lucious Jackson]].
Also in 1999, Ronstadt went back to her concert roots, when she performed with [[The Eagles]] and [[Jackson Browne]] at [[Staples Center]]'s 1999 New Year's Eve celebration kicking off the [[December 31]] end-of-the-[[millennium]] festivities. As Staples Center Senior Vice President and General Manager Bobby Goldwater said, "It was our goal to present a spectacular event as a sendoff to the 20th century", and "The Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt are three of the most popular acts of the century. Their performances will constitute a singular and historic night of entertainment for [[New Year's Eve]] in Los Angeles.<ref name=NewYearsEve>{{cite web | title=The Eagles to Perform at Staples Center | work=New Years Eve| url=http://www.staplescenter.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=103445&itype=&iCategoryID=0| accessdate = 2007-06-19}}</ref>
[[Image:AdieuFalseHeart.jpg|thumb|160px|right|Japanese and Australian cover of the disc ''[[Adieu False Heart]]''. Linda Ronstadt with Ann Savoy, ca. 2006,]]
In 2006, recording as the [[ZoZo Sisters]], Ronstadt teamed with longtime friend, musician and musical scholar [[Ann Savoy]] to record ''[[Adieu False Heart]]'', an album of roots music incorporating pop, cajun, and early 20th century music on the Vanguard Records label. The album was released to an international market, and has different covers, one showing artistic ''farm art'' and the other prominently showing Ronstadt and Savoy (international cover) - primarily in Australia and Japan.
''Adieu False Heart'', recorded in [[Louisiana]], features a cast of local musicians, including Chas Justus, Eric Frey and Kevin Wimmer of the Red Stick Ramblers, Sam Broussard of The Mamou Playboys, Dirk Powell and Joel Savoy, as well as an array of Nashville musicians: fiddler Stuart Duncan, mandolinist Sam Bush and guitarist Bryan Sutton. The recording earned two Grammy nominations: Best Traditional Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. On the heels of ''Adieu False Heart''''s critical success, commencing 2007, Ronstadt has been in the studio with ''Ann Savoy'' recording a follow-up album.
In 2007 a [[United Kingdom|UK]] [[compilation album]] was released, combining ''[[Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits I & II]]'' on one disc. And in June 2007, Ronstadt could be heard on the compilation LP "We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady Of Song" on the track "Miss Otis Regrets."<ref>[http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-r/lindaronstadt.htm Rock On The Net - Linda Ronstadt]</ref>
===Career achievements===
*At the end of 2007, Ronstadt's albums had earned her three No. 1 albums, 10 Top 10 pop albums and over 30 charting pop albums on the [[Billboard 200]]. On the Billboard's [[Country Album]] chart, she had four No. 1 albums.
*Also at the end of 2007, Ronstadt's singles had earned her a No. 1 single and three No. 2 singles on the [[Billboard Hot 100]], 10 Top 10 pop singles, 21 Top 40 pop singles, two No. 1 hits on the Billboard [[Country Single]] chart, two No. 1 hits and on Billboard's [[Adult Contemporary]] charts she had recorded 37 Top 40 hits.
*She has recorded over 30 studio albums and has made guest appearances on over 100 other albums.<ref name="albums">{{cite web | title=Linda Ronstadt | work= Album and Guest Appearances| url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/eric_herni/guest.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-17}}</ref> Her guest appearances included the classical minimalist [[Philip Glass|Philip Glass's]] album ''Songs from Liquid Days'', a hit Classical record with other major Pop stars either singing or writing lyrics, she also appeared on Glass's follow up recording; ''[[1000 Airplanes on the Roof]]'', an appearance on [[Paul Simon|Paul Simon's]] ''[[Graceland (album)|Graceland]]'', she voiced herself in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "[[Mr. Plow]]" and sang a duet "Funny How Time Slips Away" with [[Homer Simpson]] on ''The Simpsons: The Yellow Album''. Ronstadt has also recorded on albums with artists as diverse as: [[Emmylou Harris]],[[Dolly Parton]],[[Neil Young]], [[J. D. Souther]], [[Gram Parsons]], [[Bette Midler]], [[Nitty Gritty Dirt Band]], [[Earl Scruggs]], [[Eagles|The Eagles]], [[Andrew Gold]], [[Hoyt Axton]], [[Kate and Anna McGarrigle]], [[Mark Goldenberg]], [[Ann Savoy]], [[Karla Bonoff]], [[James Taylor]], [[Warren Zevon]], [[Maria Muldaur]], [[Randy Newman]], [[Nicolette Larson]], [[Seldom Scene|the Seldom Scene]], [[Rosemary Clooney]],and [[Aaron Neville]].
