“Peter was very good at hearing little inner parts of music. “We’d gotten a little bit tighter,” says Ronstadt, noting how her rapport with Asher had evolved since Heart Like a Wheel. Working with engineer Val Garay, Peter Asher gathered the band at Sound Factory in LA. “Don had played with James Taylor and Ricky came along with Don,” the singer adds. Guitarist Andrew Gold, an integral force to the singer’s first three albums with Asher, departed the lineup to pursue his solo career, while New York-based session pros Don Grolnick (keyboards) and Ricky Marotta (drums) were the newest additions to Ronstadt’s band. He wasn’t strictly country, so he was very flexible.” Dan really understood pop music and rock & roll. “Waddy was an up-and-coming studio player and I’d played with Kenny since the Stone Poneys. “It was the band that traveled with me, so we had a chance to develop our ideas,” says Ronstadt. Of the musicians who played on Simple Dreams, Kenny Edwards (bass), Waddy Wachtel (guitar), and Dan Dugmore (steel guitar) had also played on Hasten Down the Wind as well as the album’s accompanying tour. During the early ’70s, the cream of players who held court at the Troubadour in West Hollywood furnished the pulse of Ronstadt’s albums. Like a magnetic force, Ronstadt had always drawn exceptional musicians into her orbit, a quality that would later flourish in her work with Nelson Riddle and Rubén Fuentes. In her exclusive interview with PopMatters, Ronstadt goes back to “Blue Bayou” and the Vieux Carré just in time for Rhino’s 40th-anniversary reissue of Simple Dreams. “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” pulsed with spirited irony while songs like “Maybe I’m Right” gently led listeners down a mirrored corridor to their own heart. Simple Dreams underscores the sentiment of Frey’s statement. “Linda’s legacy gives us so much to celebrate and contemplate,” the late Glenn Frey said during Ronstadt’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2014). Remarkably, both singles shared the Top Five for three weeks in December 1977. Her fifth consecutive platinum set supplanted Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (1977) from number one for five weeks and spawned the platinum-selling “Blue Bayou” as well as “It’s So Easy”. She became the first female artist to earn two consecutive platinum albums: Heart Like a Wheel (1974), which signaled her brief return to Capitol, and Prisoner in Disguise (1975).Ī pair of Grammy Awards bookended the release of Hasten Down the Wind (1976) and Ronstadt’s first Greatest Hits (1976) collection, but it was Simple Dreams that set a new benchmark in Ronstadt’s career. His partnership with the singer propelled her from LA’s close-knit community of artists, musicians, and songwriters to the top of the pop charts in 1974 with “You’re No Good”. After a trio of albums for Capitol, followed by the singer’s Asylum debut Don’t Cry Now (1973), Peter Asher began producing and managing Ronstadt. She ventured solo in 1969, denting the Top 40 a year later with “Long Long Time”, and introduced the newly formed Eagles on Linda Ronstadt (1971), produced by John Boylan. Simple Dreams arrived ten years after Ronstadt debuted as the lead vocalist of the Stone Poneys, who scored a major hit with “Different Drum” on Capitol Records. Her voice channels the universality of emotions that are deeply felt but seldom ever spoken. “I mean, talk about eclectic mania!” Indeed, the singular artistry of Simple Dreams (1977) is steeped in Ronstadt’s exploration of different musical spheres, whether harmonizing with Dolly Parton on a country-tinged lament or sparking a combustible rendition of the Rolling Stones “Tumbling Dice”. “I can’t believe I’ve got ‘Old Paint’ on a record with ‘Sorrow Lives Here’,” she chuckles. Is it possible that Linda Ronstadt released them on the same album? Yes, though a trace of wonder shapes her memory. A traditional cowboy song and a ballad redolent of the 19th century.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |