Linda Ronstadt, The 1980's & Beyond Artwork

Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast

Two baby boomers, Bill Price and Jumpin' John McDermott, bringing you podcasts highlighting the early history & evolution of Rock & Roll.

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Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast

Linda Ronstadt, The 1980's & Beyond

September 27, 2024 • Jumpin' John McDermott and Bill Price • Season 2 • Episode 98

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback! I’m Jumpin’ John, and this podcast is Part 2 of a two part series about the versatile and dynamic American singer, Linda Ronstadt! I call this podcast Linda Ronstadt, The 1980's & Beyond, and I will highlight the last two decades of Linda Ronstadt's prolific career. Additionally I will review some of Linda's numerous awards and accolades. For coverage of her early career, pre-1980, be sure to check out Part 1 of our companion podcast, "Linda Ronstadt, Siren of the Seventies!

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All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John, and the basic track was recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004.
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By 1980 Linda Ronstadt was already a major pop and country superstar. In February 1980, Ronstadt released Mad Love, her seventh consecutive platinum-selling album. 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, which was a record at that time. The LP climbed to the #3 position and earned Ronstadt a 1980 Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female.

However, there were some changes in the air. Linda Ronstadt has said that in the beginning of her career she was so focused on folk, on rock, and on country that she got a bit bored. So it was only natural that she would continue to diversify her repertoire and branch out. In the summer of 1980, sensing that it was time to change direction, Linda began rehearsals for the first of several leads in Broadway musicals. Cast in a lead role, Ronstadt starred in the Broadway production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, as well as the accompanying movie. 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. It ran from January 8th, 1981, to November 28th, 1982, and Linda would receive a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical.

Then, with the assistance of conductor Nelson Riddle, Linda embarked on an unorthodox and original move for a rock and roll artist. They rehabilitated the Great American Songbook and recorded a trilogy of traditional pop albums. In 1983 Ronstadt and Riddle released What's New, which had sold over 3.7million units in the United States as of 2010. In 1984 they released Lush Life, which had sold over 1.7 million units in the US as of 2010. In 1986 they released For Sentimental Reasons, which had sold over 1.3 million units in the US as of 2010. The three albums have had a combined sales total of nearly seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

In January 1986, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris, friends and admirers of one another's work, went into the recording studio. They released the album Trio in March 1987. It was a big hit, holding the #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. the LP was a nominee for overall Album of the Year, and it won 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 #1.

Then in 1987, as an homage to the Mexican folk songs of her childhood, Linda Ronstadt released Canciones de Mi Padre. These canciones were a big part of Ronstadt's family tradition and musical roots. Canciones de Mi Padre won Ronstadt a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance. Fourteen years later, in 2001, it was certified double-platinum by the RIAA for sales of over 2 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling non-English-language album in U.S. music history. In December 2020, it was announced that Canciones de Mi Padre had been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Ronstadt would later record two additional albums of Latin music. 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, and it won Ronstadt a Grammy Award, this time for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album.

Also in 1987, she made a return to the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with "Somewhere Out There", which peaked at #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 US. As such, it was one of the last 45's ever to do so.

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 albums. It became Ronstadt's tenth Top 10 album on the Billboard chart, reaching #7 and being certified triple-platinum with over three million copies sold in the U.S. It included two duets with Aaron Neville. "Don't Know Much" reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "All My Life" reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both duets were long-running #1 Adult Contemporary hits. The duets earned several Grammy Award nominations, and the duo won both the 1989 and 1990 Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal awards.

Linda continued to tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums, such as Winter Light in 1993. Then in 1999 the team of Ronstadt, Parton, and Harris agreed to release the Trio II album, an album of songs recorded five years earlier. That LP, which Ronstadt helped produce, was certified Gold with over 500,000 copies sold. At the Grammy Awards, the three women won for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals and also received a nomination for Best Country Album.

By the year 2000 Linda Ronstadt had begun reducing her activity. In 2004 she recorded an album of jazz standards called Hummin' to Myself. The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart where it remained for six months. Linda officially announced her retirement in 2011. She had lost the ability to sing due to her affliction with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease.

Here are just a few of Linda Ronstadt's awards, honors, and accolades:

•Linda earned three #1 pop albums, 10 top-ten pop albums, and 38 charting pop albums on the Billboard Pop Album Charts. She had 15 albums on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, including four that hit #1. It is estimated that Ronstadt has lent her voice to over 120 albums, collaborating with artists in many genres.

•Linda's highest-selling album to date is the 1976 compilation Greatest Hits, certified for over seven million units sold as of 2001. 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 RIAA for over three million copies sold. Her RIAA certification 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).

•Linda's first Latin album 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 21⁄2 million U.S. copies.

•Linda charted 38 US Billboard Hot 100 singles. Twenty-one of those singles reached the top 40, ten reached the top 10, three reached #2, and one ("You're No Good") reached #1. She has also scored two #1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and two #1 hits on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. In the UK, her duet with James Ingram, "Somewhere Out There," reached #8 and her duet with Aaron Neville, "Don't Know Much," peaked at #2. Her single "Blue Bayou" reached #35 on the UK Singles Chart. As mentioned in Part 1 of my Linda Ronstadt podcasts, 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".

•Linda 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. She has also received 3 American Music Awards, 2 Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award.

•In 1999 Linda ranked #21 in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.

•In 2002 Linda ranked #40 in CMT's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music.

•In 2003 "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" included Heart Like a Wheel (1974) at #164 and The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt at #324.

•In 2011 Linda was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy.

•In April 2014 Linda was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

•On July 28, 2014, Linda was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities.

•In 2016, Linda was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

•In 2019, Linda received a star jointly with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work as the group Trio.

•Linda was among five honorees who received the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements.

•On May 7, 2022, during the International Mariachi Conference in Arizona, the Tucson Music Hall at the Tucson Convention Center was officially renamed as The Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.

•In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Linda Ronstadt at #47 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Over her long career Linda Ronstadt's diverse catalog has included everything from pop to jazz standards to traditional Mexican music to pure country. Most of her albums are certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum, and she has sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide. Ronstadt became music's first major touring female artist to sell out sizeable venues, and she set records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade. Ultimately, Linda Ronstadt stands as one of the most successful female recording artists in U.S. history. She was on the vanguard of many musical movements, and she opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres by championing songwriters and musicians.

This has been another podcast episode of Rock and Roll Flashback! In this episode I discussed the last two decades and numerous accolades of the career of the American female singer and pop superstar, Linda Ronstadt! I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and - until next time - ROCK ON!