THE Linda Ronstadt Album Worth Owning Truly Is The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt!

The Good: Wonderful voice, Good duets, Good song mix, Decent instrumentals
The Bad: One or two less inspired songs in the mix
The Basics: Linda Ronstadt is a truly great musical performer whose greatest hits are a time capsule of her interpretations of some of the greatest pop-rock songs of all time.


For a while, I was very disappointed in Linda Ronstadt. As I continue my musical education with picking out random artists to delve into, I occasionally find a name that is lauded by most as truly great and I discover that instead of being an amazing artist, they are simply a truly great performer. Linda Ronstadt is one such performer. To be fair to her, it is easy to see how and why she has managed to sustain a career for the decades she has been performing, but at the end of the day, when one considers the songs that she and her producers consider the "very best" of her works, they are almost all written and orchestrated by people other than Ronstadt.

In other words, when picking up The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt, the listener needs to be prepared for the very best performances of Linda Ronstadt, as opposed to the best songs written and arranged by Ronstadt. In fact, she only wrote "Winter Light" on this album, the rest are covers or tracks that were written for her, like "Somewhere Out There," which was tailored to her and James Ingram for the movie An American Tail.

With twenty-one tracks clocking in at just over sixty-eight minutes of music, The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt is a celebration of reinterpretations of music presented by one of the leading performers and music scholars of the last century. Linda Ronstadt is an avid explorer of musical history and it comes through quite well on this album with the sheer number of Buddy Holly covers she performs, like "It's So Easy" and "That'll Be The Day." But on The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt, she is a vocal performer; she does not play any instruments and she takes only a minor production co-credit, on very few of the songs. The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt is a pop-rock celebration, as opposed to the more country and folk bents that she takes on some of her individual albums. As a result, anyone who likes a strong female voice in the pop-rock genre will find something to love on this album.

First, Ronstadt is able to sing. She has an amazing voice and she has pretty impressive range. Indeed, she goes from alto to soprano quite effortlessly. Interestingly, on tracks like "It's So Easy" and "That'll Be The Day" she illustrates a great ability to mimic the range of Buddy Holly. Moreover, she shows her versatility with "Blue Bayou" and "When Will I Be Loved," where she takes her voice much higher. Similarly, she is able to go over the range of tempos fairly well. On tracks like "Different Drum," she drawls, on "Don't Know Much" she is slow and sultry, and with "Heat Wave," she is fast and dancable.

Ronstadt has a pretty impressive ability to articulate no matter the speed of the song or the vocal range it is set in. She has a clear voice and when she goes high and slow, on tracks like "Long Long Time," she is able to present her music as haunting and wrenching in a way that is beautiful. She is sultry on "Ooh Baby Baby" and hip on "It's So Easy." "When Will I Be Loved" is sad and beautiful with her voice and the album comes together in a way that does not seem like a random collection of singles. It has great flow and it mixes up the tones, tempos and vocal ranges - as well as themes - Ronstadt performs.

Ronstadt, through the years, has had an amazing ability to pick songs that she is able to perform wonderfully. She remains for most people in the collective unconscious with "Different Drum" from her time with Stone Poneys. She clearly and beautifully sings, "You cry and moan and say it will work out / But honey child I've got my doubts / You can't see the forest for the trees / Oh don't get me wrong / It's not that I knock it / It's just that I am not in the market / For a boy who wants to love only me / Yes, and I ain't saying you ain't pretty / All I'm saying is I'm not ready For any person place or thing / To try and pull the reins in on me" ("Different Drum"). And articulating all that she has to say on that song is no easy thing, yet she makes it seem effortless.

Moreover, she has the ability to take fairly simple lines and make them beautiful and greater than the sum of their parts. Indeed, the diction on some of her songs is not extraordinary and it is the way she presents them that makes the songs resonate listen after listen. For example, when she sings, "Caught in my fears / Blinking back the tears / I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near / And I never drew one response from you / All the while you fell all over girls you never knew / Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine / And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time" ("Long Long Time") it is beautiful and compelling, far beyond the simple rhyme scheme. It stands out as something that is lonely and sad and the distinctly feminine take on it infuses it with power.

