Music

The Eagles Take It Easy – And Not So Easy

In 1972 I bought the Eagles’ first album titled simply Eagles, and when I put it on my turntable, that first chord of Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey’s “Take It Easy” exploded into my brain, turning into a driving rhythm guitar opening before it segued into a song about a guy “standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona” hitching a ride with a “girl. my lord, in a flatbed Ford”. I was hooked in the first thirty seconds by a sound unlike any music I’d heard before. Other bands and singers had played something people called “country rock” before, including the Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, and the Dillards, but the Eagles were a lightning bolt out of the blue.

Well I'm a runnin' down the road

Tryin' to loosen my load

I've got seven women on my mind

Four that wanna own me

Two that wanna stone me

One says she's a friend of mine

Take it easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels

Drive you crazy

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand

And take it easy

Well, I'm a standin' on a corner

In Winslow, Arizona

Such a fine sight to see

It's a girl my Lord in a flat-bed Ford

Slowin' down to take a look at me

Anchored by a solid rhythm guitar by Glenn Frey and drums by Don Henley, embellished with electric guitar and banjo by Bernie Leadon, it was fast-paced and laid back at the same time, rock and roll but with a definite country flavor. That would be a good description of a couple other songs on the album also, but the next song, “Witchy Woman”, dramatically shifted gears into something entirely different, a voodoo rock song with a theme like Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” but with a different sound and rhythm.

Raven hair and ruby lips

Sparks fly from her finger tips

Echoed voices in the night

She's a restless spirit on an endless flight

Woo hoo, witchy woman

See how high she flies

Woo hoo, witchy woman

She got the moon in her eyes

She held me spellbound in the night

Dancing shadows and firelight

Crazy laughter in another room

And she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon

Well, I know you want to love her

Let me tell your brother

She's been sleeping

In the devil's bed

It’s an uneven album with a couple forgettable songs, but Gene Clark and Bernie Leadon’s “Train Leaves Here This Morning” is a really nice ballad that’s a slow version of the country rock sound of “Take It Easy” with a soothing rhythm guitar that’s such a nice trait of so many Eagles songs, backed by laid back electric and acoustic guitar picking and beautiful harmony singing.

I lost ten points just for being in the right place

At exactly the wrong time

I looked right at the facts there, but I may as well

Have been completely blind

So, if you see me walking all alone

Don't look back, I'm just on my way back home

And there's a train leaves here this morning

I don't know, what I might be on

“Peaceful Easy Feeling” is another song in the same vein with a little more pace and a more upbeat theme. It’s such a pleasure to just let the rhythm of the acoustic guitar strumming, I think by Glenn Frey, carry you away with a tasty and mellow electric guitar fill toward the end by Leadon. I don’t know any band or musician that plays rhythm guitar so seductively, except maybe Steve Goodman.

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,

Against your skin, it's so brown.

And I wanna sleep with you in the desert night

With a billion stars all around.

'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,

And I know you won't let me down

'Cause I'm already standing on the ground.

And I found out a long time ago

What a woman can do to your soul.

Oh, but she can't take you anyway,

You don't already know how to go.

The other highlight of the album is “Earlybird”, which is pretty much unclassifiable. It’s driven mainly by banjo and drumming by Henley, with some edgy electric guitar toward the end, plus something that sounds like a sort of frantic, high-pitched birdsong all the way through. It draws a contrast between the hectic money-driven world of Los Angeles and a more relaxed way of life.

Early in the morning

About the break of day

The earlybird is workin’

So his life don't fade away

He spends his life denyin’ that

He's got no time for flyin’

In the breeze

High up on his own, the eagle flies alone

He is free

The earlybird is scratchin’ though

The going's gettin’ tough

Time is passing by him and he just

Can't get enough

He'll tell you all is going well

You know that something’s wrong

The earlybird will wake one day

To find his life is gone . . .

You know i like to lay in bed

And sleep out in the sun

Reading books and playing crazy music

Just for fun

You know it makes feel so fine

And puts my mind at ease

To know that i don't harm a soul

In doing what I please

Their second album, Desperado, was a true concept album loosely based on the history of the Doolin-Dalton gang in the 1890s in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. It produced the hits “Desperado” and “Tequila Sunrise”. The gang was called the Wild Bunch (no relation to the movie), and according to Wikipedia none were ever hanged, but all were hunted down and shot to death in the 1890s except for one member who was finally killed in 1924. I can’t find any mention of Bill Dalton having anything to do with the law, so I don’t know where the line ”Lay down your law books” comes from.

They were duelin', Doolin-Dalton

High or low, it was the same

Easy money and faithless women

Red-eye whiskey for the pain

Go down, Bill Dalton, it must be God's will,

Two brothers lyin' dead in Coffeyville

Two voices call to you from where they stood

Lay down your law books now

They're no damn good

Better keep on movin', Doolin-Dalton

'Til your shadow sets you free

If you're fast, and if you're lucky

You will never see that hangin' tree

The standout song on the album is “Desperado”, a popular song for the Eagles and a bigger hit for Linda Ronstadt. It’s sung by Henley accompanied by a simple piano at first, with strings and simple a drumbeat coming in on the second verse.