*Some of her biggest-selling studio albums to date are her 1977 release ''[[Simple Dreams]]'', 1983's ''[[What's New(Linda Ronstadt album)|What's New]]'', and her 1989 release ''[[Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind]]'', each one certified by the [[Recording Industry Association of America]] for over 3 million copies sold. Her highest-selling album to date is the 1976 compilation, ''[[Greatest Hits (Linda Ronstadt)|Greatest Hits]]'', certified for over 7 million units sold as of 2001.<ref name="RIAA1">{{cite web | title=RIAA | work= Ronstadt's RIAA Certified Gold and Platinum | url=http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=1&table=SEARCH_RESULTS&action=&title=&artist=Ronstadt&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2007&sort=Artist&perPage=25| accessdate = 2007-05-09}}</ref>
*Linda Ronstadt became music's first major touring female artist, selling out major venues, and she also became the top-grossing solo female concert artist for the 1970s.<ref name="arenaclassrock">{{cite web | title=We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock| work=By Gerri Hirshey, Grove Press, p.86| url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-SiL4_ay5zoC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=%22highest+paid+woman+in+rock%22&source=web&ots=u64mUypwvx&sig=RLgcUp7wli2ZWZKVsfS2snCY1i8#PPA86,M1| accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref> Ronstadt remained a highly successful touring artist throughout the 1980s.
*''[[Cash Box]]'' named her the top female pop singer of the decade.<ref name="Cash Box">{{cite web | title=Playboy | work=Playboy Interview: Linda Ronstadt | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intpb.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-07}}</ref>
*Her RIAA certification (audits paid for by record companies or artist for promotion) tally as of 2001, now totals 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and 8 Multi-Platinum albums.<ref name="RIAA">{{cite web | title=RIAA | work=The Best Selling Artist Tallies | url=http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=1&table=SEARCH_RESULTS&action=&title=&artist=Ronstadt&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2007&sort=Artist&perPage=25| accessdate = 2007-05-09}}</ref>
* Ronstadt's album sales have not been certified since 2001, and at the time, Ronstadt's US album sales were certified by the [[Recording Industry Association of America|RIAA]] at over 30 million albums sold while Peter Asher, her producer, placed her total US album sales at over 45 million <ref name=Asheralbumsales>{{cite web | title=Everlasting Linda| work=Linda Ronstadt Interview
17 June 1998 at Linda's home in Tucson, Arizona| url=http://www.debbiekruger.com/writer/freelance/ronstadt_transcript.html | accessdate = 2007-07-06}}</ref>. Likewise, her worldwide albums sales are in excess of 60 million albums sold, according to her current record label, Verve Music.<ref>[http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/lindaronstadt Verve Music Group - Biography on Linda Ronstadt]</ref>
*She was the first female in music history to score four consecutive platinum albums and ultimately racked up a total of eight consecutive platinum albums.<ref name="Billboard">{{cite web | title=Joel Whitburn's The Billboard Albums | work=Linda Ronstadt's
Top Pop Albums | url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/toppopa.htm | accessdate = 2007-04-19}}</ref>
*Her album ''Living In The USA'' is the first album by any singer in U.S. music history, to ship double platinum (over 2 million advanced copies).<ref name="doubleplatinum">{{cite web | title=We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock| work=By Gerri Hirshey, Grove Press, p.86| url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-SiL4_ay5zoC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=%22highest+paid+woman+in+rock%22&source=web&ots=u64mUypwvx&sig=RLgcUp7wli2ZWZKVsfS2snCY1i8#PPA86,M1| accessdate = 2007-05-11}}</ref>
*At the time of its release, ''Canciones de mi Padre'' became the best-selling non-English-language album in U.S. music history.