Linda Ronstadt is able to be virtually everything in the songs she performs on The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt. Songs like "Adios" capture her experimental growth and exploration of international music, "Poor Poor Pitiful" me allows her to sing with irony and when she belts out "That'll Be The Day," the listener is taken back to the origins of rock and roll . . . with a twist. Ronstadt is able to make the listener believe in the enduring, universal quality of every song she sings on this album and it makes for a powerful experience, listen after listen.

Thematically, The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt is preoccupied with love and loss, for the most part. There is the national pride song "Back In The U.S.A." which describes the joy at returning home, but that pales to the loss of "Adios" or "Hurt So Bad." There are the classic songs associated more with Ronstadt than the original artists, like "Heart Is Like A Wheel." Ronstadt makes that her own when she sings, "Some say the heart is just like a wheel / When you bend it you can't mend it / But my love for you is like a sinking ship / And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean" ("Heart Is Like A Wheel").

Instrumentally, which Ronstadt may only take minimal credit for, the album is mostly guitar-driven, though more the acoustic guitar flavor than the electric. She takes on an orchestral sound for her duets, "Somewhere Out There," "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life," as well. She manages to make her voice blend with the strings on "Winter Light" and she generally keeps the percussion minimal.

In fact, on the track "Just One Look," there are strong drums. The rest of the album is driven by guitars and the percussion is mostly muted to the voice of Linda Ronstadt. But, quite simply, Ronstadt rocks and there is no better compilation for the diversity of her pop-rock hits than The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt. For those who have not heard her works, this might be the greatest value for audiophiles as it provides the most diverse range of Ronstadt's musical expressions.

The best track is "Long Long Time" and the low point is the jingoistic "Back In The U.S.A."

For other Linda Ronstadt reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Heart Like A Wheel
Feels Like Home
Dedicated To The One I Love
Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions

8/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Two Voices, A Tough Sell For The Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions

The Good: Good voices, Some intriguing songs
The Bad: Leaves the listener feeling fairly indifferent.
The Basics: Great vocals and two exceptions to the guitar ballad rule make Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions worth listening to for anyone who likes musical storytelling.


As I near the end of my exploration of the music of Linda Ronstadt, I found myself listening to an album that was not purely a Ronstadt album. Usually, this might upset me or I might delay reviewing it until I had finished my reviews of the primary artist I was interested in. However, as Ronstadt is largely a cover artist, it is hard to object to listening to her and Emmylou Harris together. Indeed, this might actually be an album that Ronstadt has more creative control and influence over than some of her solo works.

The album is Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions and it is a collection of duets between Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. I have gleaned enough information in passing about Ronstadt - who has been my musical interest for the last few weeks - to know that there was a trio featuring Ronstadt, Harris and Dolly Parton and this is clearly not that. I know little about Emmylou Harris, save that she is a singer-songwriter. On Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, that talent is underused.

With thirteen tracks clocking in at 50:40, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions follows a format very familiar to listeners to Linda Ronstadt's music. Ronstadt and Harris balance their positions with lead and harmony vocals. Ronstadt pulls off eight of the lead vocals on the tracks and is credited with nothing more on the album outside harmonizing vocals. In contrast, Emmylou Harris provides primary vocals on five tracks, harmonizing vocals on the other eight. As well, she wrote or co-wrote three of the songs and plays electric and acoustic guitar on many of the tracks. Neither artist takes any production credit. Thus, it is something of a crapshoot to guess at how much creative control they had over this album.

Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions is a collection of folk-country tracks that have the flavor of Southwestern ballads to them. This album has a classic Country sound to it, which makes it sound more like folk than the current incarnation of Country. As a result, many of the songs are actually musical stories. Ronstadt and Harris sing of faith ("Sisters Of Mercy"), love and love lost ("He Was Mine," "Sweet Spot," and "Loving The Highway Man"), and they make depression rock on "Falling Down."

Indeed, one of the few things that unites this album well is the sense of imagery it contains in many of the lyrics. Take, for example, the lines "I have heard a million tales I have told a million more / Some of them must have been true / But I don't know anymore / I'm falling down / Do your dance on my head / Heavy steps of the dead / Everything the snow surrounds / Falling, falling, falling / I'm falling, I'm falling, I'm falling down" ("Falling Down"). They clearly establish a mood and a sense of helplessness that is defined by a strong sense of poetics.