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin’ fences for so long now

Oh you're a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy

She'll beat you if she's able

The queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can't get

Desperado, oh you ain't getting’ no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin’ you home

And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin’

Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone

The last line is the core of, and the best line of, the song. It ends with a gentle piano fadeout. “Twenty-One” is a fast banjo and guitar tune about a budding young gunslinger – “I’m young and fast as I can be.” It’s followed by a 48-second lickety-split banjo instrumental and an ominous “Outlaw Man” with a blistering electric guitar and relentless drumbeat. “Woman don’t try to love me/Don’t try to understand/A life upon the road is the life of an outlaw man”.

My favorite song on the album is “Saturday Night,” a waltz accompanied by mandolin and sung by Glenn Frey.

Seems like a dream now, it was so long ago

The moon burned so bright and the time went so slow

And I swore that I loved her and gave her a ring

The bluebird was high on the wing

Whatever happened to Saturday night

Finding a sweetheart and holding her tight?

She said, "Tell me, oh, tell me, was I alright?

Whatever happened to Saturday night?"

The years brought the railroad, it ran by my door

Now there's boards on the windows and dust on the floor

And she passes the time at another man's side

And I pass the time with my pride

What a tangled web we weave

Go 'round with circumstance

Someone show me how to tell the dancer

From the dance

What ever happened to Saturday night?

Choosin' a friend and losin' a fight

She said, "Tell me, oh, tell me, are you alright?

Whatever happened to Saturday night?

I love the lines “Someone show me how to tell/The dancer from the dance.” There’s a lot of fine poetry in Eagles’ songs. They had a hit with “Tequila Sunrise,” a lament about an unfaithful lover with a nice melody and a characteristic rhythm guitar so smooth it gets under your skin.

It's another tequila sunrise

Starin' slowly 'cross the sky

Said goodbye

He was just a hired hand

Workin' on the dreams he planned to try

The days go by

Every night when the sun goes down

Just another lonely boy in town

And she's out runnin' 'round

On the moody side there’s “Bitter Creek” – “Son don’t wade too deep – in Bitter Creek.” There’s no romanticizing the outlaw on this album, unlike Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” or Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding”. The album ends with “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)”, their fictional description of a shootout between the Doolin-Dalton Gang and lawmen in the middle of town with “All you bloodthirsty bystanders/Try to find your seats” and additional lyrics with memorable poetry. ’’It stole your dreams and paid you with regret’’ is a great line.

Go down Bill Doolin, don’t you wonder why

Sooner or later we all have to die

Sooner or later, that’s a stone cold fact

Four men ride out and only three ride back . . .

The queen of diamonds let you down

She was just an empty fable

The queen of hearts you say you’ve never met

Your twisted fate has found you out

And it’s finally turned the tables

It stole your dreams and paid you with regret

Desperado, is there gonna be anything left . . .

Ain’t it hard when you’re all alone in the center ring

Their third album, On the Border, is chock full of consistently good songs. It kicks off with “Already Gone,” a fast rocker accompanied by a blistering electric guitar from new member Don Felder, added for two songs because they wanted more of a “hard rock sound”. It’s followed by the superb “You Never Cry Like a Lover” by John David Souther and Don Henley.

You never cry like a lover should

Sigh when it feels real good

Or see the sky through the stone and wood

You never cry like a lover

I thought I saw somebody I loved

Sleeping deep inside you

If I could catch you in an unguarded moment

I'd stay right here beside you

I was hopin’ you were the one . . .

You never move like you used to do

Pour it out when you're feelin' blue

Somebody must have put some pain on you

You never cry like a lover

(You never cry like a lover)

“Midnight Flyer”, by Paul Craft, is a high-speed electric guitar-and banjo-driven song that’s exhilarating to listen to, with Randy Meisner on an excellent vocal. The guitar is great, especially on the fadeout, and I love the banjo playing by Leadon.

Ooohh, Midnight Flyer,

engineer, won't you let your whistle moan.

Ooohh, Midnight Flyer,

I paid my dues and I feel like travelin' on.

A runaway team of horses ain't enough to make me stay,

so throw your rope on another man and pull him down your way.

Make him into someone to take the place of me,

make him every kind of fool you wanted me to be.

“My Man” by Bernie Leadon, is my favorite song on the album, a touching and deeply felt quiet tribute to Gram Parsons, the driving force behind the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and the famed Flying Burrito Brothers. He made two stellar solo albums before he died in the desert from an overdose of alcohol and morphine at the Joshua Tree Inn. He drank six double tequilas after two friends declined to drink tequila with him, then persuaded an unknown woman to shoot him up with morphine. He was an out-of-control addict-alcoholic but had been moderating his alcohol and opiate use while recording his last album, Grievous Angel. It was a sad end to an almost mythic figure in the meld between country music and rock influences. “My Man” references “Hickory Wind,” Parsons’ most iconic song.

Tell me the truth, how do you feel?

Like you're rollin' so fast that you're spinnin' your wheels.

Don't feel too bad, you're not all alone,

we're all tryin' to get along.

With everybody else tryin' to go their way

You're bound to get tripped and what can you say?

Just go along till they turn out the lights,

There's nothing we can do to fight it.

No man's got it made till he's far beyond the pain

And we who must remain go on living just the same.

I once knew a man, very talented guy.

He'd sing for the people and people would cry.

They knew that his song came from deep down inside,

You could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes.

