title: Joni Mitchell

text: In a 2010 interview with the "Los Angeles Times", Mitchell was quoted as saying that singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, with whom she had worked closely in the past, was a fake and a plagiarist. The controversial remark was widely reported by other media. Mitchell did not explain the contention further, but several media outlets speculated that it may have related to the allegations of plagiarism surrounding some lyrics on Dylan's 2006 album "Modern Times". In a 2013 interview with Jian Ghomeshi, she was asked about the comments and responded by denying that she had made the statement while mentioning the allegations of plagiarism that arose over the lyrics to Dylan's 2001 album "Love and Theft" in the general context of the flow and ebb of the creative process of artists.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Although Mitchell said that she would no longer tour or give concerts, she made occasional public appearances to speak on environmental issues. Mitchell divides her time between her longtime home in Los Angeles, and the property in Sechelt, British Columbia, that she has owned since the early 1970s. "L.A. is my workplace", she said in 2006, "B.C. is my heartbeat". Since 2011, she said she focuses mainly on her visual art, which she does not sell and displays only on rare occasions.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In March 2015, Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm rupture, which required her to undergo physical therapy and take part in daily rehabilitation. Mitchell made her first public appearance following the aneurysm when she attended a Chick Corea concert in Los Angeles in August 2016. She made a few other appearances, and in November 2018 David Crosby said that she was learning to walk again.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Since 2018, Mitchell has approved a number of archival projects. In September 2018, Eagle Rock Entertainment released the Murray Lerner-directed documentary "Both Sides Now: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970", which included restored video footage and previously unseen interviews with Mitchell, plus a separate program featuring the complete concert uninterrupted. On November 2, 2018, Mitchell released an 8-LP vinyl reissue of "Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced". A limited-edition blue vinyl edition of "Blue" followed in January 2019.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On November 7, 2018, Mitchell attended the "" concert in Los Angeles. To celebrate her 75th birthday, artists Brandi Carlile, Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Chaka Khan, Graham Nash, Seal, Kris Kristofferson, and others interpreted songs written by Mitchell. Fellow Canadian artist Diana Krall offered two performances. Selections from that night's performances were released on DVD, along with a separate CD release. A vinyl edition of the album was released for Record Store Day in April 2019. Mitchell later attended another tribute concert, Songs Are Like Tattoos, which featured "Joni 75" participant Brandi Carlile performing Mitchell's "Blue" album in full.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell approved "Joni: The Joni Mitchell Sessions", a book of photos taken and collected by Norman Seeff, released in November 2018. Mitchell also revisited her poetry with "Morning Glory on the Vine", a collection of facsimile handwritten lyrics, poetry and artwork originally compiled in 1971 as a gift for friends and family. The expanded and reformatted wide-release edition of "Morning Glory on the Vine" was published on October 22, 2019, in a standard hardcover edition, as well as a limited signed edition.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In September 2020, it was announced that Mitchell and Rhino Records had created the Joni Mitchell Archives, a series of catalog releases containing material from the singer's personal vaults. The project's first release, a five-disc collection titled "", followed on October 30, 2020. In April 2022 Mitchell received a Grammy Award for 'Best Historical Album' for this release. She showed up personally to collect the award. On the same day, Mitchell released "Early Joni – 1963" and "Live at Canterbury House – 1967" (both culled from the 5-CD box set) as standalone vinyl releases.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: A special remastered collection of Mitchell's first four albums ("Song to a Seagull", "Clouds", "Ladies of the Canyon" and "Blue)" was released on July 2, 2021 as "The Reprise Albums (1968–1971)". The collection is the first to feature a new mix of Mitchell's 1968 debut album, overseen by Mitchell herself. Commenting on the original mix of "Song to a Seagull", Mitchell called it "atrocious" and said it sounded like it "had been recorded under a bowl of Jello."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On January 28, 2022, Mitchell demanded that Spotify remove her songs from its streaming service in solidarity with her long-time friend and fellow polio survivor Neil Young, who removed his tracks from the streaming platform in protest against COVID-19 misinformation on the popular Spotify-hosted podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience". She wrote on her website: "Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue." British National Health Service doctor and author Rachel Clarke tweeted: "Both Neil Young & Joni Mitchell… know painfully well how much harm, suffering & avoidable death anti-vaxxers can cause."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On April 1, 2022 Mitchell was honored as the 2022 MusiCares Person of the Year by the Recording Academy. Mitchell was present at the Awards show accepting the award personally.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On July 24, 2022, Joni Mitchell appeared unannounced as a special guest at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where she had first played in 1969, as part of a set billed as 'Brandi Carlile and Friends'. It was Mitchell's first public performance in 20 years. Supported by a group of well-wisher musicians, she participated in a 13-song set of her own material and covers (including one as accompaniment only, playing electric guitar). Over the years Mitchell had been hosting monthly music sessions, known as 'Joni Jams', at her home in Laurel Canyon, organised with the help of singer-songwriter Carlile. Musicians who had turned up to play included Elton John, Paul McCartney, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Styles, Chaka Khan, Marcus Mumford and Herbie Hancock. The music sessions were assisting her recovery, and in 2022 she was invited to join Carlile and others in a low-key appearance at the Newport Festival for a live performance of a 'Joni Jam'. Mitchell was given an ecstatic reception, and she said afterwards, "I was delighted and honoured. It gave me the bug for it." Songs performed included "Carey", "Come in from the Cold", "A Case of You", "Big Yellow Taxi", "Both Sides Now" and "The Circle Game". After her appearance at Newport, Mitchell told Carlile, "I want to do another show. I want to play again."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On October 19, 2022, Carlile announced that Mitchell would play a headline concert, billed as 'Joni Jam 2', in a weekend event at Washington State's Gorge Amphitheatre, "one of the most beautiful venues in the world", on June 10, 2023. Mitchell's last official headline shows were on the Both Sides Now tour in 2000.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: While some of Mitchell's most popular songs were written on the piano, almost every song she composed on the guitar uses an open, or non-standard, tuning; she has written songs in some 50 tunings, playing what she has called "Joni's weird chords". The use of alternative tunings allows guitarists to produce accompaniment with more varied and wide-ranging textures. Her right-hand picking/strumming technique has evolved over the years from an initially intricate picking style, typified by the guitar songs on her first album, to a looser and more rhythmic style, sometimes incorporating percussive "slaps".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 1995, Mitchell's friend Fred Walecki, proprietor of Westwood Music in Los Angeles, developed a solution to alleviate her continuing frustration with using multiple alternative tunings in live settings. Walecki designed a Stratocaster-style guitar to function with the Roland VG-8 virtual guitar, a system capable of configuring her numerous tunings electronically. While the guitar itself remained in standard tuning, the VG-8 encoded the pickup signals into digital signals which were then translated into the altered tunings. This allowed Mitchell to use one guitar on stage, while an off-stage tech entered the preprogrammed tuning for each song in her set.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell was highly innovative harmonically in her early work (1966–1972), incorporating modality, chromaticism, and pedal points. On her 1968 debut album "Song to a Seagull", Mitchell used both quartal and quintal harmony in "The Dawntreader" and quintal harmony in "Song to a Seagull".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2003, "Rolling Stone" named her the 72nd-greatest guitarist of all time; she was the highest-ranked woman on the list.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell's approach to music struck a chord with many female listeners. In an era dominated by the stereotypical male rock star, she presented herself as "multidimensional and conflicted ... allow[ing] her to build such a powerful identification among her female fans". Mitchell asserted her desire for artistic control throughout her career, and still holds the publishing rights for her music. She has disclaimed the notion that she is a "feminist"; in a 2013 interview she rejected the label, stating, "I'm not a feminist. I don't want to get a posse against men. I'd rather go toe-to-toe; work it out." David Shumway notes that Mitchell "became the first woman in popular music to be recognized as an artist in the full sense of that term... Whatever Mitchell's stated views of feminism, what she represents more than any other performer of her era is the new prominence of women's perspectives in cultural and political life."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell's work has had an influence on many other artists, including Taylor Swift, Björk, Prince, Ellie Goulding, Harry Styles, Corinne Bailey Rae, Gabrielle Aplin, Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Marillion members Steve Hogarth and Steve Rothery, their former vocalist and lyricist Fish, Paul Carrack, Haim and Lorde. Madonna has also cited Mitchell as the first female artist that really spoke to her as a teenager; "I was really, really into Joni Mitchell. I knew every word to "Court and Spark"; I worshipped her when I was in high school. "Blue" is amazing. I would have to say of all the women I've heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Several artists have had success covering Mitchell's songs. Judy Collins's 1967 recording of "Both Sides, Now" reached No. 8 on "Billboard" charts and was a breakthrough in the career of both artists. (Mitchell's own recording did not see release until two years later, on her second album "Clouds".) This is Mitchell's most-covered song by far, with over 1,200 versions recorded at latest count. Hole also covered "Both Sides, Now" in 1991 on their debut album, "Pretty on the Inside", retitling it "Clouds", with the lyrics altered by frontwoman Courtney Love. Pop group Neighborhood in 1970 and Amy Grant in 1995 scored hits with covers of "Big Yellow Taxi", the third-most covered song in Mitchell's repertoire (with over 300 covers). More recent releases of this song included versions by Counting Crows in 2002 and Nena in 2007. Janet Jackson used a sample of the chorus of "Big Yellow Taxi" as the centerpiece of her 1997 hit single "Got 'Til It's Gone", which also features rapper Q-Tip saying "Joni Mitchell never lies". "River", from Mitchell's album "Blue" became the second-most covered song of Mitchell's in 2013 as many artists chose it for their holiday albums. Rap artists Kanye West and Mac Dre have also sampled Mitchell's vocals in their music. In addition, Annie Lennox has covered "Ladies of the Canyon" for the B-side of her 1995 hit "No More I Love You's". Mandy Moore covered "Help Me" in 2003. In 2004 singer George Michael covered her song "Edith and the Kingpin" for a radio show. "River" has been one of the most popular songs covered in recent years, with versions by Dianne Reeves (1999), James Taylor (recorded for television in 2000, and for CD release in 2004), Allison Crowe (2004), Rachael Yamagata (2004), Aimee Mann (2005), and Sarah McLachlan (2006). McLachlan also did a version of "Blue" in 1996, and Cat Power recorded a cover of "Blue" in 2008. Other Mitchell covers include the famous "Woodstock" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Eva Cassidy, and Matthews Southern Comfort; "This Flight Tonight" by Nazareth; and well-known versions of "A Case of You" by Tori Amos, Michelle Branch, Jane Monheit, Prince, Diana Krall, James Blake, and Ana Moura. A 40th anniversary version of "Woodstock" was released in 2009 by Nick Vernier Band featuring Ian Matthews (formerly of Matthews Southern Comfort). Fellow Canadian singer k.d. lang recorded two of Mitchell's songs ("A Case of You" and "Jericho") for her 2004 album "Hymns of the 49th Parallel" which is composed entirely of songs written by Canadian artists.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Prince's version of "A Case of U" appeared on "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell", a 2007 compilation released by Nonesuch Records, which also featured Björk ("The Boho Dance"), Caetano Veloso ("Dreamland"), Emmylou Harris ("The Magdalene Laundries"), Sufjan Stevens ("Free Man in Paris") and Cassandra Wilson ("For the Roses"), among others.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Several other songs reference Joni Mitchell. The song "Our House" by Graham Nash refers to Nash's two-year relationship with Mitchell at the time that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young recorded the "Déjà Vu" album. Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" was said to be written about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's infatuation with Mitchell, a claim that seems to be borne out by the fact that, in live performances, Plant often says "Joni" after the line "To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings". Jimmy Page uses a double dropped D guitar tuning similar to the alternative tunings Mitchell uses. The Sonic Youth song "Hey Joni" is named for Mitchell. Alanis Morissette also mentions Mitchell in one of her songs, "Your House". British folk singer Frank Turner mentions Mitchell in his song "Sunshine State". The Prince song "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" contains the lyric – " 'Oh, my favorite song' she said – and it was Joni singing 'Help me I think I'm falling' ". "Lavender" by Marillion was partly influenced by "going through parks listening to Joni Mitchell", according to vocalist and lyricist Fish, and she was later mentioned in the lyrics of their song "Montreal" from "Sounds That Can't Be Made". John Mayer makes reference to Mitchell and her "Blue" album in his song "Queen of California", from his 2012 album "Born and Raised". The song contains the lyric "Joni wrote "Blue" in a house by the sea". Taylor Swift also details Mitchell's departure from the music industry in her song "The Lucky One" from her 2012 album "Red".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2003, playwright Bryden MacDonald launched "When All the Slaves Are Free", a musical revue based on Mitchell's music.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell's music and poems have deeply influenced the French painter Jacques Benoit's work. Between 1979 and 1989 Benoit produced sixty paintings, corresponding to a selection of fifty of Mitchell's songs.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Maynard James Keenan of the American progressive metal band Tool has cited Mitchell as an influence, claiming that her influence is what allows him to "soften [staccato, rhythmic, insane mathematical paths] and bring [them] back to the center, so you can listen to it without having an eye-ache." A Perfect Circle, another band featuring Keenan as lead vocalist, recorded a rendition of Mitchell's "The Fiddle and the Drum" on their 2004 album "eMOTIVe", a collection of anti-war cover songs.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell has said that the parents of baby-boomers were unhappy, and "out of it came this liberated, spoiled, selfish generation into the costume ball of free love, free sex, free music, free, free, free, free we're so free. And Woodstock was the culmination of it." But "I was not a part of that," she explained in an interview. "I was not a part of the anti-war movement, either. I played in Fort Bragg. I went the Bob Hope route [i.e., touring to entertain military personnel] because I had uncles who died in the war, and I thought it was a shame to blame the boys who were drafted."