The album is set up for this rather well from the beginning. The first track is essentially an epic poem called "Loving The Highway Man" and it opens beautifully with "The wind is a warning / These fields turn to sand / My family will not answer me now . . . Don't say where this ring came from / From whose shaking hand / Don't say who lies bleeding for me / Damned, damned, damned I am / Loving the highway man." The story vividly creates a tone that is exciting, dangerous and . . . very Western. It works and the album maintains a pretty high level of diction and storytelling through song.

Indeed, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions collects tracks from some notable musical poets, like Jackson Browne, Roseanne Cash, Sinead O'Connor, and Bruce Springsteen. Indeed, it is Springsteen's lines on "Across The Border" that help wonderfully draw out the evocative images that Harris and Ronstadt seemed to be seeking on this album. Springsteen's lines "For me you'll build a house / High upon a grassy hill / Somewhere across the border / Where pain and memory . . . have been stilled" ("Across The Border") come alive in the deft hands - or more accurately, sensual vocals - of Ronstadt and Harris. If anything, the lyrics on this album are universally smart and evoke the concept that the pair seems to be going for with their musical stories with a Southwestern flavor.

All of the songs are translated well to the feminine voices of Ronstadt and Harris. Harris seems to take the higher works, leaving Ronstadt to take more of an alto position and that seems to work quite well for both of them. What Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions is truly about, though, is harmonizing. On each track, the vocals blend with one another and making music becomes a clear collaborative effort.

Indeed, what raises the bar for the album into the "recommend" status, even if it is very much an average endeavor, is that the harmonizing makes the music come alive. The listener begins to feel - especially with repetition of the disc - that these musical stories are part of a collective unconscious, an implicit message provided in part by the vocal diversity of the two performers who made this album.

The harmonizing vocals are almost enough to cover the otherwise bland instrumentals that almost entirely define Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. Each track is a little guitar number that is dominated by the vocalists. There are very minimal drums and percussion on the album and no pianos. This is a very ballad-heavy album that does not seem to want to be anything more than that.

The problem with that is that the first track defies that pattern, setting the listener up for something quite different. "Loving The Highway Man" is loud and bold in its refrain, with strong drums accompanying each declaration of damnation. The vocal strength of the harmonies is punctuated by the percussion section in a way that does not happen on any other track and listening to that, one has the impression that this album is going to be more in the style of Loreena McKennitt than it becomes. That track is powerful and epic, while most of the rest of the album holds to very soft and simple ballads, utilizing the guitar to speak in the absence of more production or orchestration.

The instrumentals on "Falling Down" are the exception to the rule on Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. That song blares with an electric guitar that rivals Ronstadt's wailing vocals and the song actually rocks. It has a tempo and flair and it is shocking in contrast to the more muted ballads that otherwise define this album. It is also one of the two standout tracks that make the album worth listening to.

The rest of the album is good, but less memorable, making "Falling Down" and "Loving The Highway Man" memorable and much of what carries the album into worthwhile territory. Anyone who likes strong female vocals will find something to love on this album.

For other Linda Ronstadt works, please check out my reviews of:
Heart Like A Wheel
Feels Like Home
Dedicated To The One I Love

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Even Less Likable Than Others, Linda Ronstadt's Dedicated To The One I Love Disappoints.

The Good: Moments of voice.
The Bad: Short, No compelling arrangements, Simplistic, Monolithic vocal presentation, Narcolepsy-inducing
The Basics: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. This is the most common reaction to this album of lullabies that guts the meaning of many of its songs for the sound it wants.


I have no problem with concept albums. In fact, I like concept albums when they are executed well. Heck, I even get into the occasional concept album that does not fly as high as it could. I remember listening to Joni Mitchell's concept album Both Sides Now and finding a lot of merit in it, despite not being thrilled that she didn't write most of the album. But with Both Sides Now, there was a clear purpose, development and, well, concept.

Linda Ronstadt's album Dedicated To The One I Love might be a concept album or it might just be a collection of tunes reinterpreted as lullabies. At the end of the day, this album is tiresome and sleep-inducing and it is unified by Ronstadt cooing the songs out over light strings. The thing is, it is an exceptionally difficult album to relisten to because it does appear that the whole purpose of the album is to put adults and children to sleep. Let me tell you, it is effective at that. The problem is, it is not much more than that.