And so he traveled alone,

Touch your heart, then be gone.

Like a flower he bloomed till that old

Hickory wind called him home . . .

We who must remain go on laughing just the same.

It's a beautiful song with a melancholy but lovely melody accompanied by simple acoustic rhythm guitar and a superbly restrained steel guitar by Leadon along with his gorgeous vocal. It’s a song in the time-honored life-as-pain tradition. "My Man” and Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55” are a large part of why I like On the Border so much. Waits’ song is a spiritual uplift, describing how he feels driving home in the early morning after a night with the woman he loves. It’s driven by Frey’s excellent piano and embellished by a wonderful steel guitar by the Burritos’ Al Perkins, played like a different instrument than on traditional Nashville country music, like Sneaky Pete and Buddy Emmons on Linda Ronstadt’s early albums and Leadon on “My Man.”

Well, my time went too quickly

I went lickety-splitly out to my old fifty-five

As I pulled away slowly, feelin' so holy,

God knows I was feelin' alive

And now the sun's comin' up

I'm ridin' with Lady Luck

Freeway cars and trucks

Stars beginning to fade, and I lead the parade

Just a wishin' I'd stayed a little longer

Lord, don't you know the feelin's gettin' stronger

Six in the morning, gave me no warnin'

I had to be on my way

Now the cars are all passin' me,

Trucks are all flashin' me

I'm headed home from your place

“James Dean” is a breakneck rock and roll tribute to the iconic actor with a fantastic guitar by Leadon and a relentless drumbeat by Henley, plus accelerating sports car sound effects.

James Dean, James Dean

I know just what you mean

James Dean, you said it all so clean

And I know my life would look all right

If I could see it on the silver screen

You were a low-down rebel if there ever was

Even if you had no cause

James Dean, you said it all so clean

And I know my life would look all right

If I could see it on the silver screen

Well, talk about a low-down bad refrigerator

You were just too cool for school

Sock hop, soda pop, basketball and auto shop

The only thing that got you off was breakin' all the rules . . .

You were too fast to live, too young to die, bye bye

You were too fast to live, too young to die, bye bye. Bye bye.

“Is It True?” is Randy Meisner’s best song, accompanied by an aching electric slide guitar by Glenn Frey. It’s a reverse of “Already Gone” where the woman leaves the man.

How come you love him when he

Takes you for a fool

He's only lookin' for a good time

How can he love you when he

Treats you mean and cruel

He's not the best thing that you could find

Is it true?

I can't believe it

Is it true?

I just can't see it

Is it true?

Is that you?

When we were young, we didn't really have a care

You were hung up, I had a good line

I never knew it then but, man, I was in love

How could I know it was the right time?

Is it true?

You've lost that feelin'?

Is is true?

You might be leavin'?

Is it true?

Don't wanna find out

On the Border ends with Henley-Frey’s "The Best of My Love", a medium-tempo ballad with the characteristic rhythm acoustic guitar and light-touch pedal steel by Bernie Leadon.

Every night I'm lyin' in bed

Holdin' you close in my dreams

Thinkin' about all the things that we said

And comin' apart at the seams

We try to talk it over

But the words come out too rough

I know you were tryin'

to give me the best of your love

Beautiful faces and loud, empty places

Look at the way that we live

Wastin' our time on cheap talk and wine

Left us so little to give

That same old crowd

Was like a cold dark cloud

That we could never rise above

But here in my heart I give you the best of my love

Oh sweet darlin' you get the best of my love . . .

You see it your way

And I see it mine

But we both see it slippin' away

Their next album was One of These Nights, with the title song, an infectious rocker that leads off the album with Henley singing lead but what sounds like at least two other voices singing harmony with one in falsetto, reminiscent of the Byrds and Crosby, stills, and Nash.

Oh, someone to be kind to

In between the dark and the light

Oh, comin’ right behind you

Swear I'm gonna find you

One of these nights . . .

I've been searchin’ for the daughter

Of the devil himself

I've been searchin’ for an angel in white

I've been waitin’ for a woman who's a little

Of both

And I can feel her but she's nowhere

In sight

“Hollywood Waltz” is a lovely song about a woman who’s got the short end of the stick in relationships. It’s a slow ballad with a wonderful melody sung tenderly by Henley with a beautiful falsetto harmony on the last verse. Bernie Leadon plays steel guitar and mandolin, and harmonium by Frey and synthesizer by Ahlby Galuten give it an almost orchestral sound without strings. It repeatedly drops four times in pitch in a way that gives it a compassionate tenderness, one of the emotional highlights of the album.

She looks another year older,

From too many lovers who used her and ran

But some nights, oh, she looks like an angel

And she's always willing to hold you again

So give her this dance,

She can't be forsaken

Learn how to love her with all of her faults

She gave more than she's taken,

Now go down doing the Hollywood Waltz

Springtime and the lady is grieving

The lovers just stand there with nothing to say

They got what they wanted,

They're packing and leaving

To look for another to love the same way

So give her this dance,

She can't be forsaken

Learn how to love her

With all of her faults

She gave more than she's taken

Now go down doing the Hollywood Waltz

The highlight of the album is the megahit “Lyin’ Eyes”, with the classic Eagles irresistible rhythm guitar and a melodic electric guitar by Leadon. It’s about a woman who’s compromised her life by marrying a “rich old man with hands as cold as ice” but steals away to see “a boy she knew in school”. Music by rock musicians rarely portrays women in a very favorably light, though this has an air of sympathy for her situation. The song bathes your ears with a melody and rhythm that are enormously seductive – it’s sad but still just a pleasure to listen to, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. And over six minutes it tells a story almost novelistic about a woman who had the capacity to have chosen differently.

