I found that via a new Guardian article titled: "Linda Ronstadt: 'I don’t like any of my albums.'"
She doesn't like any of her albums, and she also says things like:
I had a house in Tucson for 10 years, but I sold it and moved to San Francisco because of politics and global warming, which the current Cheeto-in-Chief will not admit is happening. It became so unbearably hot in Tucson, and I think cities that depend on air conditioning just won’t be sustainable in the future.Bonus: Here's an ad Frank Zappa did for Luden's cough drops. This one's a TV ad, so go ahead and watch the video — it won a Clio in the 1960s — though Zappa's only responsible for the audio:
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57 comments:
"It became so unbearably hot in Tucson ..."
Tucson was unbearably hot long before she ever lived there. I think people who say things like that are totally delusional or something. They believe strongly in global warming and see confirmation of it whenever it is hot outside, as if the miniscule rise in average temperatures over 10 years would be noticeable.
Global warming cultists get a pass on anecdotal evidence.
Meanwhile, my hopes for being the first orange plantation owner in Michigan are fading.
It actually uses less coal/oil/hydro or whatever to keep houses in hot climates cool, than it does to keep houses in cold climates warm. There have been studies done on this. Not by the CRU at University of East Anglia, though.
People who are always in a lather about rising temperatures and cheeto-faced presidents probably feel hotter anyway. Just a conjecture.
Naturally this article has the only single unflattering photo of Emmy Lou in existence. I didn't think that was possible.
I'm not surprised Linda is a moron. I remember her getting booed of a stage in a casino around 2005 after going on a W rant and not understanding that a crowd of I'm sure non-woke millennials (We know who's getting those tickets at these places, chain smoking old fart slot players) and just not understanding why.
I remember her getting booed of a stage in a casino around 2005 after going on a W rant...
Wasn't that the original "shut up and sing" incident?
"It’s a genuine national emergency. What he wants is to be in control of the media, and he has an acute instinct for the lowest common denominator – he knows how to go really low. So if we don’t wake up, he could turn us into a dictatorship. I’ve read a lot on the history of Hitler, and people keep drawing comparisons … they’re so staggering – it’s step by step by step. He’s isolating us, he’s taking us out [of contact] with South America, Mexico, Canada … if we get attacked from outside, who’s going to come to our rescue if we’ve isolated ourselves from our neighbours?"
Today I learned that Linda Ronstadt is a fucking idiot.
Wish I'd heeded your warning on the first video. Whose idea was that? It probably triggered some seizures.
Fifteen years or so ago, a neighbor of mine said he wanted to move to Wilmington, NC (on the coast), but was afraid it would be underwater in a few years. I managed not to laugh in his face.
I learned today that it wasn't hot in Tuscan until recently. That over the course of ten years it became unbearable.
Linda Ronstadt used to be hot, but now she has become unbearable.
Linda Ronstadt used to be hot, but now she has become unbearable.
If you watch videos from her youth you can see early evidence of a double chin and the potential to become a tank. She fulfilled that potential.
Great voice though.
Good one, tcrosse........There's a less than chance correlation between a singer's political sagacity and their talent. Female singers, in particular, are notorious for losing money with their "manager/husband" types. To be fair to Linda, though, she has never needed rehab, institutional care, nor bankruptcy proceedings even though she is extremely talented and accomplished in many musical genres.
That's weird. I've been hearing for years that Linda Ronstadt had dementia. I guess not?
I will say this....her singing (recording) "Blue Bayou" is one of the most beautiful things to hear.
I like her album "What's New" with Nelson Riddle's orchestra. Unlike so many recent singers, she can hold a note without wiggling (there's a name for that horrible style that begins with "m").
I mean, wow.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0QYbQc8JPFg
there's a name for that horrible style that begins with "m"
Melisma
I like her album "What's New" with Nelson Riddle's orchestra
Lush Life is also worth a listen for the best rendition of Rodgers & Hart's "You Took Advantage of Me" I know.
(Luckily I'm not a leftie and don't have to shun LR just because she's a hate-filled moron.)
She has Parkinson's disease. Can't we just be kind to her now?
My older son, when he was about 2, was utterly in love with the album "Get Closer." He'd listen to that album any time we would play it. In fact, if we asked "What do you want to do?" He'd answer "Do... Ronstadt!"
He'd have listened to that 10 times a day or more. We should have had a rule limiting it to only once a day, but we admired his enthusiasm and interest in music.
Now, I can't remember what's on that album, except "Get Closer" and "Talk to Me of Mendocino."
One of the first albums I ever bought (with my own money) was her "Heart Like a Wheel". It has held up.
I wonder if she knows that people have been living in the Tucson area for thousands of years. With or without air conditioning. I don't know, maybe it had a more temperate climate back then. But I guess it depends on what she means by sustainable.
She had an amazing career. I thought her three Nelson Riddle albums were excellent and surprising. She brought back to life some standards like What's New that had been unheard for years. Since those albums, most of those songs have been covered many times since.
Her relationship with George Lucas was odd. Since they are both weirdos, it's hard to tell which of them screwed it up, but I imagine she wasn't the easiest to have around on the Skywalker Ranch. She and The Moonbeam were a perfect match except she was just a beard. She didn't have to fend off him groping her.
Although she is a brain dead reflexive librul, I have admired her on many levels. She had a massive and versatile career, and she is smart. I would have been happy to snort coke off her ass as she sang Lush Life. It's a credit to her that for an old rocker, it was the Parkinson's that did her in.
- Krumhorn.
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The older I get, the less I can tolerate hot & humid weather, but it doesn't bother my dad, who's 2 weeks short of 90.
Can't we just be kind to her now?
Who brought it up ?
Tucson IS obscenely hot... The city record for consecutive days with temps above 95 degrees...63 days!
In: 1924.
I thought she'd lost it long ago, too. I like to remember Linda Ronstadt in this.
I could not live in a place that is hot year round. I abs love the change of seasons. Finally, today is a beautiful fall day in Boston. Nothing better than fall foliage in Vermont's green mountains.
My fave Linda Ronstadt song is Blue Bayou and she did some great work with Phillip Glass.
thanks and have a super weekend fellow republicans and patriots.
tits.
rehajm, it's a circular link.
But I'm gonna guess it's the cover of Hasten Down the Wind.
Ann's right, she has Parkinson's. It's taken her ability to sing. So sad. It may also be affecting her perception of and adaptability to her surroundings. Tucson is probably not hotter but she may not be able to take it as well.
I saw her and Emmylou Harris in concert about fifteen years ago. She had become a mother after her heyday as a girl singer and her German hausfrau and Hispanic mamacita genes had kicked in and she put on a lot of weight but oh, that voice. It's a real loss to the culture. I don't care about her politics, I only wish her the best.
Linda Ronstadt was a splendid and very brave artist, who dared to expand into different genres, and succeed in them. I was a huge fan, and had most of her records, (which my ex-wife now possesses). Good for her if she can afford to live in SF.
Wow - Frank's relationship with the Underwoods was so musically productive. That collaberation was what really set the Mothers apart from the sweaty mass of other rock bands, IMHO.
The most embarrassing music ad was Cream doing Falstaff Beer.
So she's best-known in the UK for her duet of "Don't Know Much," according to the article. How ironically appropriate.
I still watch watch old videos of Linda, back in day, with Waddy Wachtel, child porn collector on guitar. Her old classics and covers still move me, reminding of an earlier time. "Willin", "Your No Good", "Desperado". She could probably sing the phone book and I would listen. Just gotta ignore her politics and stupid statements and enjoy the music, just like a lot of entertainers. I'm sure we could run the statistical analysis on Tucson temperatures during her 10 years vs. earlier time periods and later periods, but why?
I saw Dweezil Zappa a few years back opening for Dream Theater. He was doing his "Zappa plays Zappa" thing. Great show with an unsurprisingly high level of musicianship. I never got to see Frank (he died before I started attending concerts or was really that aware of him) so it was cool to see his stuff performed live in a way that was probably as close to the genuine article as possible anymore.
She was a hell of a singer, and quite the babe in her day. Unfortunately, she can't have a conversation without making it political. See also: Julia Louis-Dryfuss, who can't report that she has cancer without adding in a pitch for socialized medicine (to which she will not be subjected herself).
Granted, the Guardian interviewer probably egged her onto politics, because that's what Guardian interviewers do. She didn't have to take the bait. Jay Leno had her on to promote an album, and she couldn't resist digging in at Howard Stern's sidekick. Ronstadt believes that everyone has a right to her opinion, ignorant as it may be.
Love "What's New". I met Frank Zappa when I was in my early twenties. He was very polite and kind.
Here's Zappa in his salad days, with Steve Allen, c. 1963
Young Zappa
I was casually acquainted with Linda Rondstadt back in the day, in Boulder, CO. By back in the day, I mean 1971. She was just a kid (so was I). Nice kid, chubby but cute, a chatterbox, and really ditzy. Man, could she sing. Didn't really need amplification or a sound system. Leather lungs on that girl. We'd sit around after her shows drinking beer and smoking pot and gabbing. She wore Mexican peasant shirts and giggled a lot. This was before she got political and I found her very pleasant, kind of an airhead, and sort of adorable. There was a kid-sister like quality to her. Did I say she had an incredible voice?
Ignore Linda Ronstadt's dopey politics and go give Heart Like a Wheel another listen. Have there ever been pop songs that sounded better than "You're No Good," "Faithless Love," and "Dark End of the Street"?
I've always loved her voice, and overlook her political opinions as I overlook the political opinions of many, if not most, loved ones.
The University of Arizona maintains a Ronstadt Family Collection. Linda isn't by a long shot the most interesting member of her extended family, which included wagonmakers, a major inventor, and an actress and dancer who was in an early Marlene Dietrich movie.
"She has Parkinson's disease. Can't we just be kind to her now?"
Yes, I'll be kind to her because of Parkinson's. That disease runs rampant through one half of my family.
I'd gladly open a door for her, assist her in standing. I'd even cut her meat for her. Done a lot of that. I'll even cut her a lot of slack if I think her actions or statements are related to the dementia often found in Parkinson's sufferers.
That doesn't seem the case here.
Do you say, "Be kind" to a Klansman spewing racist bile if he has ALS? Somehow I doubt it.
It is total BS to say we must be "kind" to someone spewing lies, stupidity and/or insults (Cheetos, how edgy) because of a disease with no relationship to the crap coming out of their mouth. Unless Global Climate Change now causes Parkinson's.
Great singer, but I always tell myself to trust the art, not the artist. LR got paid to hit notes with warmth, emotion, and beauty, not to analyze political issues.
My heart goes out to her for having developed Parkinson's disease. But that is tempered somewhat by the notion that she may have asked for it by snorting so much cocaine back in the day. Key medical terms include dopamine and substantia nigra.
I grew up without air conditioning, in Chicago, where summers are very hot and humid -- a heat index in the low 100s is not unusual. I survived. It was all I knew, so it didn't seem so bad at the time.
In August my football team had two practices per day, what we called "double sessions," each lasting two hours inn 90-plus degree heat with heat indexes that must have been in the lower 100s. We weren't allowed to drink any water.
Let me repeat that: NO WATER. NADA. ZILCH. ZIPPO.
In four years of playing football I had, by my own count, two cups of water during August double sessions. I am not exaggerating, or lying, or mis-remembering.
The "hydrate or die" science/philosophy was unknown. It was thought that you had to teach your body to get by without water in harsh circumstances, and that if you could do so you could withstand the other harsh rigors of playing football. It was considered the manly thing to do. We thought of ourselves as warriors because we could endure two brutally violent football practices every day in sweltering heart without drinking ANY water. We thought we were pretty tough, and we were right. In fact we were very tough indeed.
When I tell kids now that is what we did, they flat-out don't believe me.
No one died, everyone survived. I have since discussed the circumstances of double session with my former teammates and brother, who went on to play big-time college football, as a starting defensive lineman, at Stanford. We tried to figure out how we did it. We decided it had something to do, maybe a lot, with growing up without air conditioning.
We also all agreed that double sessions were the hardest physical activities we experienced in our lives. A couple of my teammates Marine veterans of the Vietnam War and they told me that boot camp was a cake walk in comparison. And that's 1960s boot camp, like you see in "Full Metal Jacket." Doubles sessions football practice was harder and our coaches were meaner than Gunnery Sgt. Hartmann.
My mother gave me an Emerson cassette recorder for Christmas in 1976 when I was 11 years old. The very first song I ever recorded off the radio was "You're No Good" by Ms. Ronstadt. I still, to this day, stop and listen that song whenever it plays on the radio. At her peak, she was literally the best female Rock & Roll singer ever. So what if she is a nut that thinks Tucson used to be bearable in the Summer without air conditioning?
I'm sorry to hear that she has Parkinson's and can no longer sing. I looked her up on Wiki, and, as reported there, her private life was not especially chaotic, at least not by the standards of pop divas. I've listened to most of her albums with enjoyment. If, in heaven, God grants me any seventy women I want, a young Linda Ronstadt will definitely be on the list. Debbie Harry would probably be a little higher, but Linda's there. (It would be a twofer for God. Linda could be punished for her sins, and I could be rewarded for my moral grandeur.). In the years that she was terrific, she was truly terrific........All artists have aggrieved souls. That's what makes them artists. In our era, artists like to attribute the pain of life to Republicans and corporate executives. Whatever works. Her politics are more annoying than treacherous and don't violate the ordinary rules of civility. She's not a bad person for all that.
The most embarrassing music ad was Cream doing Falstaff Beer.
I give it a fucking awesome!
rehajm, it's a circular link.
Oops. Creepy.
Try This one...
Linda Ronstadt is so afraid of "global warming" that she moved to a place by the ocean, where she can drown in the irising seas?
That's not Parkinson's, that's Alzheimers.
Linda Ronstadt has Hillary Disease.
In all its forms.
Sad.
Ronstadt was from the school of loud singing. She can't sing softly. Every song has to be yelled.
"Tucson was unbearably hot long before she ever lived there"
I only have 25 years experience and now live here full time. If she thinks Tucson is hot, try Phoenix.
She's right about A/C but Roughcoat is right about Chicago, where I grew up. I used to love summer thunderstorms because the air would cool off. I never had A/C until about twelve years ago.
Zappa also did a PSA for STDs:
Why does it hurt when I pee?
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I don't want no doctor
To stick no needle in me
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I got it from the toilet seat
I got it from the toilet seat
It jumped right up
'N' grabbed my meat
Got it from the toilet seat
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Oh God I probably got the Gon-o-ka-ka-khackus!
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Ai-ee-ai-ee-ahhhh!
Ronstadt excelled at the old "I don't speak Spanish but I can memorize the syllables" torch singing. I saw her in a cantina in SD old town for a long set. Similar in presentation to Strayan Olivia N. John. Crystal Gale- aye don't it make my brown eyes blue!
Etienne said...
Ronstadt was from the school of loud singing. She can't sing softly. Every song has to be yelled.
9/29/17, 4:32 PM
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Bullsh!t... either you've only ever listened to her songs that get played on your local oldies radio station or you're deaf. I don't agree with Ronstadt's politics but this easily qualifies as the stupidest comment on this post.
Sure, her popular 70s and early 80s rocker songs are sung loudly - that's rock 'n roll. But there are some softer songs in the deeper 'album cuts' during that period. And listen to her vocal control/dynamics between the loud and soft portions of 'Blue Bayou' and 'Desperado' and try to tell us she can't sing softly. Many of the songs on the Nelson Riddle LPs of the 1980s were sung softly. Listen to 'Don't Know Much', 'Adios', 'I Keep it Hid', 'Shattered', and 'Goodbye My Friend' off her later 'Cry Like a Rainstorm...' CD. She recorded a whole Christmas CD of songs sung softly as well an album of children's lullabies.
Can't sing softly indeed...
Somebody, i think Limbaugh, mentioned that lefties rely on the template because
they have no imagination.
Tucson, where i lived for many years, has gotten hotter. When my wife and Ronstadt were growing up there the population and the concrete were less than 10% what they are now. Concrete radiates heat.
Big surprise, Linda.
So the heat record for Tucson---63 days straight with temperatures over 95 occurred in 1924.
I used to travel to Dallas frequently and one summer they had 100 days straight with temperatures over 100 degrees. Dallas folks would need to wear winter coats in Tucson.
That said a/c is what made much of the South and Southwest livable.
Ms.Ronstadt may have become--or perhaps always was--soft in the head. But she can sing softly. Listen to her and Emmy Lou Harris on the song "1917". In her day she was also not a bad songwriter.
To bleh and the other global warming deniers:
Tucson started measuring the temperature officially in 1913. I suggest that you look at the yearly average temperatures for the past one hundred years.
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