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell has received many honors from her home country of Canada. She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts, in 1996. Mitchell received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000. In 2002 she was named a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, making her only the third popular Canadian singer-songwriter (Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen being the other two) to receive this honor. She received an honorary doctorate in music from McGill University in 2004. In January 2007 she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Saskatchewan Recording Industry Association bestowed upon Joni their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993. In June 2007 Canada Post featured Mitchell on a postage stamp.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Mitchell has received ten Grammy Awards during her career (eight competitive, one honorary), the first in 1969 and the most recent in 2022. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the citation describing her as "one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era" and "a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 1995, Mitchell received Billboard's Century Award. In 1996, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize. In 1997, Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but did not attend the ceremony.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In tribute to Mitchell, the TNT network presented an all-star celebration at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on April 6, 2000. Mitchell's songs were sung by many performers, including James Taylor, Elton John, Wynonna Judd, Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Krall, and Richard Thompson. Mitchell herself ended the evening with a rendition of "Both Sides, Now" with a 70-piece orchestra. The version was featured on the soundtrack to the movie "Love Actually".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2008, Mitchell was ranked 42nd on "Rolling Stone"s "100 Greatest Singers" list and in 2015 she was ranked ninth on their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On February 12, 2010, "Both Sides, Now" was performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Vancouver.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: To celebrate Mitchell's 70th birthday, the 2013 Luminato Festival in Toronto held a set of tribute concerts entitled "Joni: A Portrait in Song – A Birthday Happening Live" at Massey Hall on June 18 and 19. Performers included Rufus Wainwright, Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, and rare performances by Mitchell herself.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: Owing to health problems, she could not attend the San Francisco gala in May 2015 to receive the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2018, Mitchell was honoured by the city of Saskatoon, when two plaques were erected to commemorate her musical beginnings in Saskatoon. One was installed by the Broadway Theatre beside the former Louis Riel Coffee House, where Mitchell played her first paid gig. A second plaque was installed at River Landing, near the Remai Modern art gallery and Persephone Theatre performing arts centre. As well, the walkway along Spadina Crescent between Second and Third Avenues was formally named the "Joni Mitchell Promenade".