. . . Late at night a big old house gets lonely

I guess every port of refuge has its price

And it breaks her heart to think her love is only

Given to a man with hands as cold as ice

So she tells him she must go out for the evening

To comfort an old friend who's feelin' down

But he knows where she's goin' as she's leavin'

She is headed for the cheatin' side of town

You can't hide your lyin' eyes

And your smile is a thin disguise

I thought by now you'd realize

There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes . . .

She gets up and pours herself a strong one

And stares out at the stars up in the sky

Another night, it's gonna be a long one

She draws the shade and hangs her head and cries

She wonders how it ever got this crazy

She thinks about a boy she knew in school

Did she get tired or did she just get lazy?

She's so far gone she feels just like a fool

My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things

You set it up so well, so carefully

Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things

You're still the same old girl you used to be . . .

It's followed by another good Randy Meisner song, “Take It to the Limit,” cowritten with Henley and Frey but sung by Meisner with Henley and Frey on harmony. Someone adds falsetto, probably Meisner overdubbing, and Jim Ed Norman plays piano, with added strings. “You can spend all your time makin’ money/You can spend all your love makin’ time” are lines worthy of country music songwriters.

All alone at the end of the evening

When the bright lights have faded to blue

I was thinking 'bout a woman who might have

Loved me and I never knew

. . .You can spend all your time making money

You can spend all your love making time

If it all fell to pieces tomorrow

Would you still be mine?

And when you're looking for your freedom

(Nobody seems to care)

And you can't find the door

(Can't find it anywhere)

When there's nothing to believe in

Still you're coming back, you're running back

You're coming back for more

So put me on a highway

And show me a sign

And take it to the limit one more time

Take it to the limit

Take it to the limit one more time (Repeat . . . )

“After the Thrill Is Gone” is a Henley-Frey ballad with the perceptive line “You’re not quite lovers/And you’re not quite friends/After the thrill is gone”.

Hotel California is an uneven album with several hit songs, among them some of their best, including the title song, which is the pinnacle of their songwriting. Apparently it’s stimulated much speculation about its meaning ever since. I just recently read an online item claiming to reveal the true meaning of the song, but I wasn’t any clearer about it after reading than I was before. The lines that always stuck in my mind were “You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave”, which sound like Rod Serling on an episode of Twilight Zone. What the article seemed to be saying is that once someone gets involved in the music/movie/Hollywood arenas around Los Angeles, the money-fame trap is so seductive they can never, or rarely, pry themselves loose from it – and yet some have, like Paul Newman. Others never got sucked in.

“Check out” is a term for stepping away from reality with alcohol or drugs or any other distraction. But the song retains an aura of mystery. Don Henley, who sings the song, said “It's our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles. It's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about.” I always felt like it was about the decadence of Los Angeles. If Raymond Chandler had still been alive he could have written a great Phillip Marlowe novel out of it. I’ll print the full lyrics here as written in the liner notes – it’s a masterpiece of writing, and I don’t know what to leave out.

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair

Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim

I had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway

I heard the mission bell

And I was thinking to myself

"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell"

Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

There were voices down the corridor

I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year (Any time of year)

You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends

She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain

"Please bring me my wine."

He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since

Nineteen sixty nine."

And still those voices are calling from far away,

Wake you up in the middle of the night

Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

They livin' it up at the Hotel California

What a nice surprise (What a nice surprise)

Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling

The pink champagne on ice

And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"

And in the master's chambers

They gathered for the feast

They stab it with their steely knives

But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember,

I was running for the door . . .

"Relax," said the night man

"We are programmed to receive

You can check-out any time you like,

But you can never leave!"

Along with an insistent, heavy drumbeat, there are two guitars that accompany the song in different places – first a mellow electric guitar that drops in pitch several times in each verse for most of the song, underscoring the ominous mood of the tune. It ends with a hard rock solo that repeats its theme at the end in successively lower pitch. The music itself matches the power of the lyrics to create a masterpiece of a song. What “the beast” might be is an uneasy mystery.

“Wasted Time” is also sung by Henley, chronicling the failure of a relationship but coming ultimately to a wise and hopeful conclusion, that experience is never really wasted.

Well baby, there you stand

With your little head down in your hands

Oh, my God, you can’t believe

It’s happening again

Your baby’s gone, and your all alone

And it looks like the end . . .

You don’t care much for a stranger’s touch

But you can’t hold your man

You never thought you’d be alone

This far down the line

And I know what’s been on your mind

You’re afraid it’s all been wasted time

The autumn leaves have got you thinking

About the first time that you fell

You didn’t love the boy too much

No, you just loved the boy too well

So you live from day to day . . .

And I could have done so many things, baby

If I could only stop my mind

From wondering what I left behind

And from worrying about this wasted time . . .