With eleven tracks clocking in at 29:25, Dedicated To The One I Love is a collection of mostly-recognizable songs covered by international performer Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt provides the primary vocals, many of which are actually harmony vocals with others - like Valerie Carter - and she arranged five of the songs. But otherwise, Dedicated To The One I Love is very much out of the hands of Ronstadt. Most of the vocals are harmonies, so it is a difficult album to evaluate even for vocal talents and the instrumentals take each song, slow it down to lullaby tempo and essentially make the listener want to fall asleep. But how much of the album is Ronstadt's musical vision is up for a best guess.

Ronstadt did not write any of the songs (she is credited as one of three co-writers on "Winter Light"). She does not play any instruments on this album. Moreover, with the instrumental track "Devoted To You," one is forced to wonder how and why it made the album. Honestly, how can a track be considered of an artist or performer when they do not play either of the instruments on a track they did not write and/or arrange?! Dedicated To The One I Love is a sleep-inducing album of such limited appeal that only the track "Winter Light" from this appears on her compilation The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt, and as it turns out, it had already been on another album so I'm just as inclined to think it made the cut from its association on that.

Otherwise, this very short album is utterly disappointing and rather bland for its concept. First, Linda Ronstadt and her harmonizing vocalists present soprano interpretations of each and every song, making Dedicated To The One I Love suffer for listenablility. The ear quickly tunes out the lyrics and is left with the high white noise of soothing feminine voices that does little for expressing anything.

Moreover, this is not the most ideal or impressive interpretation of various songs. So, for example, my favorite song on the album, "Be My Baby" is absolutely terrible as a lullaby. I love the song and the strings that present a romantic, almost secondary vocal presentation on this version, are wonderful. But honestly, who wants the plaintive and desired filled lines, "So won't you stay and love me / I'll make you so proud of me / We'll make them turn their heads / Every place we go . . . I'll make you happy, baby / Just wait and see / For every kiss you give me / I'll give you three . . . So won't you be . . . Be my little baby" ("Be My Baby") met with snores? "Be My Baby" is a song about love, desire and the willingness to prostrate oneself to love. It's a song of devotion and it can easily be reinterpreted as one of desperation. Lyrically, it's a simple and phenomenal song, but on this album it becomes utterly pointless. It is the musical equivalent of a marriage proposal lullaby. One seeks an answer of great import and consequence, the other seeks to put one to sleep. The two are not exactly congruent goals.

Dedicated To The One I Love is riddled with songs like that where the lyrics do not match the intent of the lullaby concept. Perhaps most notable among these is the singsong reinterpretation of Queen's "We Will Rock You." Yes, the favored sports anthem is reinterpreted here as a somnambulic musical endeavor that - at best - keeps a beat for mothers who are rocking their baby to sleep. Or fathers who . . . who are we kidding? Listening to a Queen song coo-ed out by Ronstadt will either put the men to sleep or enrage them.

To be fair, some of the tracks naturally translate to the lullaby format. It is hard to make the Beach Boys' "In My Room" into anything else other than a lullaby and "Baby I Love You" works just fine as a slow tempo, narcolepsy-inducing song. And Ronstadt gets her pal Aaron Neville to back her up on the vocals for "Brahms' Lullaby." So, if nothing else, the purpose of Dedicated To The One I Love is very clear. This is a lullaby album designed to put the listener to sleep.

This is most effective with the monolithic instrumentals that accompany each song. The Skywalker Symphony accompanies most of the tracks providing a very light string and woodwind section that has the desired musical effect of lightly accompanying the whispy vocals. The dominant instruments outside the orchestra is the harp. The harp, of course, is not known for rocking tunes that do much of anything other than relax the listener and . . .

I've been pussyfooting around this the entire review; Dedicated To The One I Love is just terrible. I've had it on at least eight times and I don't think I've actually HEARD the album more than four times. I've fallen asleep at least three times and I've just tuned it out as white noise at least two other times. This is not musically interesting, it is not clever and when I picked up the album, there was no warning as to what the concept was, or else I would have avoided it. I like music that engages me - preferably on multiple levels - this does not. Instead it is universally slow, sacrifices the meaning of many of the songs for the sound the album desires, and otherwise disappoints the listener.

