Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt broke barriers for women as one of the top-selling artists of her generation, and she's going to detail how she did it in a new memoir for Simon & Schuster. The book publisher announced Thursday that it had acquired her autobiography, titled "Heart Like a Wheel," after her Grammy-winning, multiplatinum album. Ronstadt sold tens of millions of records starting in the 1970s with pop hits such as "You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved. " But she also segued into country, pop standards and mariachi music, among other genres.

When Bob Hare opened his Hermosa Beach coffeehouse in 1958, he called it the Insomniac because it was open until 3 a.m. He brewed his coffee in a 300-pound dry-cleaning boiler and served it to such high-profile members of the Beat Generation as Allen Ginsberg and Lenny Bruce, he later recalled. The coffeehouse also became a haven for folk and blues musicians and other performers. Ginsberg read his poem "Howl" and a 16-year-old Linda Ronstadt sang, Hare said in 1992 in The Times.

Billy Daniels, I read some years ago, estimated that even then he had sung "That Old Black Magic" 25,000 times. That sounds extravagant until you multiply two or three shows a night by the days and years of Daniels' long career. It was a very big hit for him, but along about Performance 17,422 I have to believe you would be singing it through clenched teeth, gratitude notwithstanding. The Glenn Miller band must finally have wanted to play "In the Mood" upside down, just for a change.

Linda Ronstadt broke barriers for women as one of the top-selling artists of her generation, and she's going to detail how she did it in a new memoir for Simon & Schuster. The book publisher announced Thursday that it had acquired her autobiography, titled "Heart Like a Wheel," after her Grammy-winning, multiplatinum album. Ronstadt sold tens of millions of records starting in the 1970s with pop hits such as "You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved. " But she also segued into country, pop standards and mariachi music, among other genres.

At this point, it's clear that Linda Ronstadt couldn't care less: She knows she can sing mariachi music, and she'll keep doing it for as long as she wants, no matter how many doubts are raised by purists who won't forgive her the fact that she doesn't speak fluent Spanish. But she is still a great interpreter who can communicate the emotional essence of the music.

I t's been 22 years since Linda Ronstadt introduced herself with the Stone Poneys' sweet and simple hit "Different Drum," and from those humble beginnings, she's gone on to prove herself an exceptionally versatile performer. Trying her hand at everything from light opera and country to '40s torch singing and the traditional music of Mexico, Ronstadt, 42, has carved a permanent spot for herself on America's musical landscape.

When she sings rock 'n' roll, Linda Ronstadt can be like a bull in a china shop, her big voice charging headlong over phrases instead of taking the deft sidesteps that let a song swing. But venturing into the traditional Mexican folk music that she was brought up with in Arizona, the 41-year-old Ronstadt finds herself in a bullring tailored to her style.

Aaron Neville and his three brothers have been telling it like it is for decades now. And fans have been telling friends, and those friends told more friends--but it took a friend in high places, Linda Ronstadt, to help turn the word-of-mouth trickle about the Neville Brothers into a torrent. Predict that they're gonna be huge, though, and you might be accused of being the boy who cried wolf.

After five "high-concept" albums in a row (three torch-song collections, a Mexican heritage tribute and the traditionalist country of "Trio"), word was Ronstadt would finally be returning to the mainstream pop-rock fold this time. As it turns out, this is still a far "Cry" from anything she's done before; the material recalls her middle-of-the-rock-road '70s work, but the approach to the material is as highly conceptualized as on the last few albums.

One of the most endearing things about interviewing Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris over the years has been the way they spend half their time talking about other artists they admire. And nothing's changed. Instead of relentlessly promoting their first-ever duet collection, due in stores Aug. 24, the pair were eager in their latest interview to turn the spotlight to their favorite artists. Even more striking was their affection for each other.

Andrew Gold, a singer, songwriter and versatile musician who had a Top 10 hit in 1977 with "Lonely Boy" and was a vital component of Linda Ronstadt's pop success in the 1970s as a member of her band, has died. He was 59. Gold died Friday in his sleep at his home in Encino, said his sister, Melani Gold Friedman. He had cancer but had been responding well to treatment, she said. He played several instruments, did arrangements and sang on such Ronstadt albums as "Heart Like a Wheel" in 1974, "Prisoner in Disguise" in 1975 and "Hasten Down the Wind" in 1976.

Kenny Edwards, a founding member of the Stone Poneys country-rock band that launched Linda Ronstadt's career and a valued supporting guitarist and singer for Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and numerous others, died Wednesday after battling cancer and a blood disorder in recent years. He was 64. Edwards had collapsed earlier this month in Denver while on tour with singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff, a longtime musical partner. He was diagnosed with the blood disorder thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP, and also had been undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer.

History, it's often been observed, is written by victors, which might explain why an especially compelling chapter of the Mexican-American War remains so infrequently told, at least in the U.S. The chapter in question is about the San Patricios, a company of Irish immigrants pressed into service by the U.S. Army. Ideologically opposed to the fight, they switched sides, choosing to stand alongside the Mexican military rather than the forces of their newly adopted homeland. When the conflict ended, the members of the battalion were executed for their desertion.

Kate McGarrigle, the Canadian singer and songwriter who, with her sister Anna, recorded a string of critically acclaimed albums of literate and wistfully romantic homespun songs and then became the proud matriarch of an extended folk-rock-pop musical family, died Monday after battling cancer in recent years. She was 63. McGarrigle died at her home in Montreal surrounded by Anna and their older sister, Jane, as well as Kate's children, singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

Re "Musicians plead for arts funding," April 1 Linda Ronstadt said it just right: "We need to teach our children to sing their own songs." Unfortunately, she said this in support of more funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (or would that be the National Endowment for the Inanities?). We the parents need to pull the iPod plug and set about singing and playing music in our own homes. We are responsible for teaching our children the joy of creating music. It is not the government's duty.

A woman held a BlackBerry over the crowd surrounding Linda Ronstadt to get a shot of the onetime queen of country rock. Someone else thrust an album insert and pen at Josh Groban. "Just one more photo, please," followed jazz musician Wynton Marsalis out of the room. The three musicians were among a group who appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill to speak in favor of increasing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to $200 million in the 2010 budget.

Linda Ronstadt's pop profile has been so low in recent years that some of her fans may have thought she had gone into semi-retirement. One of the biggest selling and most acclaimed singers of the '70s and '80s, Ronstadt has been noticeably absent from the pop charts, the mainstream concert stage and the media. But it has been no Garbo move.

It requires a fair amount of chutzpah for any singer to take on songs that have been definitively recorded by Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Art Garfunkel and James Taylor -- even if that singer happens to have written those songs. Fortunately, songwriter extraordinaire Jimmy Webb showed no deficit of nerve Wednesday night at Largo at the Coronet as he ran through nearly two hours' worth of some of the most elegantly crafted compositions of the last half-century.

RE Paul Zollo's letter to the editor [Feb. 16] on female singers who may not have been contemporary favorites in their eras but who have withstood the test of time (Holiday, Garland, Joplin and now Winehouse, apparently), I'd like to draw your readers' attention to a performer who suffers from the exact opposite problem: Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt was probably the most successful female singer of the mid- to late '70s but has now been relegated to some sort of pop cultural dustbin, despite her amazing accomplishments.