In order to get out of the rest of her contract with Capitol in order to sign with Asylum, Ronstadt's management worked out a deal that allowed her to immediately record one album with Asylum if the next album went to Capitol. After that, she could continue to record for Asylum. The arrangement was guaranteed to benefit Ronstadt's publicity because Asylum would try to outdo Capitol with its first Ronstadt recording, and Capitol would do the same with the following release. Each company would throw all of its corporate muscle into advertisement campaigns for the albums.
The first album on Asylum was 1973's Don't Cry Now, which was Ronstadt's first Gold album (500,000 copies sold) and a bonafide improvement over the previous Capitol release. The next album, reverting to Capitol, was 1974's Heart Like a Wheel. Heart went Double Platinum (selling over 2 million units) and hit number one on the U.S. pop and country charts, establishing Ronstadt as a landmark artist in the U.S. The next album on Asylum, 1975's Prisoner in Disguise was a decent followup and reached number 4 on the pop chart and number 2 for country.
(this is the box set- image: allmusic.com)
The box set is kind of random, beginning with Prisoner and including 1976's Hasten Down the Wind, 1977's Triple Platinum Simple Dreams, 1978's Living in the U.S.A., and 1979's Mad Love. Living also went to U.S. number 1 and sold over 2 million copies, and that is the album I will focus on for the rest of this post. I'm sorry I keep making these posts ridiculously long, but there's really no other way.
image: vnbits.org
Upon first listen, this album failed to impress me, especially after listening to the other aforementioned albums. In contrast to the flashy, uptempo tracks on those albums, Living is collection diverse songs spanning the century from a 1930s
standard ("When I Grow too Old to Dream") to a cutting edge Elvis Costello cover. It is an exceptional example of
how to meld styles and time periods to produce
a cohesive album with an overarching sound and theme. In retrospect, it's a miraculously prescient
transition album between her clear cut rock and country sounds of the '70s and new wave balladry of the '80s. The record includes new Ronstadt
collaborators including saxophonist David Sanborn. Overall, the atmosphere is a
little cool and detached, but it reminds me of someone looking in the mirror and pretending the person they are observing is someone else--a detached reflection on the trials and triumphs of a young life. And the album cover is kind of cheesy, but it's rumored that the popularity of roller skating actually increased across the U.S. as a result.
I'm not a fan of the Chuck Berry-penned "Back in the USA", but that's probably because I'm not a fan of Berry in general. The old time rock n' roll arrangement on the album felt very dated. The second song, "When I Grow too Old to Dream," is a bit of a bore. But the placement was strategic because the next song, "Just One Look", is a powerful midtempo rocker featuring some of Ronstadt's trademark falsetto improvisation near the end. This is where the album really gains momentum and refuses to slow down until the final track.
"Alison" was written by Elvis Costello and is one of my favorites on the album. Because the song addresses a woman, certain media outlets had a field day with the possibility that Ronstadt was gay or bisexual. However, she explained that she was singing the song about a friend named Alison who was going through a rough time ("Alison/I know this world is killing you"). Costello publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Ronstadt's interpretation, but he allowed her to use three of his songs on his next album because he "liked the money" her sales generated for him.
image: musicstack.com
In my opinion, the best and most controversial song on the album is former Ronstadt fling J.D. Souther's "White Rhythm and Blues." Souther songs appeared on nearly every Linda Ronstadt release, as did Karla Bonoff's compositions. He also wrote songs for the Eagles and was apparently obsessed with black roses. The core of the song is the intentionally vague lyric "all I need is black roses/white rhythm and blues/somebody who cares when you lose." I often switch the words "black" and "white" by mistake and think of the wealth of racial and cultural connotations implied by either order.
image: rateyourmusic.com
Black roses are associated with positive and negative symbology including death, tragic love, and rebirth. Historically, "white rhythm and blues" is also known as "blue-eyed soul," a genre exemplified by Dusty Springfield and Jerry Lee Lewis. Basically, top notch white singers and groups covered soul songs decently for the first time. A parallel can be drawn to early rock and roll groups including The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, as all were heavily influenced by African American artists such as Little Richard and Muddy Waters. The true meaning remains a mystery, which may have been what Souther intended. I interpreted it as Souther's reflection on the blue-eyed soul genre and his attempt at writing a song inspired by that period in popular music.
Another song that dabbles in the abstract is "Mohammed's Radio", a Warren Zevon song I dedicated a previous post to. The cover lacks the irony of Zevon's original delivery. Zevon's singing is lighthearted and spontaneous in a way that offsets the potentially serious lyrics about the radio as salvation, whereas Ronstadt's technically perfect delivery lends itself to a more literal interpretation of the lyrics.
End it, end it!! Okay, this is the final paragraph. Ronstadt was often criticized (by Costello and many music critics) for singing that was too "white," too "technical." These critics say that her "perfect" voice lacks soul because it lacks an idiosyncratic identifier (such as Bob Dylan's nasally tone or Bonnie Raitt's bluesy phrasing) . But according to critic John Rockwell, "words lack music's emotional power but can be far more focused; the combination of words and music, then, can function as a dialectically potent artistic marriage." I like to think of Ronstadt's style as photographic. She was able to accurately deliver lyrics in a way that magnified their intended meaning. In other words, her mastery of auditory phonetics allowed her to bring the work of great songwriters to new audiences over the course of her successful career.
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