So you can get on with your search, baby

And I can get on with mine

And maybe someday we will find

That it wasn’t really wasted time

The other great song is “The Last Resort,” again sung by Henley, turning Joni Mitchell’s “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot” into a history of western migration that ultimately ends in California. It’s an excellent lyric, but the song’s heavy piano backing and strings spoil it. A live version would be good to hear. I love the poetry in the first and fourth stanzas.

She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island

Where the Old World shadows hang heavy in the air

She packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee

Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place, people were smilin’

They spoke about the red man’s way,

How they loved the land

They came from everywhere to the Great Divide

Seeking a place to stand or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars, out for a good time

Can’t wait to tell you all what it’s like up there

They called it Paradise, I don’t know why

Somebody laid the mountains low

While the town got high . . .

Who will provide the grand design,

What is yours and what is mine?

There is no more New Frontier

We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs

And justify our bloody deeds

In the name of destiny, and in the name of God

And you can see them there on Sunday morning

Stand up and sing about what it’s like up there

They called it Paradise, I don’t know why

Call some place Paradise, kiss it goodbye

For me, the Eagles defined what the meld of country and rock could be at its best in these five albums. After the sixth album, The Long Run, they broke up and devolved into solo work, though Frey claimed they never broke up but just took a “14-year hiatus”. They reunited in the 90s for a double album, Hell Freezes Over, which was a commercial success but didn’t inspire me. Ultimately they left a legacy of five great albums that defined a new genre of music.

Brett Nelson

Linda Ronstadt – Rock Me on the Water

In writing this article I realized that Linda Ronstadt has arguably recorded the most wide-ranging and accomplished body of popular (in the broadest sense – as opposed to classical) music of any singer I know of in the last 100 years. I’ve listened to her about as much as Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Steve Goodman, and Leonard Cohen. In my book that’s the company she belongs with. I tried to start writing about her many months ago but seemed to have some kind of writer’s block and couldn’t get started. This article, long enough as it is, will focus mainly on four early albums, since listening to and covering her all her recordings would require a small book.

My first exposure to Ronstadt was I think at 22 watching the Johnny Carson Show, in 1969. I don’t think I’d even heard her name at that point. but I’m sure I’d heard the Stone Poneys’ hit “Different Drum” on the radio. As I recall she was this dark-haired, down-to-earth woman with an engaging personality who answered questions very frankly and had a sense of humor. I think she was promoting her first solo album titled Silk Purse that portrayed her on the cover looking like Daisy Mae sitting in a pigpen keeping company with two large white pigs, which is funny because she wasn’t exactly a farm girl. I’m sure she sang her hit song of the time, “Long, Long, Time,” and I remember being impressed with her vocal power emotional depth.

‘Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time

I didn’t buy the album at the time, but a couple years later I spotted her self-titled album Linda Ronstadt in a record bin and saw her dark wide-open eyes staring out with a piercing look. The sepia-toned cover shows a closeup face shot with piercingly direct eyes, as if she’s seeing into your soul, not aggressive or judging, but as if you have her complete attention. I took it home and opened it to find songs by Jackson Browne, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Woody Guthrie/ Leadbelly, Eric Kaz, and Eric Anderson. “Rock Me on the Water” was a heartfelt anthem of someone searching for comfort.

Oh, people look around you

The signs are everywhere

You left it for somebody other than you

To be the one to care

You're lost inside your houses

There's no time to find you now

Oh, your walls are burnin’

And your towers are turnin’

I've gotta leave you here

And try to get down to the sea somehow

Rock me on the water

Sister, won't you soothe my fevered brow

Oo-oh-oh, rock me on the water

Gotta get down to the sea somehow

The road is filled with homeless souls

Every woman child and man

Who have no idea where they will go

But they'll help you if they can

Now everyone must have some thought

That's gonna pull them through somehow

Oh, the fires are raging hotter and hotter

But the sisters of the sun

Are gonna rock me on the water now

It's accompanied by a guitarist and a drummer named Glenn Frey and Don Henley who would soon start a band called the Eagles, plus the famed Sneaky Pete Kleinow on a sensitive steel guitar. Ronstadt’s powerful voice and expressive singing captured me from the first song. Christopher Loudon of Jazz Times wrote in 2004 that Ronstadt is "blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation."

“I Won’t Be Hangin’ Round” is a blues, with a nice restrained electric guitar by someone named Tippy Armstrong and backup singers, recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL. You feel her sadness but also her determination to make her own way.

I won't be hangin’ round your door

Beggin’, beggin’

No I won't be hangin’ round

To feel the pain

And if you take my life in hand

Try and make me understand

It won't do no good

You'll just hurt my plan

And I won't be hangin. round your door

Beggin’, beggin’

No I won't be hangin’ rond

To feel the pain

Sometimes I think I can't go on

And every day I live

Well it seems like my life's unreal

Sometimes I think

I won't live too long

But I hope I'm wrong

That's the way I feel

“I Fall to Pieces” is a straight country tearjerker with a fine traditional steel guitar accompaniment plus fiddle. She does a moving version of Woody Guthrie’s “Ramblin Round” with banjo and fiddle. The album also includes a gorgeous live recording of Neil Young’s “Birds,” sung in a tender, restrained voice with Sneaky Pete on an expressive steel guitar, plus other guitars. Her voice is so powerful, but she can also sing soft beautifully, as on this song.

