Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a singer from Tucson, Arizona, who has recorded rock, pop, country, and Mexican folk music. As a child in Tucson, she heard Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs on the radio and later compared the three-part harmony of Mexican mountain music to bluegrass. She joined the folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys, which released its debut album, The Stone Poneys, in 1967. Her album Heart Like a Wheel (1974) reached number one on the Billboard 200, and her version of "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" from it won her first Grammy Award. Around 1974 or 1975, while snowed in at John Starling's house, she learned bluegrass harmony from Ricky Skaggs. She sang backup on early recordings by the Seldom Scene and performed live with members of Country Gazette. Her 1987 album Canciones de Mi Padre, a collection of Mexican songs, won a Grammy. That same year she, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris released Trio, which won the Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Trio II (1999) won a Grammy for "After the Gold Rush." She has won eleven Grammy Awards in all, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. She retired from singing in 2011 because of illness. One of her last studio recordings was a duet with Laurie Lewis on Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard's "Pretty Bird," released on her compilation Duets and on Lewis's The Hazel and Alice Sessions. She published her memoir, Simple Dreams, in 2013. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and received the National Medal of Arts that year. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2019.
In the newsletter
- No. 3 April-June 1995