If you want to hear one of your favorite oldies butchered as a lullaby, this album is for you. If not, let this review be the cautionary tale that was previously lacking for Dedicated To The One I Love: the purpose of this album is to put the listener to sleep. It does not rock, it does not roll and it does not need to be bought.

The best track is "Be My Baby," but only because I loved the song before this misinterpretation. The whole album can be left behind.

For other Artist Of The Month works, please check out my reviews of:
Goodbye Alice In Wonderland - Jewel
Cake And Pie - Lisa Loeb
50 Greatest Hits - Reba McEntire

2/10

Check out how this album stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Music Review Index Page where reviews are organized from best work to worst!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Indistinct Ronstadt: Feels Like Home Wafts By, Rightly Absent From The Hits.

The Good: Voice, Moments of interpretation
The Bad: Bland song choices, Short, Twangy
The Basics: Short, bland and lacking in any real artistry, Linda Ronstadt presents an album where it feels like she'd not even trying with Feels Like Home.


It is tough to get up the enthusiasm to write about an album that does not impress me right now. Truth be told, I've been having a tough time keeping up with the music reviews I have to write. Part of that is that the next album I have around to review is one that is bland and simply disappoints me every time I listen to it.

I have been on a kick listening to albums by Linda Ronstadt for the past few days - in between reviewing new artists Ingrid Michaelson and Metro Station - and I am ready to get these reviews written and out of my hands, save that I have been so musically disappointed the past few days. With Feels Like Home, Ronstadt presents cover songs from the likes of Tom Petty, Randy Newman and Neil Young. And while her classic album Heart Like A Wheel (reviewed here!) had some truly inspired cover versions of classic songs - several of which appear on her "Greatest Hits" album - Feels Like Home is utterly lacking in anything other than voice and decent use of a mandolin.

With only ten tracks clocking in at 39:32, Feels Like Home collects and interprets the songs in the voice of Linda Ronstadt. In most cases, this is apparently in the original arrangement, as Ronstadt is only credited with arranging two of the songs ("After The Gold Rush" and "The Blue Train"). The only two tracks I knew coming into the album, "The Waiting" and "Teardrops Will Fall," sound like they do when performed by Tom Petty and John Mellencamp, respectively. Ronstadt does not play any instruments on Feels Like Home, though she does take a co-producing and mixing credit.

In other words, this album is very limited in how it might express any sense of artistic creativity on the part of Linda Ronstadt. She sings, she backs herself up and one supposes that she got the mixing the way she wanted, but the lyrics and sound are largely what she found and how she found them. For those unfamiliar with my reviews, I tend to be less impressed with performers than I am with artists. On Feels Like Home, Ronstadt is simply a vocal performer.

Unfortunately, Ronstadt's song choices make this a particularly uninspired album. While it opens well with a fairly decent interpretation of "The Waiting," it quickly becomes a twangy, more country and bluegrass oriented album, departing from the pop-rock start it gets. The songs are melancholy and her vocal presentations are somewhat monolithic, dragging out her vocals and leaving the listener more tired than inspired. This is definitely a collection of songs that when one plays them over and over, the sound becomes blurred, indistinct and ultimately forgettable. Indeed, when I finish this review and pop the album out (I have listened to it no less than twenty times over the course of the past two weeks) I know I will soon forget each and every track I heard and I won't be any worse for the forgetting.

What is good are some of the lyrics. For those who haven't heard, "The Waiting," Tom Petty's lines are classic and simple with the direct approach to loneliness on the song. Ronstadt clearly sings his popular refrain, "The waiting is the hardest part / Every day you see one more card / You take it on faith / You take it to the heart / The waiting is the hardest part" ("The Waiting"). Ronstadt makes it sound good, too, with the infusion of the electric mandolins and her voice, she brings a very different sensibility (if not a completely different sound) to the track.

And she picks well with the poetics of many of her tracks. She is articulate and clear singing "Oh the women 'cross the river carry water from the well at the break of day / And they talk to one another; God only knows what they might say / You might get an education after years of dedication / You might finally get a glimpse of what is right and what is wrong / But the women 'cross the river, well, they knew that all along" ("Women 'Cross The River"). The song is a poem set to music and it has a very traditional sound that fits this album well, even though it follows the very similar "Morning Blues," which is a folksy song about living in poverty.

The thing is, some of the songs use predictable rhymes and obvious pairings. There are many references to god on the tracks and the sense that much of life is out of the musical narrator's hands. That's worth noting only in that it follows more closely a country/bluegrass sensibility and those who are looking for one of Ronstadt's pop-rock albums will want to avoid this outing.

What the album does have is Linda Ronstadt's voice. Ronstadt has a beautiful alto-soprano voice and while she stays mostly within the safe alto range on Feels Like Home (the album) she foes go into the higher ranges on some of the slower songs, like "Feels Like Home." The thing is, after listening to and buying albums by Hem, I've discovered that I can appreciate new music that sounds traditional. I can fully enjoy music that borders on country bluegrass when there is a great voice backing it and it says something new.

None of the tracks on "Feel Like Home" say anything particularly new. They are songs about sorrow, melancholy and living through sadness. While Ronstadt has a beautiful, sweet voice, she is no Sally Ellyson (the lead singer of Hem). Actually, on "Morning Blues," when Ronstadt stretches into the soprano range, she makes me think Ellyson might have been derivative of her. Still, I'd take Rabbit Songs (reviewed here!) to Feels Like Home any day of the week.

Musically, this is a slow album dominated by guitars and pianos. There is, admittedly, very creative use of the electric mandolin on several tracks and Ronstadt makes it work for her. The problem as far as the album goes is that after the first track, there is nothing that sounds different enough to keep the listener engaged. This is a slow, sad-sounding album and it is very committed to that sound, making it ultimately very bland.

Linda Ronstadt may be a truly great performer and have a lot going for her; Feels Like Home is not her best endeavor and only those who must have everything by her will want this disc. The rest of us can safely leave it on the shelves.

The best track is melancholy and evocative "The Blue Train," the low point is the utterly forgettable, more "country" track "High Sierra."

For other, former, female Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
Liz Phair - Liz Phair
Album 1700 - Peter, Paul, And Mary
The Collection - Alanis Morissette

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

A Good Performer's Classic Album Heart Like A Wheel Underwhelms, But Is Decent. (My Next Artist Of The Month)

The Good: Great voice, Moments of music
The Bad: Very varied lyrics, Moments that are twangy, Short!
The Basics: The vocals are wonderful, but my experiences with Linda Ronstadt's music so far indicate that's not a surprise; the best tracks are on the Greatest Hits album. Pass.


I have very high standards for artists, musical and visual. The truest artists who I respect are singer-songwriters and writer-directors (the best visual medium workers, I find are writer-director-executive producers) and I have a great love for the minds that create such art. As a result, I am often disappointed when I discover that someone whose work I have enjoyed does not actually embody their own thoughts and vision. I mean, after years of listening to Tina Turner's music on the radio and watching What's Love Got To Do With It?, I remember being exceptionally disappointed to learn that Turner was simply a performer. I picked up her two-disc greatest hits album All My Best (reviewed here!) and it was only then I learned that some of the lines she seemed to belt out from a place of her own personal pain were penned by others.

I found myself similarly disappointed to learn that Elvis Presley was largely just a performer as well. Performers are the actors of the music world and while they have a place and merit, they are interpreters of lines of others, usually guided by producers and A&R executives the way a director interprets a script for actors. The latest surprise to me as I continue my musical education has come in the form of Linda Ronstadt. I've been trying to expand my horizons and I chose Linda Ronstadt because I remembered that she praised Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!) and appeared in the DVD boxed set of The Simpsons - Season 4 (reviewed here!) for "Mr. Plow." I figured, hey, if she's good enough for Michael Moore, George Lucas (whom she was once engaged to) and The Simpsons, I ought to listen to her stuff!

I understand that there was a time Ronstadt was a singer-songwriter, but the pile of c.d.s I've been listening to for the past month of hers says otherwise. Even on her Greatest Hits album all of the songs are written by others. So, when I picked up her classic album Heart Like A Wheel to see what all the fuss with Linda Ronstadt was about, I found myself impressed with her voice, but underwhelmed by what was supposedly so great about her.

