Linda Ronstadt - The Best Of Linda Ronstadt: The Capitol Years
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Linda RonstadtEdition: Music CD
Format: Import, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2006-01-30
Music Label: EMI Europe Generic
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Baby You've Been On My Mind
- Silver Threads & Golden Needles
- Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad
- A Number And A Name
- The Only Mama That'll Walk The Line
- The Long Way Around
- Break My Mind
- I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
- It's About Time
- We Need A Whole Lot More Of Jesus (And A Lot Less Rock & Roll)
- The Dolphins
- It Won't Be Easy (outtake from session; previously unreleased)
- Lovesick Blues
- Are My Thoughts With You?
- Will You Love Me Tomorrow
- Nobody's
- Louise
- Long Long Time
- Mental Revenge
- I'm Leavin' It All Up To You
- He Darked The Sun
- Life Is Like A Mountain Railway
- He Darked The Sun (Nashville Version-outtake from session;previously unreleased)
- Rock Me On The Water
- Crazy Arms
- I Won't Be Hangin' Round
- I Still Miss Someone
- In My Reply
- I Fall To Pieces
- Ramblin' Round
- Birds
- I Ain't Always Been Faithful
- Rescue Me
- Can It Be True (b-side to "I Fall To Pieces" single-previously unreleased on CD)
- Long Long Time (Live @ The Troubadour 1971)
- Kate (Live @ The Troubadour 1971)
- You're No Good
- It Doesn't Matter Anymore
- Faithless Love
- The Dark End Of The Street
- Heart Is Like A Wheel
- When Will I Be Loved
- Willin'
- I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)
- Keep Me From Blowing Away
- You Can Close Your Eyes
Free Music Notes for The Best Of Linda Ronstadt: The Capitol Years
Free Music Review: The Wonder Years
Hit: 5 Stars
Linda Ronstadt was such a phenomenon by the mid-70s that people tend to forget that she wasn't exactly a critical darling in her earliest years as a performer and recording artist. For some reason, one critic's remarks have stuck in my memory lo these many years. It was in the old HIT PARADER magazine (before it went all heavy metal) and it was in one of those "women in music" articles that apparently have always been and always will be--or at least for as long as women are perceived of as "the other." And I recall it was written by one of the Ellens (Sander or Willis, I can't remember which). Anyway, she made reference to Janis Joplin and Grace Slick as "rare and distinctive stylists" and then mentioned Linda whom she deemed "something less than that." Those who became ardent Linda fans in the 70s will likely find that remark appalling--and in truth, it did seem a little waspish to me too even then(likely why I remember it). At the time--the late 60s--I considered Linda to be an up-and-coming talent, maybe still a tad rough around the edges, but she definitely had something.
But I'll admit, Ellen Whoever,did have something of a point. Linda mainly sang pretty: Grace and Janis, in their different ways, attacked their material ferociously. And the "Queen Bees of San Francisco," as someone once referred to them, definitely embodied the spirit of 60s rebellion more than Linda did. It did kind of make sense that Linda finally emerged as a star in the 70s, when music was a bit less outre and out there. And by then, she was a bigger star--and a more emblematic 70s star--than Grace (who DID start to get a little more "commercial" by then) or Janis (even if she had lived much beyond 1970) ever could have been.
And ultimately Linda became more of a conventionally "good" singer too. Then again, while Slick and Joplin certainly had distinctive vocal styles, calling such powerful singers "stylists" was, looking back on it, actually a strange choice of words. Song stylists, as I understand the term, are usually non-singers who learn to give dramatic or otherwise intriguing readings to their material. I'm not sure who in the history of rock'n'roll would qualify as more of a "stylist," maybe a "chanteuse" like the Nico of the Velvets and CHELSEA GIRL era.
