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Pop Rock Nation

Category: People

all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music

  • Linda Ronstadt’s voice…

    Linda Ronstadt’s voice…

    I will never forget the first time I heard Linda Ronstadt’s voice for the first time…

    I was six years old and my sister, Becky, had just purchased Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 on vinyl. I remember being enchanted as I listened to Linda sing songs like “You’re No Good” and “Heat Wave”. Those two songs were probably my early favorites on that album, which I loved to listen to. When I was finally old enough to buy my own music, I purchased Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Volume 2 on two different CDs. I remember wearing those discs out, enthralled by Linda Ronstadt’s powerful yet tremulous soprano. As a singer myself, I would try to emulate her voice, which was majestic to my ears.

    Linda Ronstadt has had quite an amazing career. She got her start in folk, then moved on to country tinged rock. In 1971, she had the guys who would eventually form The Eagles as her backing band. She made memorable music with wild guitar man Waddy Wachtel. And she has never been afraid to experiment.

    I remember in the early 1980s, when Linda went from singing powerful rock and roll anthems to dabbling in big band music. She made three well-received albums with Nelson Riddle and won a whole new legion of fans. Of course, since I was still a kid in the early 80s, I didn’t appreciate Linda’s elegant foray into big band the way I might have if I had been older. In fact, I was kind of disappointed when I heard her start singing standards like “What’s New”. I missed her soul piercing wailing on songs like “Blue Bayou” and “When Will I Be Loved”. “What’s New” sounded like easy listening music to me…


    Linda Ronstadt sings “What’s New”.

    At age 41, I can now appreciate the lush beauty of Ronstadt’s big band hits. In fact, having performed some of these songs myself, I can understand why they appeal to so many. These are songs that will never truly go out of style and Linda’s voice has a sweet girlishness that helps keep them timeless.


    Linda Ronstadt sings “I’ve Got A Crush On You”.

    I have to confess that although Linda Ronstadt’s 1989 album Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind was a big hit, I was never really a fan of it. My sister, Betsy, gave me a copy of the album when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Armenia teaching English. I listened to the album a lot because I didn’t have that much music available to me, but it was a little too sedate for my tastes. Also, Aaron Neville, sang on it. I know a lot of people love Aaron Neville’s sensitive and nasal falsetto, but I never liked it that much. It’s only since I’ve gotten older that I’ve started to hear the beauty of Aaron Neville’s voice.

    Nevertheless, Linda and Aaron made some magic together and scored big in the adult contemporary genre with “All My Life” and “Don’t Know Much”. I remember making fun of “Don’t Know Much” quite a lot back in the day.

    I was really missing Linda Ronstadt’s huge rock voice, though, and would always go back to her earlier albums to hear that glorious voice belt out powerful, gut wrenching hits like “Hurt So Bad”. It’s hard to match the raw emotion of this cover and her voice takes on an other worldly quality that conjures up the searing pain of a breakup.


    “Hurt So Bad”

    And, of course, she made magic with Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou”. I much prefer her version to his.


    Linda Ronstadt in 1983, singing “Blue Bayou”.

    I was very sad the other day, when I read that Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson’s Disease and can no longer sing. The disease has affected the muscles that allow her to make music. Ronstadt, who was diagnosed eight months ago, says that no one with Parkinson’s Disease can sing. Because I am a singer myself, I felt particularly sad for Linda Ronstadt. I know how much joy I get from making music and how much it would devastate me if I couldn’t make music anymore.

    Next month, Ronstadt will release a new book about her life entitled Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. The book reportedly makes no mention of her Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis or the fact that she can’t sing anymore. I look forward to reading it, though, and hope that writing gives her an outlet for her formidable creative gifts.

  • Discovering Janis Ian

    I should probably be ashamed to be 41 years old and just now discovering Janis Ian…

    The song “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian is one of those songs that you’ll heard on an adult contemporary radio station from time to time. Or perhaps you’ll hear it in an informercial for a singer/songwriter music club. Seems to me that’s where I often caught snippets of old songs I had never been exposed to because of my age. Janis Ian’s plaintive song about growing up looking “weird” no doubt resonates with a lot of people, especially girls. I know if I had listened to this song as a teenager, it probably would have had a profound effect on me. I wasn’t particularly strange looking as a teen, but people thought I was odd. I was terminally dateless until I was 28 years old and I met my husband.


    Janis Ian sings “At Seventeen” live in 1976.

    Right before she sings in the above video, Janis Ian explains that she was “weird looking” as a teen and this song was born out of that experience. I can only imagine how teens of the mid 70s reacted to this song about the ultimate teen angst. How many young women sang along to this in the privacy of their bedrooms or while driving alone in their cars?

    I was inspired to listen to more of Janis Ian’s music after really listening to “At Seventeen” for the first time. Naturally, I discovered her song “Society’s Child”, which also demonstrated Ian’s remarkable ability to say so much with her song lyrics.


    Janis Ian sings “Society’s Child”

    “Society’s Child” is a song about interracial romance, which back in the 60s was very taboo. Janis Ian wrote it in 1965, when she was just 14. When it was released to the masses, a lot of radio stations refused to play it because it was too controversial Ian has said that she got a lot of hate mail for that song and one radio station in Atlanta that played it was actually burned down. It’s amazing to me that 1965 was just seven years before I was born and I grew up watching The Jeffersons and seeing Franklin Cover and Roxie Roker playing Tom and Helen Willis. As a child, I don’t think I realized how racially divided the world was… and still is. I recently read about a Cheerios commercial that got a lot of heat because it features a biracial couple and their child. This is still an issue even 48 years after Janis Ian wrote her song and yet Janis Ian was brave enough to bring up that subject in 1965.


    Really? This is controversial in 2013?

    I just purchased Janis Ian’s Grammy winning album Between The Lines and I feel pretty sure I will spend time getting to know it as intimately as I know other favorite albums by artists of Ian’s era. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade.


    Janis Ian sings the gorgeous ballad, “Tea and Sympathy”.

    Ian has done a lot with her talents, writing music, singing, being a columnist for the LGBT magazine The Advocate, and writing science fiction novels. She really seems like someone who has done a lot of good, using her gifts to make the world a better place. I’m delighted to meet her, even though it’s happening long after it should have.

  • LL Cool J tweets…

    LL Cool J tweets…

    LL Cool J tweets and makes Mormons all a-twitter…

    Hi folks. I am up to my eyeballs in boxes right now, but I figure I have time for a quick Pop Rock Nation post as I unpack all the stuff I should have thrown out years ago. Some of my readers know that my husband is a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have never been LDS, but my husband’s brief affiliation with the Mormon church has caused me to learn more about it. It’s not often that my interests in music collide with Mormon culture, although I have found that a lot of Mormons and former Mormons have really good taste in music.

    Anyway, this week I was very surprised to read a news article about rapper LL Cool J, otherwise known as James Todd Smith, and the Mormons. It seems that this week, LL Cool J tweeted “Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” Then he attributed the quote to former LDS president, Gordon B. Hinckley. Hinckley served as the Mormon church’s living prophet from 1995 until his death in 2008.

    It’s not that I don’t agree with Hinckley’s quote or LL Cool J’s decision to tweet it. It’s just that I went through a very brief LL Cool J phase back in the mid 1980s. I bought a copy of his 1987 album, Bigger and Deffer and remember the songs on it because I used to listen to it all the time. Let’s just say that I never would have guessed that LL Cool J would be interested in anything Mormon. Granted, I know that people change and I’ve seen evidence that LL Cool J is not quite the same guy he was back in the 80s and 90s when he rapped songs like…


    “I’m That Type of Guy”

    And


    “Kanday”

    And


    “Around The Way Girl”

    And


    “Mama Said Knock You Out”

    Wow… I haven’t heard these songs in ages and now I’m thinking it’s time to revisit them. I’m not a big rap fan, but I do like LL Cool J.

    LL Cool J definitely has a way with a groove and I hear he’s a decent actor, too. But none of the songs I’ve heard by him suggest that his work and Mormonism have anything in common. He is getting older, though, and maybe he’s becoming more conservative. LL Cool J has been around for a long time now, which means he must be doing something right. I’m sure hard work has a lot to do with his success, too. I gotta start paying more attention to Twitter. Sometimes it yields some fascinating insights into the lives of famous people.

    Anyway, back to unpacking. Have a great weekend, everybody!