With ten tracks clocking in at 31:46, Heart Like A Wheel is a fairly diverse album of coversongs that earned Linda Ronstadt a Grammy Award. The 1974 album is now easily available on compact disc and showcases Ronstadt as a performer. She did not write any of the songs, does not play any instruments, did not do any of the orchestral arrangements, nor was she involved in the production of the album. In other words, Linda Ronstadt is a performer on this one and any artistic vision she might have is limited to how she performs the songs established by others.

Heart Like A Wheel is a rather short album that trends from the classic Country sound ("It Doesn't Matter Any More" and "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)") to (true) classic rock and roll ("You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved") to a more modern folk-rock sound on tracks like "You Can Close Your Eyes." The sound is slower, light rock and anyone looking for something that is rich in production will want to pass this album right by. This is a subtle, simple album that focuses on creating a very light musical sound and letting the lyrics tell the stories.

Heart Like A Wheel is not a very chipper album. With tracks like "Faithless Love," with lines like "Faithless love will find you / And the misery entwine you" this is not a real upper. The thing is, Ronstadt picked some songs with a beautiful sense of poetics, with lyrics she sings like "Raindrops falling on the broken road / Down on the lonesome valley where nobody goes . . . Faithless love like a river flows" ("Faithless Love").

The poetics of the album are consistently high, even if they are not upbeat. When Linda Ronstadt sings, "Some say the heart is just like a wheel / When you bend it, you can't mend it / But my love for you is like a sinking ship / And my heart is out on that ship in mid-ocean" ("Heart Is Like A Wheel"), it is hard not to be moved. She sings with a profound sadness and an articulation that makes that it baffling that she can sing such sad lines so clearly. Moreover, that she follows up "Heart Is Like A Wheel" with the wrenching "When Will I Be Loved," whose lyrics carry far more punch than the upbeat presentation of them, makes the album thematically unified.

The mood is kept rather consistent, though, with the similarly dreary "The Dark End Of The Street" and the unfulfilled desire of "Keep Me From Blowing Away" continuing the album.

What Heart Like A Wheel has at least as consistently is a pretty great vocal performance. Linda Ronstadt can sing, no denying that. She has a pretty amazing alto voice and she has wonderful range that goes higher when needed - like on "The Dark End Of The Street" and the track "Heart Is Like A Wheel." She makes the unpalatable lyrics of "Willing" sound good (if a little derivative of Joni Mitchell's "Carey") and on every other track, she is vocally impressive.

This is where the underproduction of Heart Like A Wheel works best; Ronstadt's voice is clearly her own. The album has a very honest and straightforward sound that resonates with the listener, especially those who are fond of actually hearing human voices in music. Ronstadt has a wonderful voice and it is clear without using alteration either of the time or when the album was remastered for compact disc.

Musically, Heart Like A Wheel is somewhat deceptive in its opening with "You're No Good." "You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved" are the two most rocking tracks, strongest in the guitar, and heaviest on drums. The other tracks are almost universally slower, use the guitar lighter - and with more of a twangy sound - making Heart Like A Wheel more of a pop-rock-country album than pop-rock. Indeed, it was the Hank Williams song "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)" that won Ronstadt her Grammy award from this album. She does a decent presentation of it.

Ultimately, though, there are two serious strikes against Heart Like A Wheel. First, it's short and it does not use the compact disc medium very well. I have long argued that classic records that are being remastered for compact discs ought to either be combined (two Ronstadt albums would easily fit on one c.d.) and/or include the b-sides from any singles associated with the album. This disc contains neither.

The second strike is why I ended up, ultimately, not recommending this album. I promised myself years ago that if an album's best tracks are all on the "Greatest Hits" compilation, I'd have to seriously consider "not recommending" an album. The only worthwhile track from this album that is not on The Very Best Of Linda Ronstadt is "You Can Close Your Eyes" and, truth be told, I can take it or leave it. The four best songs on this album are all on that compilation, so it's tough to advise people to shell out good money for this one.

The best track is "When Will I Be Loved," the low point is "Willing."

For other works from prior Artists Of The Month, please visit my reviews of:
Any Day Now - Joan Baez
My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection - Celine Dion
MTV Unplugged - 10,000 Maniacs

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |