Linda Ronstadt

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Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is an American retired popular music singer known for performing in a variety of genres, including rock, country, light opera, and Latin.

She has received ten Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Honor, among other things, and many of her albums have been certified gold, platinum, or multiplatinum in the United States and internationally.

She has also been nominated for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe award.

In 2011, The Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award was given to her by the Latin Recording Academy in 2011, and The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by The Recording Academy in 2016 was also given.

In April 2014, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

She was given the National Medal of Arts and Humanities on July 28, 2014.

On the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019, she will appear alongside Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris for their contribution to Trio's work.

Ronstadt charted 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles, with 21 in the top 40, ten in the top 10, three at number 2, and "You're No Good" at number 1.

This success did not extend to the United Kingdom, with just her single "Blue Bayou" making it to the UK Top 40.

"Don't Know Much" was Aaron Neville's duet, and she and her partner, "Don't Know It" debuted at number two in December 1989.

In addition,, she has charted 36 albums, ten top-ten albums, and three top-five albums on the Billboard Pop Album Chart.

Ronstadt has worked with artists in various fields, including Bette Midler, Billy Eckstine, Frank Zappa, Carla Bley, Eric Bley, Rosemary Clooney, Flaco Jiménez, Warren Zevon, Emmylou Harris, Graham, Morph, Paul Simon, Elvis Moore, and Nelson Riddle.

She has lent her voice to over 120 albums and has sold more than 100 million albums, making her one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

Ronstadt is "blessed" with possibly the most sterling set of pipes of her generation, according to Christopher Loudon of Jazz Times in 2004. "Ronstadt slowed her involvement after 2000 as she began to worry that her singing voice was fading, releasing her last full length album in 2004 and performing her last live concert in 2009.

She declared her retirement in 2011 and declared immediately afterwards that she would no longer be able to perform as a result of a degenerative disorder later found to be progressive supranuclear palsy.

Ronstadt has continued to perform in public speaking tours since then, including many in the 2010s.

In September 2013, she published Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir.

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, a memoir based on her memoirs, was released in 2019.

Early life

Linda Maria Ronstadt was born in Tucson, Arizona, third of three children of Gilbert Ronstadt (1911–1995), a prosperous machinery dealer who operated the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary (née Copeman) Ronstadt (1914–1982), a homemaker.

Ronstadt and her siblings Peter (who served as Tucson's Chief of Police for ten years, 1981-1991), Michael, and Gretchen were raised on the family's 10-acre (4 ha) ranch. In 1953, the family appeared in Family Circle magazine.

Ronstadt's father was born in a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of Mexican descent with a German male ancestor. In the University of Arizona's library, the family's influence on and contributions to Arizona's history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies, and music, are chronicled. Friedrich August Ronstadt, her great-grandfather (who went by Federico Augusto Ronstadt), immigrated first to Sonora, Mexico, and later to the Southwest (then a portion of Mexico) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany. He married a Mexican immigrant and settled in Tucson. Federico José Mara Ronstadt, a local pioneer businessman, was the city of Tucson's first streetcar maker who pioneered the city's transportation in 1991; it was opened on March 16 and devoted to Linda's grandfather, Federico José Marvance, a taxi manufacturer who pioneered the city's mobility; he was a wagon maker whose early contributions to the city's transportation included six mule-drawn streetcars built in 1903–04

Ruth Mary, a descendant of German, English, and Dutch ancestry, was born in Flint, Michigan. Lloyd Groff Copeman, a prolific entrepreneur and holder of nearly 700 patents, invented a new breed of the electric toaster, several refrigerator models, the grease gun, the first electric stove, and a primitive version of the microwave oven. He received millions of dollars in royalties because of his adaptable rubber ice cube tray.

Personal life

Ronstadt describes herself as a "spiritual atheist."

Source

Career summary

Ronstadt, who was active in the mid-1960s in California's burgeoning folk rock and country rock movements, defined post-1960s rock music, joined forces with Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards and became the lead singer of a folk-rock band, the Stone Poneys. Handsown... Home Grown, a solo artist's debut, became the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. Despite the fact that fame eluded her during those years, Ronstadt toured with the Doors, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and others on television shows and even began to contribute her singing to albums by other artists.

Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star with the debut of chart-topping albums such as Heart Like a Wheel, Simple Dreams, and Life in the United States. She has a reputation as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade. Ronstadt was voted the Best Female Pop Singer of the 1970s, and she was referred to as both the "First Lady of Rock" and the "Queen of Rock." Her rock-and-roll photos were as well-known as her music; she appeared on Rolling Stone's front page and on Newsweek and Time's front page.

Ronstadt appeared on Broadway and received a Tony Award for her performance in The Pirates of Penzance, worked with composer Philip Glass, produced classical music, and performed with conductor Nelson Riddle, which was seen as an innovative and unusual move for a rock-and-roll artist. This venture paid off, and Ronstadt remained one of the best-selling acts of the 1980s, with multi-platinum-selling albums including Mad Love, What's New, Canciones de Mi Padre, and Cry Like the Wind. She continued to tour, collaborate, and record hit albums, such as Winter Light and Hummin' to Myself, until her retirement in 2011. The bulk of Ronstadt's albums have been awarded gold, platinum, or multi-platinum. Ronstadt, the most influential female recording artist in the United States, has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide and earned a reputation as one of the top-grossing concert entertainers for more than a decade. She opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres by championing songwriters and singers, introducing her chart success to the concert circuit, and being in the forefront of several musical movements.

Career overview

Ronstadt's early family life was brimming with music and tradition, which inspired her later on in her career's stylistic and musical choices. Growing up, she listened to many forms of music, including Mexican jazz, which was performed by her entire family and was a staple in her childhood.

Ronstadt has said that all of her music, including rock and blues, drum and blues, gospel, opera, country, choral, and mariachi, was music she heard in their living room or heard on the radio by the age of 10. She thanks her mother for her introduction of Gilbert and Sullivan and her father to the popular pop and Great American Songbook repertoire, which she would then help reintroduce to a whole generation.

Early on, her singing style had been influenced by singers such as Lola Beltrán and Édith Piaf; her singing and rhythms have been described as "more like Greek music." It's sort of like the 6/8 time signature... very hard driving and very intense." Hank Williams, a country singer, also influenced her.

"All girl singers" will eventually "have to curtsy to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, she has said. "There's no one in her league," Ronstadt says of Maria Callas. That's it. Period. I'm learning more about singing rock n roll as a child. I'll never get out of listening to pop music for a month of Sundays, but I'll never get sick of it. "She's the best chick singer ever." Callas is admired for her musicianship and her efforts to bring 20th-century singing, particularly opera, back to the bel canto "natural style of singing."

Ronstadt, a self-described product of American radio of the 1950s and 1960s, is a fan of the country's eclectic and diverse music collection.

Ronstadt formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen at the age of 14. The group performed "the Union City Ramblers," and other small venues, and they even performed at a Tucson studio under the name "the New Union Ramblers." Folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican were among their repertoires, which included folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican. Ronstadt continued to want to make a connection of folk music and rock 'n' roll, and after a semester at Arizona State University, the 18-year-old decided to move to Los Angeles in 1964.

During Easter break from college in 1964, Ronstadt visited Bobby Kimmel in Los Angeles, and the two siblings formed a band together later that year. Kimmel's co-writing folk-rock songs with guitarist Kenny Edwards, and the three of them were then signed by Nik Venet to Capitol in the summer of 1966 as "the Stone Poneys." In a 15-month span from 1967 to 1968, the trio released three albums; Everest, Vol. 2; and Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends. III. The band is well-known for their hit single "Different Drum," written by Michael Nesmith prior to joining the Monkees, and the number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 12 in Cashbox magazine. The song, which has been around for almost 50 years, remains one of Ronstadt's most popular albums.

Ronstadt's first solo album, Hand Sown... Home Grown, was released in 1969, despite being contractually tied to Capitol Records. It has been dubbed the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. She also contributed to the "super session" project of Music From Free Creek during the same period.

During this period, Ronstadt performed the vocals for several commercials, including one for Remington electric razors, in which a multitracked Ronstadt and Frank Zappa said that the electric razor "cleans you, thrills you, and discourages you from getting busted."

Silk Purse, Ronstadt's second solo album, was released in March 1970. Elliot Mazer, who had worked with him on the Cheap Thrills album, was the product, which was entirely in Nashville. Ronstadt was depicted on the Silk Purse album cover, with the back and inside depicting her on stage wearing bright red. Ronstadt has expressed disappointment with the album, but the multi-format single "Long, Long Time" gave her her her first solo hit, garnering her first Grammy nomination (for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance/Female).