*Ronstadt has served as [[record producer]] on various albums from musicians [[David Lindley (musician)|David Lindley]] and [[Aaron Neville]] to singer-songwriter [[Jimmy Webb]].<ref name="producer">{{cite web | title=M O J O, the Rock'n'Roll Magazine| work= Homecoming Queen, April 1995| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artmojo.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-13}}</ref> She produced ''Cristal — Glass Music Through the Ages'', an album of classical music using glass instruments with Dennis James, and Ronstadt singing on several of the arrangements.<ref name="Cristal">{{cite web | title=Rich Bailey Interview | work= Dennis James discusses his career, his current CD, and working with Linda Ronstadt, January 2002| url=http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/djames.html | accessdate = 2007-05-08}}</ref> In 1999, Ronstadt also produced the Grammy Award winning Trio 2.
*She has received a total of 27 Grammy Award nominations in various fields from [[Rock music|Rock]],[[Country music|Country]], and [[Pop music|Pop]], to [[Tropical (radio format)|Tropical Latin]], and has won 11 [[Grammy Award]]s in fields including [[Pop music|Pop]], [[Country music|Country]], [[Tropical (radio format)|Tropical Latin]], Musical Album for Children, and [[Mexican American|Mexican-American]].
*Ronstadt was the first female solo artist to have two Top 40 singles simultaneously on Billboard magazine's Hot 100: "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" (October 1977). By December, both "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" had climbed into Billboard's Top 5 and remained there for the entire month.<ref>The Book of Singles - Top 20 Charts 1984 to Present Day: Dave McAleer: 2001: ISBN 0-87930-666-1: </ref>
*Ronstadt's run on the [[Billboard]] charts includes one single or album charted every year from 1970 to 2000.
*As a [[singer-songwriter]] Ronstadt has also written songs covered by several artists, such as "Winter Light" covered by [[Sarah Brightman]], and "Try Me Again" covered by [[Trisha Yearwood]].
*Ronstadt has elected to sing songs written by a diverse group of artist including: [[Lowell George]], [[Warren Zevon|Zevon]], [[Elvis Costello|Costello]], [[J. D. Souther|Souther]], [[Randy Newman|Newman]], [[Patty Griffin]]. [[Sinéad O'Connor]], [[Julie Miller]], [[Mel Tillis]], [[Tom Petty|Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers]], [[John Hiatt]], [[Joe Melson]], Seldom Scene, [[Bruce Springsteen]], [[George Jones]], [[Tracy Nelson (singer)|Tracy Nelson]], [[Flying Burrito Brothers|the Flying Burrito Brothers]], [[Little Feat]], [[Neil Young]], [[Bob Dylan]]. [[Chuck Berry]], [[the Everly Brothers]], [[Brian Wilson]], [[the Rolling Stones]], [[the Miracles]], [[Oscar Hammerstein II]], [[Roy Orbison]] and [[Buddy Holly|Buddy Holly and the Crickets]].