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2020, Mitchell received the Les Paul Award, becoming the first woman to do so. She will be honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in 2022.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: In 2021, Mitchell was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album, for her "Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967)" collection. She won the award on April 3, 2022.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: On December 4, 2021, Mitchell received the Kennedy Center Honor for a lifetime of achievement in the performing arts at the Medallion Ceremony, held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The next day, Mitchell attended the show at the Kennedy Center.


title: Joni Mitchell

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Although officially a Herbie Hancock release, Mitchell also received a Grammy for her vocal contribution to the album.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, 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.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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. 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, "", was released in 2019.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in Tucson, Arizona, on July 15, 1946, the third of four children of Gilbert Ronstadt (19111995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary (née Copeman) Ronstadt (19141982), a homemaker.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt was raised on the family's ranch with her siblings Peter (who served as Tucson's Chief of Police for ten years, 19811991), Michael, and Gretchen. The family was featured in "Family Circle" magazine in 1953.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of Mexican descent with a German male ancestor. The family's influence on and contributions to Arizona's history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies, and music, are documented in the library of the University of Arizona. Her great-grandfather, the engineer Friedrich August Ronstadt (who went by Federico Augusto Ronstadt), immigrated first to Sonora, Mexico and later to the Southwest (then a part of Mexico) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany. He married a Mexican citizen, and eventually settled in Tucson. In 1991, the City of Tucson opened its central transit terminal on March 16 and dedicated it to Linda's grandfather, Federico José María Ronstadt, a local pioneer businessman; he was a wagon maker whose early contribution to the city's mobility included six mule-drawn streetcars delivered in 190304.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's mother Ruth Mary, of German, English, and Dutch ancestry, was raised in Flint, Michigan. Ruth Mary's father, Lloyd Groff Copeman, a prolific inventor and holder of nearly 700 patents, invented an early form of the electric toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first electric stove, and an early form of the microwave oven. His flexible rubber ice cube tray earned him millions of dollars in royalties.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s at the forefront of California's emerging folk rock and country rock movementsgenres which defined post-1960s rock musicRonstadt joined forces with Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards and became the lead singer of a folk-rock trio, the Stone Poneys. Later, as a solo artist, she released "Hand Sown ... Home Grown" in 1969, which has been described as the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. Although fame eluded her during these years, Ronstadt actively toured with the Doors, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and others, appeared numerous times on television shows, and began to contribute her singing to albums by other artists.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: With the release of chart-topping albums such as "Heart Like a Wheel", "Simple Dreams", and "Living in the USA", Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star. She set records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade. Referred to as the "First Lady of Rock" and the "Queen of Rock", Ronstadt was voted the Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s. Her rock-and-roll image was as famous as her music; she appeared six times on the cover of "Rolling Stone" and on the covers of "Newsweek" and "Time".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In the 1980s, Ronstadt performed on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for her performance in "The Pirates of Penzance", teamed with the composer Philip Glass, recorded traditional music, and collaborated with the 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, and Ronstadt remained one of the music industry's best-selling acts throughout the 1980s, with multi-platinum-selling albums such as "Mad Love", "What's New", "Canciones de Mi Padre", and "Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind". She continued to tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums, such as "Winter Light" and "Hummin' to Myself", until her retirement in 2011.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Most of Ronstadt's albums are certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum. Having sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide and setting records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade, Ronstadt was the most successful female singer of the 1970s and stands as one of the most successful female recording artists in U.S. history. She opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres by championing songwriters and musicians, pioneering her chart success onto the concert circuit, and being in the vanguard of many musical movements.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's early family life was filled with music and tradition, which influenced the stylistic and musical choices she later made in her career. Growing up, she listened to many types of music, including Mexican music, which was sung by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has remarked that everything she has recorded on her own recordsrock and roll, rhythm and blues, gospel, opera, country, choral, and mariachiis all music she heard her family sing in their living room or heard played on the radio, by the age of 10. She credits her mother for her appreciation of Gilbert and Sullivan and her father for introducing her to the traditional pop and Great American Songbook repertoire that she would, in turn, help reintroduce to an entire generation.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as Lola Beltrán and Édith Piaf; she has called their singing and rhythms "more like Greek music ... It's sort of like 6/8 time signature ... very hard driving and very intense." She also drew influence from country singer Hank Williams.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: She has said that "all girl singers" eventually "have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday". Of Maria Callas, Ronstadt says, "There's no one in her league. That's it. Period. 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." 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".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: A self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and 1960s, Ronstadt is a fan of its eclectic and diverse music programming.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: At age 14, Ronstadt formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen. The group played coffeehouses, fraternity houses, and other small venues, billing themselves as "the Union City Ramblers" and "the Three Ronstadts", and they even recorded themselves at a Tucson studio under the name "the New Union Ramblers". Their repertoire included the music they grew up onfolk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican. But increasingly, Ronstadt wanted to make a union of folk music and rock 'n' roll, and in 1964, after a semester at Arizona State University, the 18-year-old decided to move to Los Angeles.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt visited a friend from Tucson, Bobby Kimmel, in Los Angeles during Easter break from college in 1964, and later that year, shortly before her eighteenth birthday, decided to move there permanently to form a band with him. Kimmel had already begun co-writing folk-rock songs with guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards, and eventually the three of them were signed by Nik Venet to Capitol in the summer of 1966 as "the Stone Poneys". The trio released three albums in a 15-month period in 196768: "The Stone Poneys"; "Evergreen, Volume 2"; and "Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III". The band is widely known for their hit single "Different Drum" (written by Michael Nesmith prior to his joining the Monkees), which reached number 13 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart as well as number 12 in "Cashbox" magazine. Nearly 50 years later, the song remains one of Ronstadt's most popular recordings.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Still contractually obligated to Capitol Records, Ronstadt released her first solo album, "Hand Sown ... Home Grown", in 1969. It has been called the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. During this same period, she contributed to the "Music from Free Creek" "super session" project.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt provided the vocals for some commercials during this period, including one for Remington electric razors, in which a multitracked Ronstadt and Frank Zappa claimed that the electric razor "cleans you, thrills you ... may even keep you from getting busted".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's second solo album, "Silk Purse", was released in March 1970. Recorded entirely in Nashville, it was produced by Elliot Mazer, whom Ronstadt chose on the advice of Janis Joplin, who had worked with him on the "Cheap Thrills" album. The "Silk Purse" album cover showed Ronstadt in a muddy pigpen, while the back and inside cover depicted her onstage wearing bright red. Ronstadt has stated that she was not pleased with the album, although it provided her with her first solo hit, the multi-format single "Long, Long Time", and earned her first Grammy nomination (for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance/Female).


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1975, Ronstadt performed shows with Jackson Browne, the Eagles, and Toots and the Maytals. In a 1976 "Rolling Stone" interview with Cameron Crowe, Ronstadt said, "they haven't invented a word for that loneliness that everybody goes through on the road. The world is tearing by you, real fast, and all these people are looking at you. ... People see me in my 'girl-singer' suit." In 1974 she told Peter Knobler in "Crawdaddy", "People are always taking advantage of you; everybody that's interested in you has got an angle."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Several years before Ronstadt became what author Gerri Hirshey called the first "arena-class rock diva" with "hugely anticipated tours" she began her solo career touring the North American concert circuit. But being on the road took its toll both emotionally and professionally. There were few "girl singers" on the rock circuit at the time, and they were relegated to "groupie level when in a crowd of a bunch of rock and roll guys", a status Ronstadt avoided. Relating to men on a professional level as fellow musicians led to competition, insecurity, bad romances, and a series of boyfriend-managers. At the time, she admired singers like Maria Muldaur for not sacrificing their femininity but says she felt enormous self-imposed pressure to compete with "the boys" at every level. She noted in a 1969 interview in "Fusion" magazine that it was difficult being a single "chick singer" with an all-male backup band. According to her, it was difficult to get a band of backing musicians because of their ego problem of being labeled sidemen for a female singer.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Soon after she went solo in the late 1960s, one of her first backing bands was the pioneering country-rock band Swampwater, which combined Cajun and swamp-rock elements in their music. Its members included Cajun fiddler Gib Guilbeau and John Beland, who later joined the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell, and Eric White, brother of Clarence White of the Byrds. Swampwater went on to back Ronstadt during TV appearances on "The Johnny Cash Show" and "The Mike Douglas Show", and at the Big Sur Folk Festival.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Another backing band included Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner, who went on to form the Eagles. They toured with her for a short period in 1971 and played on "Linda Ronstadt", her self-titled third album, from which the failed single, Ronstadt's version of Browne's "Rock Me on the Water", was drawn. At this stage, Ronstadt began working with producer and boyfriend John Boylan. She said, "As soon as I started working with John Boylan, I started co-producing myself. I was always a part of my productions. But I always needed a producer who would carry out my whims." Also in 1971, Ronstadt began talking with David Geffen about moving from Capitol Records to Geffen's Asylum Records label.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt began her fourth solo album, "Don't Cry Now", in 1973, with Boylan (who had negotiated her contract with Asylum Records) and John David "J.D." Souther producing most of the album's tracks. But needing someone willing to work with her as an equal, Ronstadt asked Peter Asher, who came highly recommended to her by James Taylor's sister Kate Taylor, to help produce two of them: "Sail Away" and "I Believe in You".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: The album featured Ronstadt's first country hit, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", which she had first recorded on "Hand Sown ... Home Grown"this time hitting the Country Top 20.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: With the release of "Don't Cry Now", Ronstadt took on her biggest gig to date as the opening act on Neil Young's "Time Fades Away" tour, playing for larger crowds than ever before. Backstage at a concert in Texas, Chris Hillman introduced her to Emmylou Harris, telling them, "You two could be good friends", which soon occurred, resulting in frequent collaborations over the following years. Meanwhile, the album became Ronstadt's most successful up to that time, selling 300,000 copies by the end of 1974.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Asher turned out to be more collaborative, and more on the same page with her musically, than any producer she had worked with previously. Ronstadt's professional relationship with Asher allowed her to take command and effectively delegate responsibilities in the recording studio. Although hesitant at first to work with her because of her reputation for being a "woman of strong opinions (who) knew what she wanted to do (with her career)", he nonetheless agreed to become her full-time producer, and remained in that role through the late 1980s. Asher attributed the long-term success of his working relationship with Ronstadt to the fact that he was the first person to manage and produce her with whom there was a solely professional relationship. "It must be a lot harder to have objective conversations about someone's career when it's someone you sleep with", he said.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Asher executive produced a tribute CD called "", released September 6, 2011, on which Ronstadt's 1976 version of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" appears among newly recorded versions of Holly's songs by various artists.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt captured the sounds of country music and the rhythms of ranchera musicwhich she likened in 1968 to ""Mexican bluegrass""and redirected them into her rock 'n' roll and some of her pop music. Many of these rhythms and sounds were part of her Southwestern roots. Likewise, a country sound and style, a fusion of country music and rock 'n' roll called country rock, started to exert its influence on mainstream pop music around the late 1960s, and it became an emerging movement Ronstadt helped form and commercialize. However, as early as 1970, Ronstadt was being criticized by music "purists" for her "brand of music" which crossed many genres. "Country Western Stars" magazine wrote in 1970 that "Rock people thought she was too gentle, folk people thought she was too pop, and pop people didn't quite understand where she was at, but Country people really loved Linda." She never categorized herself and stuck to her genre-crossing brand of music.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt is considered an "interpreter of her times", and has earned praise for her courage to put her "stamp" on many of her songs. Nevertheless, her hits were criticized in some quarters for being cover songs. Ronstadt herself has indicated that some of her 1970s hits were recorded under considerable pressure to create commercially successful recordings, and that she prefers many of her songs that were non-hit album tracks. An infrequent songwriter, Ronstadt co-composed only three songs over her long career.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's natural vocal range spans several octaves from contralto to soprano, and occasionally she will showcase this entire range within a single work. Ronstadt was the first female artist in popular music history to accumulate four consecutive platinum albums (fourteen certified million selling, to date). As for the singles, "Rolling Stone" pointed out that a whole generation, "but for her, might never have heard the work of artists such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, and Chuck Berry."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Others have argued that Ronstadt had the same generational effect with her Great American Songbook music, exposing a whole new generation to the music of the 1920s and 1930smusic which was pushed aside because of the advent of rock 'n' roll. When interpreting, Ronstadt said she "sticks to what the music demands", in terms of lyrics. Explaining that rock and roll music is part of her culture, she says that the songs she sang after her rock and roll hits were part of her soul. "The (Mariachi music) was my father's side of the soul," she was quoted as saying in a 1998 interview she gave at her Tucson home. "My mother's side of my soul was the Nelson Riddle stuff. And I had to do them both to reestablish who I was."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In the 1974 book "Rock 'N' Roll Woman", author Katherine Orloff writes that Ronstadt's "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."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By this stage of her career, Ronstadt had established her niche in the field of country-rock. Along with other musicians such as the Flying Burrito Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Swampwater, Neil Young, and the Eagles, she helped free country music from stereotypes and showed rockers that country was okay. However, she stated that she was being pushed hard into singing more rock and roll.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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." 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." Amazon.com defines her as "the" American female rock superstar of the decade. "Cashbox" gave Ronstadt a "Special Decade Award", as the top-selling female singer of the 1970s.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Her album covers, posters, magazine coversher entire rock 'n' roll imagewere as famous as her music. By the end of the decade, the singer whom the "Chicago Sun Times" described as the "Dean of the 1970s school of female rock singers" became what "Redbook" called "the most successful female rock star in the world." "Female" was the important qualifier, according to "Time" magazine, which labeled her "a rarity ... to (have survived) ... in the shark-infested deeps of rock."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Although Ronstadt had 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."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: With the release of "Heart Like a Wheel"named after one of the album's songs, written by Anna McGarrigleRonstadt reached number 1 on the "Billboard" 200 chart; it was also the first of four number 1 Country Albums, and the disc was certified double-platinum (over two million copies sold in the U.S.). 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 her interpretation and recording. Ronstadt had major success interpreting songs from a diverse spectrum of artists.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "Heart Like a Wheel"s first single release, "You're No Good"a rockified version of an R&B song written by Clint Ballard, Jr. that Ronstadt had initially resisted because Andrew Gold's guitar tracks sounded too much like a "Beatles song" to herclimbed to number 1 on both the "Billboard" and "Cash Box" Pop singles charts. The album's second single release, "When Will I Be Loved"an uptempo country-rock version of a Top 10 Everly Brothers songhit number 1 in "Cashbox" and number 2 in "Billboard". The song was also Ronstadt's first number 1 country hit.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: The album's 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 set her on the path to being one of the best-selling female artists of all time. Ronstadt won her first Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance/Female for "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" which was originally a 1940s hit by Hank Williams. Ronstadt's interpretation peaked at number 2 on the country chart. The album itself was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "Rolling Stone" put Ronstadt on its cover in March 1975. It was the first of six "Rolling Stone" covers shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz. It included her as the featured artist with a full photo layout and an article by Ben Fong-Torres, discussing Ronstadt's many struggling years in rock n roll, as well as her home life and what it was like to be a woman on tour in a decidedly all-male environment.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In September 1975, Ronstadt's album "Prisoner in Disguise" was released. It quickly climbed into the Top Five on the "Billboard" Album Chart and sold over a million copies. It became her second in a row to go platinum, "a grand slam" in the same year (Ronstadt would eventually become the first female artist in popular music history to have three consecutive platinum albums and would ultimately go on to have eight consecutive platinum albums, and then another six between 1983 and 1990). The disc's first single release was "Love Is A Rose". It was climbing the pop and country charts but "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.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1976, Ronstadt reached the Top 3 of "Billboard"s Album Chart and won her second career Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her third consecutive platinum album "Hasten Down the Wind". The album featured a sexy, revealing cover shot and showcased Ronstadt the singer-songwriter, who composed two of its songs, "Try Me Again" (co-authored with Andrew Gold) and "Lo Siento Mi Vida". It also included an interpretation of Willie Nelson's ballad "Crazy", which became a Top 10 Country hit for Ronstadt in early 1977.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: At the end of 1977, Ronstadt surpassed the success of "Heart Like a Wheel" with her album "Simple Dreams", which held the number 1 position for five consecutive weeks on the "Billboard" 200 chart. It sold over 3 million copies in less than a year in the U.S. alone – a record for a female artist. "Simple Dreams" spawned a string of hit singles on numerous charts. Among them were the RIAA platinum-certified single "Blue Bayou", a country-rock interpretation of a Roy Orbison song; "It's So Easy"previously sung by Buddy Holly, a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice", and "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", a song written by Warren Zevon, an up-and-coming songwriter of the time. The album garnered several Grammy Award nominationsincluding Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for "Blue Bayou"and won its art director, Kosh, a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, the first of three Grammy Awards he would win for designing Ronstadt album covers. In late 1977, Ronstadt became the first female recording artist to have two songs in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten at the same time. "Blue Bayou" was at No. 3 while "It's So Easy" was at No. 5.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "Simple Dreams" became one of the singer's best-selling international-selling albums as well, reaching number 1 on the Australian and Canadian Pop and Country Albums charts. "Simple Dreams" also made Ronstadt the most successful international female touring artist. The same year, she completed a 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."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Also in 1977, she was asked by the Los Angeles Dodgers to sing the U.S. National Anthem at game three of the World Series against the New York Yankees.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has remarked that she felt as though she was "artificially encouraged to kinda cop a really tough attitude (and be tough) because rock and roll is kind of tough (business)," which she felt wasn't worn quite authentically. 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" she was artificially encouraged to project, went through an identity crisis.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By the mid-1970s, Ronstadt's image became just as famous as her music. In 1976 and 1977, she appeared on the covers of "Rolling Stone" and "Time", respectively. The "Rolling Stone" cover story was accompanied by a series of photographs of Ronstadt in a skimpy red slip, taken by Annie Leibovitz. Ronstadt felt deceived by the photographer, not realizing that the photos would be so revealing. She says her manager Peter Asher kicked Leibovitz out of the house when she visited to show them the photographs prior to publication. Leibovitz had refused to let them veto any of the photos, which included one of Ronstadt sprawled across a bed in her underpants. In a 1977 interview, Ronstadt explained, "Annie [Leibovitz] saw that picture as an exposé of my personality. She was right. But I wouldn't choose to show a picture like that to anybody who didn't know me personally, because only friends could get the other sides of me in balance."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Her 1977 appearance on the cover of "Time" magazine under the banner "Torchy Rock" was also upsetting to Ronstadt, considering what the image appeared to project about the most famous woman in rock. At a time in the industry when men still told women what to sing and what to wear, Ronstadt hated the image of her that was projected to the world on that cover, and she noted recently how the photographer kept forcing her to wear a dress, which was an image she did not want to project. In 2004, she was interviewed for "CBS This Morning" and stated that this image was not her because she did not sit like that. Asher noted, "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." Qualities which, Asher has stated, were considered a "negative (in a woman at that time), whereas in a man they were perceived as being masterful and bold". Since her solo career had begun, Ronstadt had fought hard to be recognized as a solo female singer in the world of rock, and her portrayal on the "Time" cover did not appear to help the situation.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1978, "Rolling Stone" declared Ronstadt "by far America's best-known female rock singer." She scored a third number 1 album on the Billboard Album Chart – at this point equaling the record set by Carole King in 1974 – with "Living in the USA". She achieved a major hit single with "Ooo Baby Baby", with her rendition hitting all four major singles charts (Pop, AC, Country, R&B). "Living in the USA" was the first album by any recording act in music history to ship double-platinum (over 2 million advance copies). The album eventually sold 3 million U.S. copies.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: At the end of that year, "Billboard" magazine crowned Ronstadt with three number-one Awards for the Year: Pop Female Singles Artist of the Year, Pop Female Album Artist of the Year, and Female Artist of the Year (overall).