Ronstadt appeared with Jackson Browne, the Eagles, Toots, and the Maytals in 1975. "They hadn't invented a word for the loneliness that everybody goes through on the road in a 1976 Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe. The world is erupting, and all these people are focused on you. "I see myself in my 'girl-singer' costume,'" says the singer. "People are always taking advantage of you; everybody that is curious about you has a story," she told Peter Knobler in Crawdaddy in 1974.

Ronstadt began her solo career touring North America many years before Ronstadt became what author Gerri Hirshey described as the first "arena-class rock diva" with "hugely awaited tours." However, being on the road brought its emotional and professional toll. There were few "girl singers" on the rock circuit at the time, and they were relegated to "groupie level in front of a crowd of rock and roll boys," a status Ronstadt avoided. When fellow musicians led to conflict, insecurity, failed love, and a succession of boyfriend-managers, men were reminded of men on a professional level. At the time, she admired singers like Maria Muldaur for not sacrificing their femininity, but she claims she was under intense pressure to perform with "the boys" at every level. She said in a 1969 interview with Fusion magazine that being a single "chick musician" with an all-male backup band was daunting. According to her, finding a band of support musicians was difficult because of the fact that they were branded sidemen for a female singer.

Swampwater, one of her first backing bands in the late 1960s, incorporated Cajun and swamp-rock elements in their songs soon after she went solo in the late 1960s. Its founding members were Cajun fiddler Gib Guilbeau and John Beland, who later joined the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as Stan Pratt, Thad Maxwell, and Eric White, brother of Clarence White of the Byrds. During television appearances on The Johnny Cash Show and The Mike Douglas Show, as well as at the Big Sur Folk Festival, Swampwater rallied in favor of Ronstadt.

Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner were among the Eagles' backing band members who went on to form the Eagles. They toured with her for a short time in 1971 and performed on Linda Ronstadt's self-titled third album, from which she took the failed single, Ronstadt's interpretation of Browne's "Rock Me on the Water." Ronstadt began working with producer and boyfriend John Boylan at this time. "I started co-producing myself right away as I began working with John Boylan." I was always a part of my productions. "I always wanted a producer who would do my job, but I never understood why." Ronstadt began speaking with David Geffen about the move from Capitol Records to Geffen's Asylum Records brand in 1971.

Ronstadt released Don't Cry Now in 1973, after she and Boylan (who had negotiated her deal with Asylum Records) and John David "J.D." The majority of the album's songs are produced by Souther. Ronstadt, however, wanted someone willing to serve with her as an equal, so she asked Peter Asher, who was highly praised by James Taylor's sister Kate Taylor, to assist in the creation of two of them: "Sail Away" and "I Believe in You."

"Silver Threads and Golden Needles," Ronstadt's first country hit, was released on the album, this time on Hand Sown... Home Grown.

Ronstadt appeared on Don't Cry Now, her biggest show on Neil Young's Time Fades Away tour, with larger audiences than ever before. Chris Hillman introduced her to Emmylou Harris backstage at a Texas concert, implying that the two "will be great friends" as a result of continued friendships over the years. Meanwhile, Ronstadt's best-selling album to date, with 300,000 copies sold by the end of 1974.

Asher's experience with her music and her musically alike were more collaborative and closer in syncy with her musically. Ronstadt's work with Asher enabled her to take command and effectively delegate tasks in the recording studio. Although initially reluctant to work with her because of her reputation as a "woman of strong opinions" (who) knew what she wanted to do (with her work), the young 1980s saw him continue in that role. Asher attributed the long-running success of his work with Ronstadt to the fact that he was the first person to lead and produce her with whom there was solely a professional relationship. "It's going to be a lot more difficult to have open discussions about someone's work if it's someone you sleep with," he said.

Asher executive Joe produced Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, Ronstadt's 1976 version of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" appears on newly recorded versions of Holly's hits, including some artists' "I'll Be the Day."

Ronstadt redirected country music and the rhythms of ranchera music, which she likened in 1968 to "Mexican bluegrass" and turned them into her rock'n' roll and some of her pop songs. Many of these rhythms and sounds have influenced her Southwestern roots. A country sound and style, a blend of country music and rock 'n' roll, began to resurface in mainstream pop music in the 1960s, and Ronstadt helped establish and commercialize the movement. However, Ronstadt had been chastised by music "purists" for her "brand of music" that spans several genres as early as 1970. "Rock people thought she was too delicate, folk people thought she was too pop, and pop people didn't seem to worry about where she was located," Country Western Stars magazine said in 1970. She never defined herself and stuck to her genre-crossing brand of music.

Ronstadt is known as a "interpreter of her times," and she has been lauded for her ability to put her "stamp" on several of her songs. Nevertheless, her hits were chastised in some quarters for being cover songs. Ronstadt has claimed that some of her 1970s hits were recorded under intense pressure to produce commercially viable albums, and that some of her songs are non-hit album hits. Ronstadt, an infrequent songwriter, co-produced only three songs in her long career.

Ronstadt's natural vocal range extends from contralto to soprano, and occasionally she will display the entire range in a single work. Ronstadt was the first female artist in popular music history to sell four consecutive platinum albums (fourteen certified million, to date). Rolling Stone said that a whole generation, "but for her," she "may not have heard of musicians such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, and Chuck Berry."

Some have argued that Ronstadt had the same generational influence with her Great American Songbook album, exposing a whole new generation to the 1920s and 1930s sound – music that was before rock 'n' roll was invented. Ronstadt said in terms of interpretation, she "sticks to what the music demands" when interpreting. She claims that rock and roll music is a part of her culture, and that the songs she performed after her rock and roll hits were a part of her soul. In a 1998 interview she gave at her Tucson home, she was quoted as saying, "The (Mariachi music) was my father's side of the soul." "The Nelson Riddle stuff was on my mother's side of my soul." And I had to do them both to reestablish who I was."

Author Katherine Orloff writes in the 1974 book Rock 'N' Roll Woman that Ronstadt's "own musical preferences adhere strongly to rhythm and blues, the style of music she most often listens to... (And) her aim is to... be soulful too. Ronstadt fuses the country and rock into a special union with this in mind.

Ronstadt had carved her niche in country-rock by this point in her career. She worked with others, including the Flying Burrito Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Swampwater, Neil Young, and the Eagles, to liberate country music from stereotypes and inform rockers that the world is okay. However, she claimed that she was being pushed harder into performing more rock and roll.

Ronstadt was described as "the most popular and certainly the most gifted woman Rock singer of her time," by author Andrew Greeley in his book "God in Popular Culture." Dirty Linen magazine describes her as the "first authentic woman rock 'n' roll superstar" on the radio and in the recording studio, despite her broad success as a singer. (selling) out stadiums with a series of mega-successful albums. Amazon.com names her as the tenth female rock superstar of the decade. Ronstadt was given a Special Decade Award by Cashbox as the top-selling female singer of the 1970s.

Her album covers, posters, and magazine covers – her entire rock 'n' roll image – were as well known as her music. By the end of the decade, the singer, who the Chicago Sun Times referred to as "the most popular female rock star in the country," became what Redbook describes as "the most influential female rock star in the world." According to Time magazine, "female" was the key qualifier, "unique" was the exception "from (have surviving) in the shark-infested deeps of rubble."

Although Ronstadt had been a cult favorite on the music scene for many years, 1975 was "remembered in the music business as the year when 29-year-old Linda Ronstadt took the floor for the first time."

Ronstadt became the first of four top-ranked Country Albums on the Billboard 200 chart after the release of Heart Like a Wheel, which was based on one of the album's tracks and written by Anna McGarrigle; it was also the first of four number one Country Albums to reach the first position (over two million copies sold in the United States). In some cases, her own interpretations were more popular than the original recordings, and many times new songwriters were discovered by a larger audience as a result of her interpretation and recording. Ronstadt had a lot of success translating songs from a large variety of artists.

Heart Like a Wheel's first single release, "You're Fine" a spin on an R&B song written by Clint Ballard, Jr. that Ronstadt had originally rejected because Andrew Gold's guitar tracks sounded too much like a "Beatles song" to her, boosting to top number one on both the Billboard and Cash Box Pop singles charts. "When Will I Be Loved," the album's second single release, an uptempo country-rock spin on a Top ten Everly Brothers song, debuted at number one in Cashbox and number two in Billboard. Ronstadt's first number one country hit was also on the album.

