(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Whenever an artist retires from music, it’s bound to take either a big check or the right idea to bring them back into the fold. The biggest names in the industry are more than within their right to close up shop when they’ve had enough, but Linda Ronstadt was never one to back down from a challenge, either.
Because throughout her entire career, Ronstadt practically holds a record for dominating multiple genres at once. She was by no means the David Bowie of her generation by any stretch, but the fact that she could pull off country-rock, Broadway shows, American standards, and Spanish music and have each of them sound perfect is the kind of strength most singers simply don’t have. But once she reached the end of the 1990s, she seemed content to settle down for a little bit.
She had a stunning return to country-rock on Feels Like Home, but listening to her personal life, it was clear that she wanted to take a step back from music for a little while. She never wanted to go out on tour after becoming a mother, and even if she could pop into the studio every now and again with people like Emmylou Harris, albums like Dedicated to the One I Love felt more like passion projects for her, usually performing rock standards as gentle lullabies.
So if she had a baby at home, it’s not like she was itching to get into an experimental mood all over again. Everyone had seen the kind of legendary singer that she could be under the right circumstances, but since her voice was a mainstay in the world of rock at large, it wasn’t long before she started getting calls from some artists that were a bit alien to her normal approach to music.
Because if there was one genre that Ronstadt was never used to, it was avant-garde music. She already had a hard enough time getting settled into the heavier songs that she sang with her band, but when Phillip Glass asked her to perform on his record, she was more than happy to give it a shot. Once the song started to gain some traction, though, Ronstadt was mortified over the idea of singing the track live.
The stage had become one of her worst enemies at the time, but Glass eventually was able to coax her to face the audience once again, saying, “When Philip Glass once asked me to come and sing music I’d recorded on his record, I said: ‘God, I hate performing. I especially hate to go into another genre without the chance to really practice. I’ll just die of fright.’ And he said: ‘Look at it this way. It’s not your show. You’re not the most important one, so you don’t have to be afraid.’ So I said O.K., and I did, and it worked.”
And while the idea of one of the biggest names in country music working with Glass makes about as much sense as Kendrick Lamar hopping on a Slayer tune, it goes over surprisingly well. Whenever Ronstadt wanted to, she could make her voice sound incredibly emotional, and while the other effects weren’t typical of her concert, she tends to become another instrument for Glass to work with during their live performances.
If anything, this was also a way for Ronstadt to prove something about herself as well. People usually had a clear idea of the kind of artist she always was, but listening to her sing with Glass was yet another way for her to prove something to her fans. She could deliver the goods when she wanted, but she also refused to be pigeonholed.
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