(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Linda Ronstadt wasn’t the kind of singer that was into the showmanship of rock and roll.
She knew that she could make any crowd move when she was playing a countrified version of rock and roll, but she knew there was a lot more she had to offer than simply playing the kind of Hank Williams tunes. The mainstream may have helped to push her in certain musical directions, but she would have been equally as happy singing tunes in bars for the rest of her life.
There are always going to be people that use the biggest clubs in the world as a stepping stone, but when looking at the biggest names that played clubs like the Troubadour, it felt like a home away from home. This was a place for everyone to fall in love with a song that would change their lives or give them an opportunity to form a band, but no matter how they were working, it was always going to be in service of the music rather than the massive paychecks.
When Ronstadt first started gaining steam, though, there was no question that she would be one of the breakout stars of the time. Her voice was bigger than anything else in Los Angeles at the time, and even if she had a complicated relationship with playing rock and roll music, one only needed to listen to ‘You’re No Good’ once to hear the kind of passion that she had in her voice.
But she never exactly identified as that kind of rough-and-tumble singer. That was reserved for the Janis Joplins of the world, and since Joni Mitchell had started making waves around the same time, the door was open for people like Ronstadt to bring a more downtempo vibe to the scene. And when listening to what Judy Collins was doing, she was convinced that she had found the person that she was always meant to be.
Although Collins was far from the most high-profile artist in town, Ronstadt knew she could be happy playing the kind of music she did, saying, “When I came to LA. in 1964, I kind of looked around and thought that maybe the kind of career Judy Collins had was perfect. She was quietly putting out things that seemed tasteful and sold respectably. That was the kind of career I wanted: a career where you earned a nice living, your records sold well, you had the respect of other musicians and did things in good taste.”
That was never in the cards for Ronstadt, but the fact that she got into the charts so early actually helped her branch out a bit more. Not everything that she made needed to be absolutely massive, but after years trying to make a name for herself, her idea of branching out on albums like What’s New and La Canciones de mi Padre wouldn’t have happened without going beyond what Collins had done.
Then again, having people like Collins in the LA rock scene was part of the charm at the time. Not all of them were meant to get famous, but once you start digging deeper into the scene, everyone from Leon Russell to Laura Nyro to JD Souther were classic examples of fantastic songwriters that didn’t exactly need the massive adulation to become the biggest names in music.
If anything, the fact that those artists made a name for themselves outside of the pop sphere should be a lesson to everyone that wants to make it big. Not every road to success means having the biggest album in the charts, and as long as there are people willing to write the best tunes they can, there will always be fans that are willing to hear them tell their story whenever they make a record.
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