OnScreen Review: 'Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice' - An Emotional Reflection
Melody Nicolette
In his autobiography Love Song, the late, great Julius Lester once wrote about things that we assume the existence of as just being canonical law, the presence of things like “air, water and McDonald's.” I would describe the presence of Linda Ronstadt in my life in this way.
I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t keenly aware that Linda Ronstadt existed. It was an amalgamation of little things, but each of these things established her existence in a way that permeated almost every fiber of my being. My mother had made a mixed tape of music for me before I was born that featured “Old Paint” from Simple Dreams as the closer. I remember very vividly being in love with the complex cover of the Lush Life LP (you know, the one with the “gimmick cover”). Ronstadt’s recordings of Mariachi music are some of the most beloved and treasured in any Mexican/ Mexican-American household.
She was always just there, and part of my life, omnipresencia. To this day, I have a deeply emotional relationship with her music.
A lot of artists cite Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as the definitive record that makes them want to be artists. Every last Linda Ronstadt record is what made me want to become an artist. She unapologetically did it all, and everything she touched was perfect and magical. There was something special about each of these records; they were all so different from one another, and never felt like they were churned out just to make money. She has always been about uncompromising vision, art, and consummate professionalism. She was opera, rock and roll, canciones, and the total embodiment of each one, and let me know, in her own quiet way, that this could also be me.
I know we throw around the word “special” too much these days, to the point where, like the word “awesome,” it’s lost its real meaning. Linda was and is special. There was no one like her, and there will never be anyone like her. There will never be anyone as talented. There will never be anyone as capable of commanding every piece of music that comes her way as she has.
They don’t play her very much on the radio anymore, for whatever reason, maybe because almost all of her songs were covers, but I cannot overstate what a global superstar and pioneer that she was. To date, she has over 60 singles (more than half of which were megahits) and 28 studio albums, not including the live albums, compilations, and other contributions. Countless award nominations and wins, and dominating the charts and the awards both in the 1970’s and 80’s, she was a tour de force. She was unstoppable. There was nothing she couldn't do. She had back to back multi-platinum records in different genres. She is known as a great, perhaps the very greatest, interpreter of songs. I don’t think it matters so much that she only wrote 3 songs in her entire career and that all her songs are covers; so many pop stars have entire careers built on someone writing songs for them or lying about songwriting credits.
In 2013, I was as devastated as everyone else to learn that Linda Ronstadt could no longer sing because of her progressive supranuclear palsy (Parkinson’s). It’s funny, in a way: she had a career that spanned multiple genres and over 4 decades, and we can still feel like we didn’t have enough of her voice. While she has had a marvelous attitude about it (“I’ve had a long turn at the trough!”), the rest of the world recognizes it as a great cosmic injustice. We cannot forget, however, that ultimately our biggest concern should be the discomfort and pain that her disease causes her. She, like Alan Alda, holds a very optimistic, but realistic, view of her condition.
Released in late 2019, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice was shown in theatres. It’s now available to stream and purchase on physical media as well. I happened to record it when CNN aired it on New Year’s. It featured candid footage, interviews with her peers and friends, including Bonnie Raitt (daughter of the late, great Broadway legend John Raitt), Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, and Peter Asher. Linda narrates the documentary off and on; she’s funny, warm and natural. It’s very touching to hear her in her own words, and how humble she is, even having been one of the biggest superstars in the world, while some of the world’s other biggest superstars have nothing but glowing accolades and the utmost respect for her.
The film is a fascinating look at an uncompromising career. She believed so strongly in her work and her artistic choices and still managed to doubt her own abilities. It’s a little heartbreaking to hear her be so hard on herself and her voice, while at the same time praising all those around her. She took very good care of the people in her life, including other women. Before feminism and activism were monetized and fashionable, she was taking care of other women in a male-dominated industry in a real and authentic way. She also didn’t shy away from her own faults and vices, such as diet pills or being rigid to the point of fault.
Another thing that cannot be overstressed, which was really well conveyed in the documentary, was how incredibly revolutionary Ronstadt’s career choices were. You know, some of us who grew up with Pirates of Penzance in heavy rotation on PBS, or Canciones de mi Padre as simply being there as part of life, like air, water and McDonald’s, may not be able to completely appreciate how hard-fought these choices were. Her two mariachi records are now hailed and celebrated, but there was considerable difficulty to get them out and considerable push back (mostly from non-Mexicans) in response to Canciones de mi Padre. Before it became the biggest selling non-English language album in American record history, spending 35 weeks on Billboard's albums chart, it was considered a folly. She was selling out arena tours, but she believed in the power of these traditional Mexican songs. She believed in her heritage and herself. She believed in us, Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
The documentary is largely a highlight reel. It’s more like a Disneyland dark ride attraction and less like the films they were based on, much less like a stretched out, bloated multi-episode Beatles Anthology-- and that’s perfectly fine. I wish it could have been longer and spent more time on certain areas, but there’s just so much ground to cover. The NPR piece accused it of not spending enough time on her playing in apartheid-era Sun City, but it both did and it didn’t. It didn’t spend enough time really on anything, because it’s only an hour and a half. It does include a television interview where she talks about openly condemning and disagreeing with the South African government, that if she played somewhere or didn’t because of governments and not for the people, she’d never be able to play in the United States, either. I don’t agree with her decision to play there, but also don’t agree that they didn’t spend enough time or avoided the subject--that’s just a very lazy assessment that doesn’t really hold up. Linda Ronstadt had complete creative input (and probably control over) ‘The Sound of My Voice,’ and chose to have the section from the interview included. I am honestly glad that it wasn’t omitted, especially when it would have been so easy to just include all the interviews where fellow artists are talking about how great she is. The accusation that the interviews were “mostly men” also doesn’t really hold up, either, especially considering that there are multiple lengthy discussions about how male-dominated the music industry was and how Rondadt’s presence made her so unique. (As a side note, NPR’s music “journalism” has been absolutely abysmal lately.)
Watching the archival footage of Linda Ronstadt’s performances, a lot of which you can find on YouTube now, makes me wonder what we did to ever deserve her. Now knowing that she cannot sing anymore, least of all to her own standards, makes me think that maybe we really didn’t. I have this theory that we always squander what we never deserve--to know that the whole world feels as though over 30 records and 4 decades wasn’t enough is really something, isn’t it? There were multiple points during the documentary where I was quietly, bitterly crying, knowing that this beautiful voice is now only a memory, and how this couldn’t have happened to a more talented, least-deserving person.
Oh, but what a memory, what a legacy that it is. There’s a Linda for every emotion. There’s a Linda for every seminal life moment. She’s talked about at length how her grandfather’s band was the one you hired for all life’s moments--from Las Serenatas to funerals. How magical, and how beautiful, that her own career would have such parallels.
Linda Ronstadt changed the world of music, in ways I think we’re only beginning to understand. Those of us who grew up with her mere existence simply being canonical law cannot quite fathom what a star she was before we were born. She pioneered an entirely new genre of music. She opened many doors for many people and didn’t kick the ladder out from under her as glass ceilings were being broken. She knew that she was a flawed human being, and never shied away from those flaws, and was very open and honest about them. She was, and is, nothing short of an icon.
There will always be only one Linda Ronstadt. We may never see an artist of that consummate caliber and singular talent ever again. I don’t even know in the hyper-commercialized and autotuned world if they’d ever let someone like her through again. She and her career existed in a time and place in the music industry and the world where that could have happened only then--almost like Camelot.
Only instead of Camelot, we had Blue Bayou.
Thank you, Linda. Muchas gracias.
Further Reading (In No Particular Order):
Inside Linda Ronstadt’s Heartbreaking battle with Parkinson’s Disease
South Africa Romance Linda Ronstadt: A life in pictures Linda Ronstadt on the rare brain condition that ended her singing career Linda Ronstadt Helps CNN Carry a Different Kind of Tune
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice | Official Trailer Linda Ronstadt profile on The Range Planet Linda Ronstadt Has Found Another Voice
The 10 Best Linda Ronstadt Songs, Ranked
CNN documentary explores Linda Ronstadt’s life, music career Linda Ronstadt's biggest gamble (in re: mariachi canciones)
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Melody Nicolette is a coloratura operatic soprano, film composer, recording artist, freelance writer and illustrator, and moralist killjoy, who can be found wherever ‘@’ is a thing @lebasfondmusic.