But I digress, let's just say that in the late 60s, Linda Ronstadt's pretty vocals weren't earning her all that much critical acclaim. And even though, she had a couple of hits along the way (both with the Stone Poneys and as a solo), she had yet to capture the public imagination either. What happened? What turned the tide for her? Well, this collection (a near complete compilation of her work for Capitol Records--i.e. the complete albums, a few outtakes, B-sides and live recordings) documents her artistic development about as well as you could hope. It brings you right up to her true breakthrough album HEART LIKE A WHEEL and gives a good intro to what was to come in her halcyon days, aka the "Asylum years."
Of course, it's not as clear cut a story as all that. The Capitol and Asylum years, as any fan with a historical bent knows, actually overlapped. Linda recorded DON'T CRY NOW her first record for Asylum (and the first one for long-term producer Peter Asher) in 1973, but she still owed Capitol one more album on THAT contract. That turned out to be HEART LIKE A WHEEL--and the rest is history.
And now that history is being re-packaged and re-sold to us, but given the complicated label changes, it cannot, by definition, be considered complete. In terms of production values and the overall sheen and slickness of the sound, HLAW was lightyears beyond the earlier Capitol stuff. As good and as heartfelt as much of the early Capitol stuff was, and as endearing as it all could be, HEART was your proverbial quantum leap forward. Except that technically, it really wasn't, because it had been presaged by the equally polished (though less hit-laden) DON'T CRY NOW (on that OTHER label).
So this history has a significant, if admittedly unavoidable, gap in it. Die-hard completists may want to interrupt Disk Two of this set and sneak DON'T CRY into the other drive. Call it "discus interruptus." Or at least make a mental note that CAPITOL YEARS is not the whole story.
Which is not to say that this compilation should not be eagerly greeted by older fans and newbies alike. It is, in fact, an excellent documentation of a singer who is "finding her voice." I know there are a lot of fans out there who actually prefer the earlier, more artless Linda, and they too have a point. The very young Linda Ronstadt always sounded achingly sincere. It's a trait that lend a certain poignancy to songs like "Different Drum" (a Stone Poneys song not included here) and "Long, Long Time" (included here in two different versions). There's that tug in her voice, coupled with an almost girlish enthusiasm, that is just so compelling--even if she don't think she had quite reached that "rare and distinctive stylist" level yet.
And there was so much good country on those early records. Sure she took some grief for the Stupefyin' Jones pose on the SILK PURSE cover, but the truly neat thing about the early Ronstadt was that she could bring a dollop of LA irony to her basically heartfelt C&W interpretations and have it all work. You could still be a hip rock'n'roller and dig her C&W tunes. The case could certainly be made that she did as much to make country cool as Dylan and the Byrd/Burrito axis. In fact, the role of women artists in establishing crossover has been largely neglected, but some of the best efforts were by Linda and her contemporaries like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Tracy Nelson. (And of course, Emmylou maybe just a year or two later.)
The country material included here is as close to classic as you could hope for. She acquits herself admirably on Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues," and while her take on "I Fall to Pieces" may not have the stateliness of Tracy's, it nonetheless serves as a more than suitable homage to Patsy Cline. She was certainly never more playful or sassy as she appeared here on "The Only Mama That'll Walk The Line." And could anyone argue with her interpretation of "Crazy Arms"? It's just got just the right blend of heartbreak and emotional reserve, keeping it real but never maudlin.
Which brings us back to the HEART LIKE A WHEEL era. There are those who would argue that Linda lost something around this time. That it started to get a little too "El Lay" slick and laid back. Well, as Joni Mitchell, another notable LA denizen, once said, "something's lost, but something's gained." Linda was singing with more confidence and authority by this point. And when it came to the C&W material, she was harmonizing beautifully with Emmylou Harris on "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)." Keep in mind too, that the LA sound was still quite new at this point. I remember hearing "Heart Like a Wheel" and just being astonished that something could sound so clean and pure. The whole production seemed to glisten. It would be a few years before anyone would accuse its purveyors of being too slick, soulless, or formulaic.
Of course, with Ronstadt's later records, MAYBE a critic could argue "slick," but never "soul-less." Give the lady that. She's always had a lot of heart. And she continued to grow as a "rare and distinctive" SINGER.
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