Lover, there will be another one

To hover over you beneath the sun

Tomorrow see the things

That never come today

When you see me fly away without you

Shadow on the things you know

Feathers fall around you

And show you the way to go

It's over, it's over

Next is a recording of Eric Anderson’s “Faithful” that won’t stop running through my head long after I’ve heard it – “Though I have not always been faithful/I always have been true.” She followed that album with Don’t Cry Now, which has my vote for her best, though Linda Ronstadt is still my sentimental favorite. Don’t Cry Now just makes my spirit soar. It was her first big seller, with 300,000 copies. The cover has a closeup with her arms crossed over her knees sitting like she knows who she is with the same intent look as on her eponymous album. It begins with John David Souther’s “I Can Almost See It,” a deeply soulful ballad that still makes my heart feel things I’d never felt before I heard it. The song selection and emotional power of her singing on Don’t Cry Now is superb. Linda Ronstadt’s got soul!

It hurts to say goodbye

And when the words are going by

The wind can blow them right back in your eye

You can almost see it

Time will let you know

And when you turn around to go

The aching in your heart begins to show

You can almost see it

You can almost see it going by

Sneaky Pete’s steel guitar plays lead on this song, with an expressiveness that makes it almost orchestral, as it is on a number of her songs. What he plays rarely sounds like the good-old-boy Nashville steel guitar you hear on most country music. It’s accompanied by electric guitar and a wonderfully soulful harmonica played by Jimmy Fadden of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The song is followed by “Love Has No Pride,” sung with great feeling but not quite the quiet softness that Bonnie Raitt brings to it, although vulnerability flavors almost everything she sings. Her voice gives it more power, with a great electric guitar, but voice drops so softly through the last verse that the vulnerability of the song comes through.

I've had bad dreams too many times

To think that they don't mean much anymore

And fine times have gone and left my sad home

And the friends who once cared just walk out my door

But love has no pride when I call out your name

And love has no pride when there's no one to blame

I'd give anything to see you again

I've been alone too many nights

To think that you could come back again

I've heard you talk

She's crazy to stay

But this love hurts me so

I don't care what you say

Perhaps the best song on the album is her cover of the Eagles’ “Desperado.”

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin’ fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one but I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you have hurt you somehow . . .

Well it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the things that you can't get . . .

Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?

The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feelin' goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences, open the gate

It may be rainin' but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you

Let somebody love you

You better let somebody love you before it's too late

The Eagles’ version is excellent, but the song seems more poignant sung by a woman, especially by Ronstadt. She belts out the stanza starting with “Don’t your feet get cold in the wintertime,” and “Let somebody love you” but sings others with a tender softness – like the first verse and the last line particularly, where “late” approaches a whisper. It has a nice piano accompaniment by Spooner Oldham and is enhanced with background singers Clydie King, Shirley Matthews, and Marti McCall in the last verse. The song stays with you long after it ends.

“Don’t Cry Now” is my favorite song on the album, a slow ballad that’s another J D Souther tune. The title seems to run counter to the spirit of much of what she sings, but there’s a lot of sensitivity and compassion with no judgment in the way she sings it.

If you've ever been taken for money

If you've ever gone down with your pride

If you've ever stood up for a good friend and lost

You know that the river is wide

Like a painter who waits for the sunrise

With a picture in both of his hands

It's like part of your life is already begun

With something that you don't understand

Don't cry now

Ohh, don't cry now

Don't cry now

No don't cry now

It feels like a hope rather than a prohibition. It’s accompanied by Spooner Oldham again on piano, the superb Larry Carlton on guitar, but Buddy Emmons on steel instead of Kleinow and Wendy Waldman singing nice harmony on the chorus.

Ronstadt favors songs full of heartbreak, but in interviews and in films about her she doesn’t come across as a sad-sack at all but rather as a frank straightshooter with a sharp sense of humor, something evident in her songs as well. Her humor and outspoken nature surface in the later “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me” and here in Randy Newman’s “Sail Away,” although it’s dark and satiric humor as Newman’s song has a slave trader trying to talk a young “little wog” African into going to America with transparently facetious promises of how good it will be. Ronstadt had done a Newman song on an earlier album, but it’s surprising to hear her take on such cutting satire. She’s backed by black backup singers King, Matthews, and McCall again.

In America you get food to eat

Don't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet

You just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day

It's great to be an American

Ain't no lions or tigers, ain't no mamba snake

Just a sweet watermelon and a buckwheat cake

Everybody is as happy as a man can be

So climb aboard little wog and sail away with me

Sail away (sail away), sail away (sail away)

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

Sail away (sail away), sail away (sail away)

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

In America every man is free

To take care of his home and his family

You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree

You're all gonna be an American (gonna be an American)

She does a great version of Rick Roberts’ “Colorado” (not to be confused with the Stephen Stills song of the same name) that aches with deeply felt regret and longing of someone who is deciding he made a mistake leaving for life on the road and wanting to go back home. It’s accompanied by nicely restrained electric guitar and equally gentle steel guitar by Kleinow that again sounds like a different instrument than a typical pedal steel guitar.

Hey, Colorado

It was not so long ago

I left your mountains

To try life on the road . . .

Colorado

Is it too late to change my mind

I've done some thinkin’

And I'm trying hard to find

A way to come back home

'Cause I've been so very long alone

Won't you take care of your own?

Colorado

I think I'm comin’ home

I also love the Booker T Jones and Bill Williams song “Everybody Loves a Winner,” another slow heartbreak song with nice horn accompaniment as well as electric and steel guitar by Richard Bowden and Ed Black. “Everybody loves a winner/But when you lose, you lose alone.” She finishes with Neil Young’s “I Believe in You,” with lyrics describing a puzzling relationship –

Now that you find yourself losing your mind

Are you here again?

Finding that what you once thought was real

Is gone and changing

Now that you made yourself love me

Do you think I can change it in a day?

How can I place you above me

Am I lying to you when I say

That I believe in you

Oh, oh, oh I believe in you

Don’t Cry Now was followed by Heart Like a Wheel, which Ronstadt said was the first album that was made the way she wanted, working with the first producer, Peter Asher, who she didn’t have a relationship with and the first she felt treated her like an equal. She was a singer with definite ideas about what she wanted and forceful about stating them, but it wasn’t until Heart Like a Wheel that she felt like she fully got what she wanted. It produced her biggest hit ever, “You’re No Good,” which rose to #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 Singles chart. It’s a statement song, giving notice that the singer is not just some chick hanging on to a bad relationship until the man leaves her heartbroken. The strident guitar solo is by Andrew Gold, a multi-instrumentalist who also plays piano, drums, and percussion on the song. He would go on to play extensively on two more of her albums.

Feeling better, now that we're through

Feeling better 'cause I'm over you

I learned my lesson, it left a scar

Now I see how you really are

You're no good

Baby, you're no good

The other hit from the album is Anna McGarrigle’s vulnerable “Heart Like a Wheel,” a perfect song for her expressive and powerful voice. But the volume on the piano and strings doesn’t let her voice really carry the song the way it should. Anna and Kate McGarrigle’s version on their eponymous first album is better, with a simple and slow banjo accompaniment and Anna’s singing is full of vulnerability. But Ronstadt’s singing is pure, backed by Maria Muldaur.

Some say the heart is just like a wheel

When you bend it you can't mend it

But my love for you is like a sinking ship

And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean

When harm is done no love can be won

I know it happens frequently

What I can't understand oh please God hold my hand

Why it had to happen to me

“Faithless Love” is another J D Souther song, accompanied by a simple banjo played by Herb Peterson, piano by Gold, and harmony by Souther on the chorus.

Faithless love like a river flows

Raindrops falling on a broken rose

Down in some valley where nobody goes

And the night blows in

Like the cold dark wind

Faithless love like a river flows

Faithless love where did I go wrong

Was it telling stories in a heartbreak song

Where nobody's right and nobody’s wrong

Faithless love will find you

And the misery entwine you

Faithless love where did I go wrong

The title is perplexing – if “nobody’s right and nobody’s wrong,” what does “faithless” mean? Maybe he’s saying that love is faithless rather than the lover. Ronstadt’s singing has the power and emotion of the best songs on Don’t Cry Now. “Dark End of the Street” has powerful singing as well, and an electric guitar sounding like it’s careening out of control, like the guitar itself is drunk – reminiscent of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gilded Palace of Sin album.

One of the treats of the album is her cover of the Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved,” with a driving drumbeat by Russ Kunkel and great guitar by Gold. It’s a fast-paced, infectious rocker that lingers in your head. She also does a surprisingly convincing job on Lowell George’s “Willin,” about a trucker hauling whatever back and forth from Mexico even though no one would imagine her in that role. She sings it with gusto and conviction.

I been warped by the rain, driven by the snow

I'm drunk and dirty, don't you know

But I'm still willin'

Out on the road late last night

I'd see my pretty Alice in every headlight

Alice, Dallas Alice

And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari

Tehachapi to Tonopah

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made

Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed

And if you give me weed, whites and wine

And you show me a sign

And I'll be willin' to be movin'

Hank Williams’ “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love with You” is done as pure country with traditional county steel guitar by Sneaky Pete and harmony by Emmylou Harris. She ends with James Taylor’s “You Can Close Your Eyes” and a mournful ballad by Paul Craft, “Keep Me from Blowing Away,” a tender and gentle plea backed by different musicians.

But soon all the good times, the gay times and play times

Like colors run together and fade

Oh Lord if you hear me, touch me and hold me

And keep me from blowing away

Well there's times when I trembled

When my mind remembered

The days that just crumbled away

With nothing to show but these lines that I know

Are beginning to show in my face

Oh Lord if you're listening, you know I'm no Christian

And I ain't got much coming to me

So send down some sunshine, throw out your lifeline

And keep me from blowing away

Oh lord if you hear me, touch me and hold me

And keep me from blowing away

Prisoner in Disguise is a beautiful album that starts off with Neil Young’s “Love Is a Rose,” a catchy tune and engaging piece of philosophy with banjo by Herb Peterson, David Lindley on fiddle, plus harmonica and hand claps. I always like hearing this upbeat song. It’s a country tune, but with a strong beat that makes it rock. Kenny Edwards, her old partner from the Stone Poneys, plays bass on most of the songs on Heart Like a Wheel and this album.

Love is a rose but you better not pick it

It only grows when it's on the vine

Handful of thorns and you'll know you've missed it

Lose your love when you say the word mine

I wanna see what's never been seen

I wanna live that age-old dream

Come on, boy, let's go together

Let's take the best right now

Take the best right now

It's followed by James Taylor’s “Hey Mister That’s Me Up on the Jukebox,” which is also a favorite for me, though any listener would have their own preferences.

Hey mister that's me up on the jukebox

I'm the one singing this sad song

And I cry every time that you slip in one more dime

And play me singing the sad one, one more time

Southern California, that's as blue as a girl can be

Blue as the deep blue sea, won't you listen to me now?

I need your golden gated cities like a hole in my head

Just like a hole in my head, I'm free

The album has a wonderful cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears,” sung with power and conviction about the heartbreak of a lover hiding under a smiling face.

People say I'm the life of the party

'Cause I tell a joke or two

Although I might be laughing loud and hearty

Deep inside I'm blue

So take a good look at my face

You know my smile looks out of place

If you look closer it's easy to trace

The tracks of my tears

The standout song on the album is the title song, “Prisoner in Disguise,” a slow ballad which rivals any of her best songs – “Desperado,” “Don’t Cry Now,” “I Can Almost See It,” “I Won’t Be Hangin’ Round,” “Keep Me from Blowing Away,” and “Birds.”

You think the love you never had might save you

But true love takes a little time

You can touch it with your fingers

And try to believe your eyes

Is it love or lies?

And so you're keeping your distance

A little bit of room around you

But if he doesn't return your call on time

Oh my my, you just act like a fool on a holiday

There's nothing that you wouldn't try

You must be a prisoner in disguise

Well this night life is my life

But there's no one else in it

And sometimes those lonesome breezes blow

But it's no show so you might as well go

If you think you could win it

Without losing and letting it show . . .

You must be a prisoner

You look just like a prisoner

Well you must be a prisoner in disguise

She sings it with a voice that absolutely soars but stays tender at the same time, especially on the last two lines, sung beautifully and quietly with J D Souther. The simple accompaniment includes piano, woodwinds, and strings. It’s as good as anything she’s done. It’s followed by the all-out Motown rocker “Heat Wave,” which she belts out at high speed that dispels any doubt about her ability to sing great rock and roll. Andrew Gold plays every instrument except bass.

“Many Rivers to Cross,” a slow reggae ballad by Jimmy Cliff, covered by many other musicians, is a big change of pace and genre shift, with Gold playing multiple instruments.

Many rivers to cross

But I can't seem to find my way over

Wandering I am lost

As I travel along white cliffs of Dover

And this loneliness won't leave me alone

It's such a drag to be on your own

My baby left me and he didn't say why

Well, I guess I'll have to try

She would go on to record three more good albums in much the same vein with a remarkable versatility and breadth of song selection: a big hit with Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou,” Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” an excellent cover of my favorite Ry Cooder song “Tattler,” the Rolling Stones’ “Tumbling Dice,” Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day,” Warren Zevon’s comic “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” the traditional cowboy song “Old Paint,” Oscar Hammerstein’s “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA,” and even a 7 ½ minute version of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”

She took a huge risk with her career that she was advised against by her record company in enticing Frank Sinatra’s most successful bandleader Nelson Riddle out of retirement to record an “unorthodox and original” Great American Songbook album of songs from the 20s to 40s to much critical acclaim. What’s New was so successful she recorded two more, Lush Life, and For Sentimental Reasons. Time magazine called it "one of the gutsiest, most . . . unexpected albums of the year." As a result, she‘s been credited for reviving the Great American Songbook jazz tradition in American pop music, prompting similar albums by many, including Bob Dylan and Boz Scaggs. What’s New spent 81 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart and held the #3 spot for a month-and-a-half behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Lionel Ritchie’s Can’t Slow Down.

That was perhaps the most risky career move she’s made, but she also proceeded to record an album of Mexican corrido numbers (Canciones de Mi Padre – songs of my father) that became a huge bestseller in Spanish-speaking countries and the bestselling non-English language album in American history at two million copies, and a jazz bum titled Hummin’ to Myself that reached #2 on the Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums Chart and sold 75,000 copies, and forays into classical music, including La Boheme for Joseph Papp. And she played a lead role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance opposite Kevin Kline on both Broadway and in the movie version, winning Tony and Golden Globe nominations for both. She was nominated for 28 Grammy Awards and won 12. Ronstadt's last known live Grammy Award appearance was in 1990 when she and Aaron Neville performed "Don't Know Much" together on the telecast. "Whenever I sing with a different artist, I can get things out of my voice that I can't do by myself.”

These unusual forays into types of music other than country rock were not out of the blue. She has said that she grew up listening to all these kinds of music in her home as a child, including her mother’s Gilbert and Sullivan records and her father’s singing Mexican corridos. She has been critically and commercially successful with everything she’s done except for opera. But opera has influenced her – “I learn more . . . about singing rock n roll from listening to Maria Callas records than I ever would from listening to pop music for a month of Sundays . . . She's the greatest [female] singer ever." She has also said all female singers “have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday." She’s not a songwriter, having written only three songs, but the breadth of her repertoire and genre mastery surpasses even Dylan’s and anyone I know of in the last century – no one I can think of comes close.

Brett Nelson