Linda Ronstadt on early music and listening to the radio / Linda Ronstadt - 1977-10-03 - Los Angeles| so many roads

My sister was in love with Hank Williams when I was six and she was twelve. She had it so bad she would just moon over him continually, and we shared a room and I loved him too. I got him by osmosis. I was a radio freak when I was three. We lived so far away from town there was nothing to do except listen to the radio. It was 115 degrees outside and we didn't have much air conditioning. We had a cement floor in the living room and it was sort of cool and I remember I would spend all day with nothing on, lying on the floor with my head pressed up against the radio. I loved rock-and-roll, when that came along, just loved it.

 

I use every root form I can get my hands on or every one I can understand. Some root music is less accessible to me than others. Jazz is not very accessible to me, although there is some that I love and will listen to. Classical music obviously is not accessible to me to use much because it is technically out of bounds, but I listen to an enormous amount of classical music. The simpler root forms are available, like country and blues and gospel and Mexican music, expecially. And the ones I tend to draw on most heavily are the ones I heard and learned and sang from the earliest time, country music and Mexican music and rock-and-roll.” 

~ Linda Ronstadt - 1976

“Lying on the floor with nothing on, listening to the radio"!?  

Now I’m going to have to go and cool down!

Phew is it hot in here! 

 SO . . . . . 

Linda Ronstadt - 1977-10-03 - Los Angeles, CA (Ex Aud) 

Linda Ronstadt

1977-10-03

Universal Amphitheater

Los Angeles, CA

01. Lose Again

02. That’ll Be The Day

03. Blue Bayou

04. Silver Threads & Golden Needles

05. Willin’

06. Faithless Love

07. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

08. When Will I Be Loved

09. Crazy

10. Poor Poor Pitiful Me

11. Desperado

12. Love Me Tender

13. Simple Man Simple Dream

14. Love Is A Rose 

15. Someone To Lay Down Beside Me

16. Tumbling Dice

17. You’re No Good

18. Heart Like A Wheel

19. Heatwave

1970s - #1: For Linda Ronstadt, the year 1977 began by being featured on the cover of Time Magazine on February 28. For any rock artist to make the cover of Time was a major event, for a woman to do it was historic. She ended the year still on top of the rock world, with the release of the album Simple Dreams. The disc spent 5 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. Two singles from the album, Blue Bayou at #2 and It's So Easy at #5, were both in the Billboard Top 5 at the same time, making Ronstadt the first female artist to accomplish that feat. The album also included Poor Poor Pitiful Me, written by Warren Zevon, and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ Tumbling Dice. Simple Dreams was Ronstadt's fifth consecutive Platinum album, selling over 3½ million copies in less than a year in the United States alone. This excellent audience recording from legendary taper Mike Millard captures Ronstadt on tour in support of Simple Dreams on October 3, 1977, 47 years ago today, in Los Angeles, one of 12 sold out nights in the City of Angels.