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "Living in the USA" showed the singer on roller skates with a newly short, permed hairdo 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 using posters to promote every album and concert – which at the time were recorded live on radio or television.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt was also featured in the 1978 film "FM", where the plot involved disc jockeys attempting to broadcast a Ronstadt concert live, without a competing station's knowledge. The film also showed Ronstadt performing the songs "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me", "Love Me Tender", and "Tumbling Dice". Ronstadt was persuaded to record "Tumbling Dice" after Mick Jagger came backstage when she was at a concert and said, "You do too many ballads, you should do more rock and roll songs."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Following the success of "Living in the USA", Ronstadt conducted album promotional tours and concerts. She made a guest appearance onstage with the Rolling Stones at the Tucson Community Center on July 21, 1978, in her hometown of Tucson, where she and Jagger sang "Tumbling Dice". On singing with Jagger, Ronstadt later said, "I loved it. I didn't have a trace of stage fright. I'm scared to death all the way through my own shows. But it was too much fun to get scared. He's so silly onstage, he knocks you over. I mean you have to be on your toes or you wind up falling on your face."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By the end of 1978, Ronstadt had solidified her role as one of rock and pop's most successful solo female acts, and owing to her consistent platinum album success, and her ability as the first woman to sell out concerts in arenas and stadiums hosting tens of thousands of fans, Ronstadt became the "highest-paid woman in rock". She had six platinum-certified albums, three of which were number 1 on the "Billboard" album chart, and numerous charting pop singles. In 1978 alone, she made over $12 million () and in the same year her albums sales were reported to be 17 milliongrossing over $60 million ().


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: As "Rolling Stone" dubbed her "Rock's Venus", her record sales continued to multiply and set records themselves. By 1979, Ronstadt had collected eight gold, six platinum, and four multi-platinum certifications for her albums, an unprecedented feat at the time. Her 1976 "Greatest Hits" album would sell consistently for the next 25 years, and it was certified by the RIAA for seven-times platinum in 2001 (over seven million U.S. copies sold). In 1980, "Greatest Hits, Volume 2" was released and certified platinum.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1979, Ronstadt went on an international tour, playing in arenas across Australia to Japan, including the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, and the Budokan in Tokyo. She also participated in a benefit concert for her friend Lowell George, held at The Forum, in Los Angeles.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By the end of the decade, Ronstadt had outsold her female competition; she had five straight platinum LPs"Hasten Down the Wind" and "Heart Like a Wheel" among them. "Us Weekly" reported in 1978 that Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, and Carly Simon had become "The Queens of Rock" and "Rock is no longer exclusively male. There is a new royalty ruling today's record charts."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: She would go on to parlay her mass commercial appeal with major success in interpreting The Great American Songbookmade famous a generation before by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgeraldand later the Mexican folk songs of her childhood.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In February 1980, Ronstadt released "Mad Love", her seventh consecutive platinum-selling album. It was a straightforward rock and roll album with 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. As part of the album's promotion, a live concert was recorded for an HBO special in April. A partial soundtrack for this special (omitting most of the "Mad Love" tracks) was released as her first official live album in February 2019.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: She also made the cover of "Rolling Stone" for a record-setting sixth time. "Mad Love" entered the "Billboard" Album Chart in the Top Five its first week (a record at that time) and climbed to the number 3 position. The project continued her streak of Top 10 hits with "How Do I Make You", originally recorded by Billy Thermal, and "Hurt So Bad", originally a Top 10 hit for Little Anthony & the Imperials. The album earned Ronstadt a 1980 Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female (although she lost to Pat Benatar's "Crimes of Passion" album). Benatar praised Ronstadt by stating, "There are a lot of good female singers around. How could I be the best? Ronstadt is still alive!"


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In the summer of 1980, Ronstadt began rehearsals for the first of several leads in Broadway musicals. Joseph Papp cast her as the lead in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance", alongside Kevin Kline. She said singing Gilbert and Sullivan was a natural choice for her, since her grandfather Fred Ronstadt was credited with having created Tucson's first orchestra, the "Club Filarmonico Tucsonense", and had once created an arrangement of "The Pirates of Penzance".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "The Pirates of Penzance" opened for a limited engagement in New York City's Central Park, eventually moving its production to Broadway, where it became a hit, running from January 8, 1981, to November 28, 1982. "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." Ronstadt co-starred with Kline and Angela Lansbury in the 1983 operetta's film version; this was her only acting role in a motion picture (her other film appearances, such as in the 1978 drama, "FM", being concert footage as herself). Ronstadt received a Golden Globe nomination for the role in the film version. She garnered a nomination for the Tony Award for 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.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: As a child, Ronstadt had discovered the opera "La bohème" through the silent film with Lillian Gish and was determined to someday play the part of Mimi. When she met the opera superstar Beverly Sills, she was told, ""My dear, "every" soprano in the world wants to play Mimi!"" In 1984, Ronstadt was cast in the role at Joseph Papp's Public Theater. However, the production was a critical and commercial disaster, closing after only a few nights.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1982, Ronstadt released the album "Get Closer", a primarily rock album with some country and pop music as well. It remains her only album between 1975 and 1990 not to be officially certified platinum. It peaked at number 31 on the "Billboard" Album Chart. The release continued her streak of Top 40 hits with "Get Closer" and "I Knew You When"a 1965 hit by Billy Joe Royalwhile the Jimmy Webb song "Easy For You To Say" was a surprise Top 10 Adult Contemporary hit in the spring of 1983. "Sometimes You Just Can't Win" was picked up by country radio, and made it to number 27 on that listing. Ronstadt also filmed several music videos for this album which became popular on the fledgling MTV cable channel. The album earned Ronstadt two Grammy Award nominations: one for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female for the title track and another for Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for the album. The artwork won its art director, Kosh, his second Grammy Award for Best Album Package.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Along with the release of her "Get Closer" album, Ronstadt embarked on a North American tour, remaining one of the top rock-concert draws that summer and fall. On November 25, 1982, her "Happy Thanksgiving Day" concert was held at the Reunion Arena in Dallas and broadcast live via satellite to NBC radio stations in the United States.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1988, Ronstadt returned to Broadway for a limited-run engagement in the musical show adaptation of her album celebrating her Mexican heritage, "Canciones De Mi PadreA Romantic Evening in Old Mexico".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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." By 1983, her estimated worth was over $40 million mostly from records, concerts and merchandising.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In the early 1980s, Ronstadt was criticized for accepting $500,000 to perform at the South African resort Sun City, violating the cultural boycott imposed against South Africa because of its policy of apartheid. At the time, she stated, "the last place for a boycott is in the arts" and "I don't like being told I can't go somewhere". Paul Simon was criticized for including her on his 1986 album "Graceland," recorded in South Africa, but defended her: "I know that her intention was never to support the government there ... She made a mistake. She’s extremely liberal in her political thinking and unquestionably antiapartheid."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt eventually tired of playing arenas. She had ceased to feel that arenas, where people milled around smoking marijuana cigarettes and drinking beer, were "appropriate places for music". She wanted "angels in the architecture"a reference to a lyric in the Paul Simon song "You Can Call Me Al" from "Graceland". (Ronstadt sang harmony with Simon on a different "Graceland" track, "Under African Skies". The second verse's lyrics pay tribute to Ronstadt: "Take this child, Lord, from Tucson, Arizona. ..."). Ronstadt has said she wants to sing in places similar to the theatre of ancient Greece, where the attention is focused on the stage and the performer.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's recording output in the 1980s proved to be just as commercially and critically successful as her 1970s recordings. Between 1983 and 1990, Ronstadt scored six additional platinum albums; two are triple platinum (each with over three million U.S. copies sold); one has been certified double platinum (over two million copies sold), and one has earned additional certification as a Gold (over 500,000 U.S. copies sold) double-disc album.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1981, Ronstadt produced and recorded an album of pop standards (later marketed in bootleg form) titled "Keeping Out of Mischief" with the assistance of producer Jerry Wexler. However, Ronstadt's displeasure with the result led her, with regrets, to scrap the project. "Doing that killed me," she said in a "Time" magazine interview. But the appeal of the album's music had seduced Ronstadt, as she told "DownBeat" in April 1985, crediting Wexler for encouraging her. Nonetheless, Ronstadt had to convince her reluctant record company, Elektra, to approve this type of album under her contract.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By 1983, Ronstadt had enlisted the help of 62-year-old conductor Nelson Riddle. The two embarked on an unorthodox and original approach to rehabilitating the Great American Songbook, recording a trilogy of traditional pop albums: "What's New" (1983U.S. 3.7 million as of 2010); "Lush Life" (1984U.S. 1.7 million as of 2010); and "For Sentimental Reasons" (1986U.S. 1.3 million as of 2010). The three albums have had a combined sales total of nearly seven million copies in the U.S. alone.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: The album design for "What's New" by designer Kosh was unlike any of her previous disc covers. It showed Ronstadt in a vintage dress lying on shimmering satin sheets with a Walkman headset. At the time, Ronstadt received some chiding for both the album cover and her venture into what was then considered "elevator music" by cynics, but remained determined to record with Riddle, and "What's New" became a hit. The album was released in September 1983 and spent 81 weeks on the "Billboard" Album Chart and held the number three position for a month and a half (held out of the top spot only by Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Lionel Richie's "Can't Slow Down") and the RIAA certified it triple platinum (over three million copies sold in the U.S. alone). The album earned Ronstadt another Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and critical raves, with "Time" magazine calling it "one of the gutsiest, most unorthodox and unexpected albums of the year."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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 Raina Biography on Nelson Riddle", Joe Smith, president of Elektra Records, was terrified that the Riddle album would turn off Ronstadt's rock audience. Ronstadt did not completely turn her back on her rock and roll past, however; the video for the title track featured Danny Kortchmar as the old beau that she bumped into during a rainstorm.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "What's New" brought Riddle to a younger audience. According to Levinson, "the younger audience hated what Riddle had done with Frank Sinatra, 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. Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" wrote, "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 teenagers 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." "What's New" is the first album by a rock singer to have major commercial success in rehabilitating the Great American Songbook.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1984, Ronstadt and Riddle performed these songs live, in concert halls throughout Australia, Japan, and the United States, including multi-night performances at historic venues Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and Pine Knob.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2004, Ronstadt released "Hummin' to Myself", her 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 an intimate jazz combo. The album was a quiet affair for Ronstadt, giving few interviews and making only one television performance as a promotion. It reached number 2 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart but peaked at number 166 on the main Billboard album chart. Not having the mass distribution that Warner Music Group gave her, "Hummin' To Myself" had sold over 75,000 copies in the U.S. as of 2010. It also achieved some critical acclaim from the jazz cognoscenti.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1978, Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris, friends and admirers of one another's work (Ronstadt had included a cover of Parton's "I Will Always Love You" on "Prisoner in Disguise") attempted to collaborate on a "Trio" album. Unfortunately, the attempt did not pan out. Ronstadt later remarked that not too many people were in control at the time and everyone was too involved with their own careers. (Though the efforts to complete the album were abandoned, a number of the recordings were included on the singers' respective solo recordings over the next few years.) This concept album was put on the back burner for almost ten years.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In January 1986, the three eventually did make their way into the recording studio, where they spent the next several months working. The result, "Trio", which they had conceived ten years earlier, was released in March 1987. It was a considerable hit, holding the number 1 position on Billboard's Country Albums chart for five weeks running and hitting the Top 10 on the pop side also. Selling over three million copies in the U.S. 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 number 1. The album was also a nominee for overall Album of the Year, in the company of Michael Jackson, U2, Prince, and Whitney Houston.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1994, the three performers recorded a follow-up to "Trio". As was the case with their aborted 1978 effort, conflicting schedules and competing priorities delayed the album's release indefinitely. Ronstadt, who had already paid for studio timeand owed her record company a finished albumremoved Parton's individual tracks at Parton's request, kept Harris's vocals, and produced a number of the recordings, which she subsequently released on her 1995 return to country rock, the album "Feels Like Home".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: However, in 1999, Ronstadt, Parton, and Harris agreed to release the "Trio II" album, as was originally recorded in 1994. It included an ethereal cover of Neil Young's "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 and the three women also received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Album.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: At the end of 1987, Ronstadt released "Canciones de Mi Padre", an album of traditional Mexican folk songs, or what she has described as "world class songs". Keeping with the Ronstadt history theme, her cover art was dramatic, bold, and colorful; it shows Ronstadt in full Mexican regalia. Her musical arranger was mariachi musician Rubén Fuentes.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: These "canciones" were a big part of Ronstadt's family tradition and musical roots. In January 1946, the University of Arizona published a booklet by Luisa Espinel entitled "Canciones de mi Padre". Luisa Espinel, Ronstadt's aunt, was an international singer in the 1920s and 1930s. 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 U.S. accent; Ronstadt has often identified herself as Mexican-American. Her formative years were spent with her father's side of the family. In fact, in 1976, Ronstadt had collaborated with her father to write and compose a traditional Mexican folk ballad, ""Lo siento mi vida""a song that she included on "Hasten Down the Wind". Ronstadt has also credited Mexican singer Lola Beltrán as an influence on her own singing style, and she recalls how a frequent guest to the Ronstadt home, Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero, father of Chicano music, would often serenade her as a child.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: "Canciones de Mi Padre" won Ronstadt a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance. In 2001, it was certified double-platinum by the RIAA for shipments of over 2 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling non-English-language album in U.S. music history. The album and later theatrical stage show served as a benchmark of the Latin cultural renaissance in North America.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt produced and performed a theatrical stage show, also titled "Canciones de mi Padre", in concert halls across the U.S. and Latin America to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences. These performances were later released on DVD. Ronstadt elected to return to the Broadway stage, four years after she performed in "La bohème", for a limited-run engagement. PBS's "Great Performances" aired the stage show during its annual fund drives and the show was a hit with audiences, earning Ronstadt a Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt recorded two additional albums of Latin music in the early 1990s. Their promotion, like most of her albums in the 1990s, was a quieter affair, with Ronstadt making only a limited number of appearances to promote them. They were not nearly as successful as "Canciones De Mi Padre", but were critically acclaimed in some circles. In 1991, she released "Mas Canciones", a follow-up to the first "Canciones". For this album, she won a Grammy Award for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album. The following year, she stepped outside of the mariachi genre and decided to record well-known Afro-Cuban songs. This album was titled "Frenesí". Like her two previous Latin recordings ventures, it won Ronstadt a Grammy Award, this time for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1991, Ronstadt acted in the lead role of archangel San Miguel in "La Pastorela", or "A Shephard's Tale", a musical filmed at "San Juan Bautista". It was written and directed by Luis Valdez. The production was part of the PBS "Great Performances" series.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In December 2020, it was announced that "Canciones de Mi Padre" had been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: By the late 1980s, while enjoying the success of her big band jazz collaborations with Riddle and her surprise hit mariachi recordings, Ronstadt elected to return to recording mainstream pop music once again. In 1987, she made a return to the top of the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart with "Somewhere Out There", which peaked at number 2 in March. Featured in the animated film "An American Tail", the sentimental duet with James Ingram was nominated for several Grammy Awards, ultimately winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. The song also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and achieved high sales, earning a million-selling gold single in the U.S.one of the last 45s ever to do so. It was also accompanied by a popular music video. On the heels of this success, Steven Spielberg asked Ronstadt to record the theme song for the animated sequel titled "", which was titled "Dreams to Dream". Although "Dreams to Dream" failed to achieve the success of "Somewhere Out There", the song did give Ronstadt an Adult Contemporary hit in 1991.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1989, Ronstadt released a mainstream pop album and several popular singles. "Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind" became one of the singer's most successful albumsin production, arrangements, sales, and critical acclaim. It became Ronstadt's tenth Top 10 album on the "Billboard" chart, reaching number 7 and being certified triple-platinum (over three million copies sold in the U.S.). The album also received Grammy Award nominations. Ronstadt included New Orleans soul singer Aaron Neville on several of the album's songs.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt incorporated the sounds of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Tower of Power horns, the Skywalker Symphony, and numerous musicians. It included the duets with Aaron Neville, "Don't Know Much" ("Billboard" Hot 100 number 2 hit, Christmas 1989) and "All My Life" ("Billboard" Hot 100 number 11 hit), both of which were long-running number 1 Adult Contemporary hits. The duets earned several Grammy Award nominations. The duo won both the 1989 and 1990 Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal awards. Ronstadt's last known live Grammy Award appearance was in 1990 when she and Neville performed "Don't Know Much" together on the telecast. ("Whenever I sing with a different artist, I can get things out of my voice that I can't do by myself", Ronstadt reflected in 2007. "I can do things with Aaron that I can't do alone.")


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In December 1990, she participated in a concert held at the Tokyo Dome to commemorate John Lennon's 50th birthday, and to raise awareness of environmental issues. Other participants included Miles Davis, Lenny Kravitz, Hall & Oates, Natalie Cole, Yoko Ono, and Sean Lennon. An album resulted, titled "Happy Birthday, John".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt released the highly acclaimed "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 glass harmonica. It was her first commercial failure since 1972, and peaked at number 92 in Billboard, whereas 1995's "Feels Like Home" was Ronstadt's much-heralded return to country-rock and included her version of Tom Petty's classic hit "The Waiting". The single's rollicking, fiddle-infused flip side, "Walk On", returned Ronstadt to the Country Singles chart for the first time since 1983. An album track entitled "The Blue Train" charted 10 weeks in "Billboard"s Adult Contemporary Top 40. This album fared slightly better than its predecessor, reaching number 75. Both albums were later deleted from the Elektra/Asylum catalog. Ronstadt was nominated for three Lo Nuestro Awards in 1993: Female Regional Mexican Artist of the Year, Female Tropical/Salsa Artist of the Year, and her version of the song "Perfidia" was also listed for Tropical/Salsa Song of the Year.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1996, Ronstadt produced "Dedicated to the One I Love", an album of classic rock and roll songs reinvented as lullabies. The album reached number 78 in "Billboard" and won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1998, Ronstadt released "We Ran", her first album in over two years. The album harkened 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 recording was produced by Glyn Johns. A commercial failure, the album stood at 57,897 copies sold at the time of its deletion in 2008. It is the poorest-selling studio album in Ronstadt's Elektra/Asylum catalog. "We Ran" did not chart any singles but it was well received by critics.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Despite the lack of success of "We Ran", Ronstadt kept moving towards this adult rock exploration. In the summer of 1999, she released the album "", a folk-rock-oriented project with Emmylou Harris. It earned a nomination for the Grammy Award for the Best Contemporary Folk Album and made the Top 10 of "Billboard"s Country Albums chart. Still in print as of December 2016, it has sold 223,255 copies per Nielsen SoundScan.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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 "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."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2000, Ronstadt completed her long contractual relationship with the Elektra/Asylum label. The fulfillment of this contract commenced with the release of "A Merry Little Christmas", her first holiday collection, which includes rare choral works, the somber Joni Mitchell song "River", and a rare recorded duet with the late Rosemary Clooney on Clooney's signature song, "White Christmas".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Since leaving Warner Music, Ronstadt has gone on to release one album each under Verve and Vanguard Records.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2006, recording as the ZoZo Sisters, Ronstadt teamed with her new friend, musician and musical scholar Ann Savoy, to record "Adieu False Heart". It was an album of roots music incorporating pop, Cajun, and early-20th-century music and released on the Vanguard Records label. But "Adieu False Heart" was a commercial failure, peaking at number 146 in the U.S. despite her touring for the final time that year. It was the last time Linda Ronstadt would record an album, having begun to lose her singing ability as a result of a degenerative condition later determined to be progressive supranuclear palsy, but initially diagnosed as Parkinson's disease, in December 2012. "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 Award nominations: Best Traditional Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2007, Ronstadt contributed to the compilation album ""a tribute album to jazz music's all-time most heralded artiston the track "Miss Otis Regrets".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In August 2007, Ronstadt headlined the Newport Folk Festival, making her debut at this event, where she incorporated jazz, rock, and folk music into her repertoire. It was one of her final concerts.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2010, Ronstadt contributed the arrangement and lead vocal to "A La Orilla de un Palmar" on the Chieftains' studio album "San Patricio" (with Ry Cooder). This remains her most recent commercially available recording as lead vocalist.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2011, Ronstadt was interviewed by the "Arizona Daily Star" and announced her retirement. In August 2013, she revealed to Alanna Nash, writing for AARP, that she has Parkinson's disease and "can no longer sing a note." Her diagnosis was subsequently re-evaluated as progressive supranuclear palsy. Her memoir "Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands" was published in 2022.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: On April 10, 2014, Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In July 2019, Ronstadt was selected as a Kennedy Center Honoree. On May 7, 2022, during the International Mariachi Conference, the Tucson Music Hall at the Tucson Convention Center was officially renamed as The Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: As of 2019, Ronstadt has earned three number-one pop albums, 10 top-ten pop albums, and 38 charting pop albums on the "Billboard" Pop Album Charts. She has 15 albums on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart, including four that hit number one. Ronstadt's singles have earned her a number-one hit and three number-two hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, with 10 top-ten pop singles and 21 reaching the Top 40. She has also scored two number-one hits on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart, and two number-one hits on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart. "Rolling Stone" wrote that a whole generation "but for her, might never have heard the work of Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Costello."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: She has recorded and released over 30 studio albums and has made guest appearances on an estimated 120 albums by other artists. Her guest appearances included the classical minimalist Philip Glass's album "Songs from Liquid Days", a hit classical record with other major pop stars either singing or writing lyrics (Ronstadt's two tracks on the album saw her singing lyrics written by Suzanne Vega and Laurie Anderson). She also appeared on Glass's follow-up recording "1000 Airplanes on the Roof". She appeared on Paul Simon's "Graceland", where she sang a duet with Simon, "Under African Skies". In that song, there is a verse dedicated to Ronstadt, her voice and harmonies and her birth in Tucson, Arizona. She voiced herself in "The Simpsons" episode "Mr. Plow" and sang a duet, "Funny How Time Slips Away", with Homer Simpson on "The Yellow Album".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has also appeared on albums by a vast range of artists including Emmylou Harris, the Chieftains, Dolly Parton, Neil Young, J. D. Souther, Gram Parsons, Bette Midler, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Earl Scruggs, the Eagles, Andrew Gold, Wendy Waldman, Hoyt Axton, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Ann Savoy, Karla Bonoff, James Taylor, Jimmy Webb, Valerie Carter, Warren Zevon, Maria Muldaur, Randy Newman (specifically his musical adaptation of Faust), Nicolette Larson, the Seldom Scene, Rosemary Clooney, Aaron Neville, Rodney Crowell, Hearts and Flowers, Laurie Lewis and Flaco Jiménez. As a singer-songwriter, Ronstadt has written songs covered by several artists, such as "Try Me Again", covered by Trisha Yearwood; and "Winter Light", which was co-written and composed with Zbigniew Preisner and Eric Kaz, and covered by Sarah Brightman.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Her three biggest-selling studio albums to date are: her 1977 release "Simple Dreams", 1983's "What's New", and 1989's "Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind". Each one has been certified by the Recording Industry Association of America for over three million copies sold. Her highest-selling album to date is the 1976 compilation "Greatest Hits", certified for over seven million units sold as of 2001. Ronstadt became music's first major touring female artist to sell out sizeable venues; she was also the top-grossing solo female concert artist for the 1970s. She remained a highly successful touring artist into the 1990s, at which time she decided to scale back to smaller venues. In the 1970s, "Cashbox" magazine, a competitor of "Billboard" during that time period, named Ronstadt the "#1 Female Artist of the Decade". "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" included "Heart Like a Wheel" (1974) at number 164 and "The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt" (2002) at number 324. The 2012 revision kept only the compilation, but raised it to the place once occupied by "Heart Like a Wheel".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's album sales have not been certified since 2001. At that time, Ronstadt's U.S. album sales were certified by the Recording Industry Association of America at over 30 million albums sold; however, Peter Asher, her former producer and manager, placed her total U.S. album sales at over 45 million. Likewise, her worldwide albums sales are in excess of 100 million albums sold, according to the former president of Warner Bros. Records, Joe Smith, now a jury member of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. Her RIAA certification (audits paid for by record companies or artists for promotion) tally as of 2001 totaled 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and 7 Multi-Platinum albums. She was the first female in music history to score three consecutive platinum albums and ultimately racked up a total of eight consecutive platinum albums. Her album "Living in the USA" was the first album by any recording artist in U.S. music history to ship double platinum (over two million advanced copies). Her first Latin release, the all-Spanish 1987 album "Canciones De Mi Padre", stands as the best-selling non-English-language album in American music history. As of 2013, it had sold over 2 million U.S. copies.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has served as producer on albums from various musicians that include her cousin, David Lindley, Aaron Neville and singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb. She produced "Cristal – Glass Music Through the Ages", an album of classical music using glass instruments with Dennis James, where she sang on several of the arrangements. In 1999, Ronstadt also produced the Grammy Award-winning "Trio II". She has received a total of 27 Grammy Award nominations in various fields that include rock, country, pop and Tropical Latin, and has won 11 Grammy Awards in the categories of Pop, Country, Tropical Latin, Musical Album for Children and Mexican-American. In 2016, Ronstadt was again honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: She was the first female solo artist to have two Top 5 singles simultaneously on "Billboard" magazine's Hot 100: "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy". By December of that year, both "Blue Bayou" and "It's So Easy" had climbed into "Billboard"s Top 5 and remained there for the month's last four weeks. In 1999, Ronstadt ranked number 21 in VH1's "100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll". Three years later, she ranked number 40 in CMT's "40 Greatest Women in Country Music".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Beginning in the mid-1970s, Ronstadt's private life became increasingly public. It was fueled by a relationship with then-Governor of California Jerry Brown, a Democratic presidential candidate. They shared a "Newsweek" magazine cover in April 1979, as well as the covers of "Us Weekly" and "People" magazine.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 1983, Linda Ronstadt dated comedian Jim Carrey for eight months. From the end of 1983 to 1988, Ronstadt was engaged to "Star Wars" director George Lucas.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In December 1990, she adopted an infant daughter, Mary Clementine Ronstadt. In 1994, she adopted a baby boy, Carlos Ronstadt. Ronstadt has never married. Speaking of finding an acceptable mate, in 1974 she told Peter Knobler in "Crawdaddy", "... he's real kind but isn't inspired musically and then you meet somebody else that's just so inspired musically that he just takes your breath away but he's such a moron, such a maniac that you can't get along with him. And then after that it's the problem of finding someone that can stand you!"


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: After living in Los Angeles for 30 years, Ronstadt moved to San Francisco because she said she never felt at home in Southern California. "Los Angeles became too enclosing an environment", she says. "I couldn't breathe the air and I didn't want to drive on the freeways to get to the studio. I also didn't want to embrace the values that have been so completely embraced by that city. Are you glamorous? Are you rich? Are you important? Do you have clout? It's just not me and it never was me." In 1997, Ronstadt sold her home in San Francisco and moved back to her hometown of Tucson, Arizona, to raise her two children. In more recent years, Ronstadt moved back to San Francisco while continuing to maintain her home in Tucson.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2009, in honor of Ronstadt, the Martin Guitar Company made a 0042 model "Linda Ronstadt Limited Edition" acoustic guitar. Ronstadt appointed the Land Institute as recipient of all proceeds from her signature guitar.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2013, Simon & Schuster published her autobiography, "Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir", as well as the Spanish version, "Sueños SencillosMemorias Musicales".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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. 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.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt's politics received criticism and praise during and after her July 17, 2004, performance at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. Toward the end of the show, as she had done across the country, Ronstadt spoke to the audience, praising "Fahrenheit 9/11", Michael Moore's documentary film about the Iraq War; she dedicated the song "Desperado" to Moore. Accounts say the crowd's initial reaction was mixed, with "half the crowd heartily applauding her praise for Moore, (and) the other half booing."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Following the concert, news accounts reported Ronstadt was "evicted" from the hotel premises. Ronstadt's comments, as well as the reactions of some audience members and the hotel, became a topic of discussion nationwide. Aladdin casino president Bill Timmins and Michael Moore each made public statements about the controversy.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: The incident prompted international headlines and debate on an entertainer's right to express a political opinion from the stage and made the editorial section of "The New York Times". Following the incident, many friends of Ronstadt's, including the Eagles, immediately cancelled their engagements at the Aladdin. Ronstadt also received telegrams of support from her rock 'n' roll friends around the world like the Rolling Stones, the Eagles and Elton John. Amid reports of mixed public response, Ronstadt continued her praise of Moore and his film throughout her 2004 and 2006 summer concerts across North America.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: 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 diedit's just as immoral as racism." Her remarks drew international headlines. In an August 14, 2007, interview, she commented on all her well-publicized, outspoken views, in particular the Aladdin incident, 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".


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2007, Ronstadt resided in San Francisco while also maintaining her home in Tucson. That same year, she drew criticism and praise from Tucsonans for commenting that local city council's failings, developers' strip mall mentality, greed and growing dust problem had rendered the city unrecognizable and poorly developed.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In August 2009, Ronstadt, in a well-publicized interview to PlanetOut Inc. titled "Linda Ronstadt's Gay Mission", championed gay rights and same-sex marriage, and stated "homophobia is anti-family values. Period, end of story."


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: On January 16, 2010, Ronstadt converged with thousands of other activists in a "National Day of Action". Ronstadt stated that her "dog in the fight"as a native Arizonan and coming from a law enforcement familywas the treatment of illegal aliens and Arizona's enforcement of its illegal immigrant law, especially Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's efforts in that area.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: On April 29, 2010, Ronstadt began a campaign, including joining a lawsuit, against Arizona's new illegal-immigration law SB 1070 calling it a "devastating blow to law enforcement ... the police don't protect us in a democracy with brute force", something she said she learned from her brother, Peter, who was Chief of Police in Tucson.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has also been outspoken on environmental and community issues. She is a major supporter and admirer of sustainable agriculture pioneer Wes Jackson, saying in 2000, "the work he's doing right now is the most important work there is in the (United States)", and dedicating the rock anthem "Desperado" to him at an August 2007 concert in Kansas City, Kansas.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2004, Ronstadt wrote the foreword to the book "The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to American Folk Music", and in 2005, she wrote the introduction to the book "Classic Ferrington Guitars", about guitar-maker and luthier Danny Ferrington and the custom guitars that he created for Ronstadt and other musicians such as Elvis Costello, Ry Cooder, and Kurt Cobain.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: Ronstadt has been honored for her contribution to the American arts. On September 23, 2007, she was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame, along with Stevie Nicks, Buck Owens, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. On August 17, 2008, Ronstadt received a tribute by various artists, including BeBe Winans and Wynonna Judd, when she was honored with the Trailblazer Award, presented to her by Plácido Domingo at the 2008 ALMA Awards, a ceremony later televised in the U.S. on ABC.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In 2008, Ronstadt was appointed artistic director of the San José Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival. On March 31, 2009, in testimony that the "Los Angeles Times" termed "remarkable", Ronstadt spoke to the United States Congress House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment & Related Agencies, attempting to convince lawmakers to budget $200 million in the 2010 fiscal year for the National Endowment of the Arts.


title: Linda Ronstadt

text: In May 2009, Ronstadt received an honorary doctorate of music degree from the Berklee College of Music for her achievements and influence in music and her contributions to American and international culture. "Mix" magazine stated that "Linda 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".