Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. Many of her albums have been certified gold, platinum or multiplatinum in the United States and internationally. She has also earned nominations for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe award. She was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2011 and also awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Recording Academy in 2016. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. On July 28, 2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities. In 2019, she received a star jointly with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work as the group Trio. Ronstadt was among five honorees who received the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements.
Ronstadt has released 24 studio albums and 15 compilation or greatest hits albums. She charted 38 US Billboard Hot 100 singles. Twenty-one of those singles reached the top 40, ten reached the top 10, and one reached number one (“You’re No Good”). Ronstadt also charted in UK as two of her duets, “Somewhere Out There” with James Ingram and “Don’t Know Much” with Aaron Neville, peaked at numbers 8 and 2 respectively and the single “Blue Bayou” reached number 35 on the UK Singles charts. She has charted 36 albums, ten top-10 albums, and three number 1 albums on the US Billboard Pop Album Chart.
Ronstadt has collaborated with artists in diverse genres, including: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Bette Midler, Billy Eckstine, Frank Zappa, Carla Bley (Escalator Over the Hill), Rosemary Clooney, Flaco Jiménez, Philip Glass, Warren Zevon, Gram Parsons, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Earl Scruggs, Johnny Cash, and Nelson Riddle. She has lent her voice to over 120 albums and has sold more than 100 million records, making her one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. Christopher Loudon, of Jazz Times, wrote in 2004 that Ronstadt is “blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation.”
Ronstadt reduced her activity after 2000 when she felt her singing voice deteriorating, releasing her last full-length album in 2004 and performing her last live concert in 2009. She announced her retirement in 2011 and revealed shortly afterwards that she is no longer able to sing as a result of a degenerative condition later determined to be progressive supranuclear palsy.[24][a] Since then, Ronstadt has continued to make public appearances, going on a number of public speaking tours in the 2010s. She published an autobiography, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, in September 2013. A documentary based on her memoirs, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, was released in 2019.
In August 2013, Ronstadt revealed she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, leaving her unable to sing due to loss of muscular control, which is common to Parkinson’s patients. She was diagnosed eight months prior to the announcement and had initially attributed the symptoms she had been experiencing to the aftereffects of shoulder surgery and a tick bite.[164][165] In late 2019, it was reported her doctors had revised their diagnosis to progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease commonly mistaken for Parkinson’s due to the similarity of the symptoms. (wikipedia)
Greatest Hits is Linda Ronstadt’s first major compilation album, released at the end of 1976 for the holiday shopping season. It includes material from both her Capitol Records and Asylum Records output, and goes back to 1967 for The Stone Poneys’ hit “Different Drum.”
It remains the biggest-selling album of Ronstadt’s career, being certified seven times Platinum (over 7 million US copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America[4] in America alone, with 1.87 million units consumed after 1991 when SoundScan started tracking sales. It peaked at No. 6 on the main Billboard album chart and also reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, where it remained for over three years.
The album was criticized by the Rolling Stone Record Guide for being “premature,” as Ronstadt continued to have record-breaking mainstream successes for many years following this release. By the time this collection came out, however, Ronstadt had already been recording hit records (as a solo artist and with the Stone Poneys) for a decade, and there were many examples of other artists releasing greatest hits albums much sooner, such as Elvis Presley.
In terms of being released while the performer was still in the midst of their career, this collection is unusual for a major artist in that it compiled works from two unrelated labels thanks to, as the sleeve states, a “special arrangement” between Asylum and Capitol; this overlap mirrors the situation in which Ronstadt briefly alternated releasing albums between Capitol and Asylum in 1973-74 in order to fulfil her contract with Capitol. (wikipedia)
Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 is a good 12-track collection of Linda Ronstadt’s biggest hits from the early ’70s, beginning with the Stone Poneys’ “Different Drum” and running through “Tracks of My Tears,” from 1975’s Prisoner in Disguise. In between, all of her best-known songs — “You’re No Good,” “When Will I Be Loved,” “Heat Wave” — are included, plus selected minor hits, making it an excellent overview of her peak years. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)
Personnel:
Peter Asher (percussion)
Ed Black (guitar, pedal steel-guitar)
Michael Botts (drums)
Mike Bowden (bass)
Richard Bowden (guitar)
John Boylan (keyboards)
Richard Burden (guitar)
John Connor (harmonica)
Dan Dugmore (pedal steel-guitar)
Kenny Edwards (guitar, bass, background vocals)
Chris Ethridge (bass)
Jim Fadden (harmonica)
Andrew Gold (guitar, drums, keyboards, percussion,background vocals)
Jim Gordon (saxophone)
Gib Guilbeau (fiddle)
Andy Johnson (guitar)
Mac Johnson (trumpet)
David Kemper (drums)
Sneaky Pete Kleinow (pedal steel-guitar)
Danny Kortchmar (guitar)
Russ Kunkel (drums)
Bernie Leadon (guitar)
Daryl Leonard (trumpet)
David Lindley (fiddle)
Gail Martin (trombone)
Mickey McGee (drums)
Weldon Myrick (pedal steel-guitar)
Spooner Oldham (piano)
Herb Pedersen (guitar, banjo, background vocals)
Norbert Putnam (bass, harpsichord)
Don Randi (harpsichord)
Linda Ronstadt (vocals)
John David Souther (guitar)
Buddy Spicher (fiddle)
Dennis St. John (drums)
Nino Tempo (saxophone)
Al Viola (guitar)
Waddy: Electric Guitar
Pete Wade (guitar)
Bob Warford (guitar)
+
background vocals:
Don Francisco – Ginger Holliday – Mary Holliday – Clyde King – Shirley Matthews – Marty McCall –
Tracklist:
01. You’re No Good (Ballard Jr.) (1974) 3.46
02. Silver Threads And Golden Needles (Rhodes/Reynolds) (1973) 2.28
03. Desperado (Frey/Henley) (1973) 3.36
04. Love Is A Rose (Young) (1975) 2.48
05. That’ll Be The Day (Allison/Holly/Petty) (1976) 2.34
06. Long, Long Time (White) (1970) 4.24
07. Different Drum (with The Stone Poneys) (Nesmith) (1970) 2.40
08. When Will I Be Loved (Everly) (1974) 2.11
09. Love Has No Pride (Kaz/Titus) (1973) 4.19
10. Heat Wave (Holland/Dozier/Holland) (1975) 2.47
11. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore (Anka) (1974) 3.30
12. Tracks Of My Tears (Robinson/Moore/Tarplin) (1975) 3.13
The official website: