Linda Ronstadt - The Best of Linda Ronstadt: The Capitol Years (Capitol)

by
16 February 2006

Four or five years ago, I was working for one of them Internet companies during the dot-com boom. Some employees at this company had formed a band and they’d sometimes play at the occasional company party. Me and my co-workers would always try to guess which cheesy bar-band cover or Top 40 hit would come up next during their sets (“Will it be “Sweet Home Alabama” or maybe that TOAD THE WET SPROCKET song?”)

One day, my friend Sarah and I got to talking about how much we hated the idea that our company’s musical identity was represented by this rather lame band. We didn’t really have all that much love for the company itself, so we got the idea of forming another company band but making it intentionally ridiculous instead of haplessly mediocre. Somehow we came to the decision to start a LINDA RONSTADT tribute band. Thank God for irony, or else we wouldn’t have been able to recruit a rhythm section.

We rehearsed for months and finally secured a gig. About half the company showed up to this tiny bar in Brooklyn where we staged our coup and usurped the title of company band. Unfortunately, most of the group had already received notice of their impending lay-offs, so the victory wasn’t all that sweet. I think the singer in the other band worked in HR so perhaps she got the last laugh.

For the record, Ronstadt was once worthy of being more than an ironic punchline. There’s a new CD out with the rather misleading title The Best of Linda Ronstadt: The Capitol Years. The double disc set contains Ronstadt’s first three solo records after leaving THE STONE PONEYS and her breakthrough 1974 album, Heart Like a Wheel. Whatever space is left is crammed with bonus tracks. It’s a great set tracing Ronstadt’s early career from folk singer to country rock superstar showcasing the impeccable taste in material that along with her awesome pipes made her such a success in the 1970s.

1969’s Hand Sown… Home Grown and it’s follow up Silk Purse show Ronstadt exploring country music and devising the formula that would finally take hold on her self-titled third album. Producer JOHN BOYLAN can be credited with putting Ronstadt in front of the band that would eventually become THE EAGLES and the combo’s strong pop sensibility took the burgeoning LA country rock scene into the mainstream. Her progression was so swift that the absence of her third album Don’t Cry Now from this package (in order to move to Asylum in 1973, Ronstadt had to promise her fourth record to Capitol) makes the jump to the glossy Heart Like a Wheel rather jarring.

Regardless, Heart Like a Wheel remains a high water mark of ‘70s pop and I’d enjoy hearing this record even if it were tacked onto an AMON DUUL II reissue. Songs by the likes of HANK WILLIAMS and the EVERLY BROTHERS sit snugly next to songs by contemporary writers such as J.D. SOUTHER and LOWELL GEORGE while PETER ASHER’s production adds a nice radio-ready polish to lonely boy ANDREW GOLD’s arrangements. Just having a nicely remastered edition of this album justifies this set.

Filed under country rock pop