*Rolling Stone Magazine writes, a whole generation "but for her, might never have heard the work of [[Buddy Holly]], [[Chuck Berry]], or [[Elvis Costello]]." <ref name=butforher>{{cite web | title=Rolling Stone | work=Artist Page| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/68452/biography artist page | accessdate = 2007-05-13}}</ref>
*"[[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]" included Heart Like A Wheel (1974) at # 164 and The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt (2002) at # 324.<ref>[http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5938174/the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]</ref>
==Awards==
===Grammy Awards===
* [[Grammy Awards of 1975|1975]] - Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" from ''Heart Like a Wheel''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1976|1976]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, ''Hasten Down the Wind''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1980|1980]] - Best Musical Album for Children, ''In Harmony: A Sesame Street Record'' (multiple artist compilation w/ Linda Ronstadt)<sup>1</sup>
* [[Grammy Awards of 1987|1987]] - Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, ''Trio'' (with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris)
* [[Grammy Awards of 1988|1988]] - Best Mexican-American Performance, ''Canciones de Mi Padre''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1989|1989]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "Don't Know Much" from ''Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind'' with Aaron Neville
* [[Grammy Awards of 1990|1990]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "All My Life" from ''Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind'' with Aaron Neville
* [[Grammy Awards of 1992|1992]] - Best Mexican-American Album, ''Mas Canciones''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1992|1992]] - Best Tropical Latin Album, ''Frenesi''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1996|1996]] - Best Musical Album for Children, ''Dedicated to the One I Love''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1999|1999]] - Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, "After the Gold Rush" from ''Trio II'' with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
<sup>1</sup> "Best Musical Album for Children" Grammy - Linda Ronstadt is not recognised by the Grammy Awards as being a recipient of this particular Grammy, although she participated in the production. Therefore, the Grammy Award site<ref>[http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/Winners/Results.aspx Grammy Awards - Official Site]Past Winners Searchable database</ref> shows Ronstadt the recipient of only 10 Awards, and 17 nominations. However, The official Grammy Awards site also shows Ronstadt as a recipient for the Grammy winning Musical Album for Children.
===Grammy Award nominations===
* [[Grammy Awards of 1970|1970]] - Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female, "Long, Long Time" from ''Silk Purse''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1975|1975]] - Album of the Year, ''Heart Like a Wheel''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1975|1975]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, ''Heart Like a Wheel
* [[Grammy Awards of 1977|1977]] - Record of the Year, "Blue Bayou" from ''Simple Dreams''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1977|1977]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "Blue Bayou" from ''Simple Dreams''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1980|1980]] - Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, "How Do I Make You" from ''Mad Love''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1982|1982]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "Get Closer" from the album ''Get Closer''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1982|1982]] - Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, "Get Closer" from the album ''Get Closer''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1983|1983]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, ''What's New''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1985|1985]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, ''Lush Life''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1987|1987]] - Album of the Year, ''Trio'' with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
* [[Grammy Awards of 1987|1987]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, "Somewhere Out There" from the soundtrack to ''An American Tail'' with James Ingram
* [[Grammy Awards of 1989|1989]] - Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, Cry Like a Rainstorm, ''Howl Like the Wind''
* [[Grammy Awards of 1999|1999]] - Best Country Album, ''Trio II'' with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris
* [[Grammy Awards of 1999|1999]] - Best Contemporary Folk Album, ''Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions'' with Emmylou Harris
* [[Grammy Awards of 2002|2002]] - Best Traditional Folk Album, ''Evangeline Made: A Tribute to Cajun Music'', multiple artist compilation, with vocalist Ann Savoy
* [[Grammy Awards of 2006|2006]] - Best Traditional Folk Album, ''Adieu False Heart'' with Ann Savoy
===ACM Music Award===
* 1974 - Best New Female Artist
* 1987 - Best Album / 'TRIO' - Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris
===Emmy Award===
* 1989 - Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program, Linda Ronstadt, Great Performances: ''Canciones de Mi Padre''
===Tony Award nomination===
* 1981 - Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Linda Ronstadt in ''The Pirates of Penzance'' as "Mabel"
===Golden Globe Award nomination===
* 1983 - Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Linda Ronstadt in ''The Pirates of Penzance''
==Discography==
{{main|Linda Ronstadt discography}}
==References==
{{reflist|3}}
==Articles and Interviews==
* [http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/creem76.htm Creem Magazine, A Heart To Heart with Linda Ronstadt (December 1976)]
* [http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artesq.htm Linda Ronstadt: Melancholy Baby, Esquire, (October 1985)]
* [http://www.topix.net/who/linda-ronstadt/2007/08/ronstadt-rocks-with-jazz-sophistication/ Linda Ronstadt rocks with jazz sophistication ([[August 4]], [[2007]])]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9888452 Linda Ronstadt plays NPR's "WaitWait...Don't Tell Me!" ([[April 28]], [[2007]])]
* [http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R607191000/ Linda Ronstadt radio interview on KQED with Michael Krasny, Forum, ([[July 19]], [[2006]])]
* [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Mar/31/en/FP603310311.html/ Linda Ronstadt lets wisdom strike notes, The Honolulu Advertiser ([[March 31]], [[2006]])]
* [http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040715/news_lz1w15linda.html ''San Diego Union-Tribune'' interview]
* [http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/intucson/living/072204a1_ronstadt ''Tucson Citizen'' report of the Aladdin incident]
* [http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2006/08/10/1731602.html ''Edmonton Sun'' interview "Linda Ronstadt defends her politics" ([[August 10]], [[2006]])]
* [http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?p=149934&x=articles&s=events ''Calgary Sun'' "Ronstadt still sings sweetly" ([[August 10]], [[2006]])]
* [http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200608/20060825.html Linda Ronstadt's interview with Tavis Smiley]
* [http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id902.html Kudos To Linda Ronstadt by James Donahue]
* [http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/artaus98.htm The Weekend Australian: Everlasting Linda, by Debbie Kruger, ([[July 19]], [[1998]])]
==External links==
*[http://www.hitparadehalloffame.org/2008/ArtistPages/LindaRonstadt.html Hit Parade Hall of Fame Nominee - Linda Ronstadt]
* [http://ronstadt-linda.com/ The Definitive Linda Ronstadt Homepage (Unofficial but Comprehensive)]
* {{imdb|0740168}}
* {{ibdb|58306}}
* [http://fabtastique.com/ronstadt The UK Linda Ronstadt website]
* [http://lindaronstadt.de/ The German Linda Ronstadt Fansite (with comprehensive chart sales, etc.) ]
* [http://www.lloydcopeman.com/ Lloyd Copeman Prolific Inventor Homepage]
* [http://music-city.org/Linda-Ronstadt/discography/ Linda Ronstadt discography]
* [http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/ronstadt/index.html Tucson's Ronstadt Family History of the Ronstadt family]
* [http://www.virb.com/lindaronstadt VIRB.com site]
* [http://www.futurerockhall.com/artist.php?artist_id=Linda_Ronstadt Future Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Induction chances and Information]
{{EmmyAward VarietyPerformance 1976-2000}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ronstadt, Linda}}
[[Category:American female singers]]
[[Category:American guitarists]]
[[Category:American singer-songwriters]]
[[Category:American pop singers]]
[[Category:American rock singers]]
[[Category:American songwriters]]
[[Category:American country musicians]]
[[Category:American country singers]]
[[Category:American jazz singers]]
[[Category:Arizona Democrats]]
[[Category:Americans of English descent]]
[[Category:Americans of German descent]]
[[Category:Mexican Americans]]
[[Category:Mexican American musicians]]
[[Category:American musical theatre actors]]
[[Category:American film actors]]
[[Category:American stage actors]]
[[Category:Emmy Award winners]]
[[Category:American singers]]
[[Category:People from Tucson, Arizona]]
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Grammy Award winners]]
[[Category:Arizona musicians]]
[[Category:American female guitarists]]
[[Category:American adoptive parents]]
[[de:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[es:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[fr:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[it:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[he:לינדה רונסטאדט]]
[[nl:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[ja:リンダ・ロンシュタット]]
[[no:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[pl:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[ru:Ронстадт, Линда]]
[[simple:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[fi:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[sv:Linda Ronstadt]]
[[uk:Лінда Ронстадт]]