The album's critical and commercial success was due to a fine combination of country and rock, with Heart Like a Wheel being her first of many big commercial triumphs that would put her on a collision course with the singer of all time. Ronstadt received her first Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance/Female for "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still Love with You)" in the 1940s, which was first hit by Hank Williams in the 1940s. Ronstadt's interpretation ranked No. 2 on the country chart, despite this. The album itself had been nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy Award.

In March 1975, Rolling Stone announced Ronstadt on its front page. It was the first of six Rolling Stone covers shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz. It featured Ronstadt's many years of rock n roll, as well as her personal life and what it was like to be a woman on tour in a decidedly all-male setting.

Prisoner in Disguise, Ronstadt's album, was released in September 1975. It soon climbed to the top of the Billboard Album Chart, with over a million copies sold. It was her second in a row to reach platinum (a grand slam) in the same year (Ronstadt will eventually become the first female artist in popular music history to have three consecutive platinum albums, and six more between 1983 and 1990). "Love Is A Rose" was the album's first single release. It was gaining attention on the pop and country charts, but "Heat Wave," a skewed copy of Martha and the Vandellas' 1963 hit, was getting a lot of airplay. With "Love Is a Rose" on the B-side, Asylum released "Heat Wave" on the B-side, including the "Love Is a Rose" single and the "Heat Wave" single. On Billboard's Hot 100, "Heat Wave," reached the top of the charts, while "Love Is A Rose" made it to the top five, while Billboard's country chart placed it at number five.

Ronstadt debuted on Billboard's Top 10 and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her second straight platinum album Hasten Down the Wind in 1976. Ronstadt, the singer-songwriter, who produced two of its songs, "Try Me Again" (co-authored with Andrew Gold), and "Lo Siento Mi Vida" were among the album's highlights, as the sexy, revealing cover shot, and showcasing Ronstadt the singer-songwriter who performed two of his songs, "Reality Me Again" (co-authored with Andrew Gold). It also included an interpretation of Willie Nelson's ballad "Crazy," which became a Top 10 Country hit for Ronstadt in early 1977.

Ronstadt's album Simple Dreams, which debuted on the Billboard 200 charts for five weeks in a row, surpassed Heart Like a Wheel's popularity at the end of 1977. In less than a year in the United States alone, it sold over 312 million copies in less than a year – a record for a female artist. Simple Dreams spawned a number of hit singles on numerous charts. Among them were "Blue Bayou," a Roy Orbison cover; "It's So Easy," a Rolling Stones cover; and "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," a song written by Warren Zevon, an up-and-coming songwriter of the time. Several Grammy Awards were given out, including Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for "Blue Bayou"; as well as an honorary award for designing Ronstadt's album covers, Kosh, and Best Album Cover – the first of three Grammy Awards he would win for designing Ronstadt's book covers. Ronstadt was the first female recording artist to have two songs in the United States in late 1977. Billboard Hot 100 Top Tensions at the same time. At No. 3, "Blue Bayou" was at No. 1. "It's So Easy" was at No. 3 in the United States, but "It's So Easy" was at No. 2. 5.

Simple Dreams became one of the singer's top-selling international albums, racking number one on the Australian and Canadian Pop and Country Albums charts. Simple Dreams made Ronstadt the most popular international female touring artist. She also completed a concert tour around Europe last year. Simple Dreams solidified Ronstadt's position as "easily the most influential female rock and roll and country actress at this moment," the Country Music magazine said in October 1978.

She was also asked by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977 to perform the National Anthem at game three of the World Series against the New York Yankees.

Ronstadt has expressed her dissatisfaction with the fact that she had a "chemically urged to kinda cop a really tough attitude (and be tough), because rock and roll isn't really popular (company), something she said wasn't worn well. In real life and the antithesis of the "red hot mamma" she was artificially encouraged to have, female rock artists like her and Janis Joplin, who she described as beautiful, shy, and literate, went through an identity crisis.

Ronstadt's image became just as popular as her music by the mid-1970s. She appeared on Rolling Stone and Time in 1976 and 1977, respectively. A series of photographs of Ronstadt in a skimpy red slip was supplemented by Annie Leibovitz's interview for the Rolling Stone cover story. Ronstadt was deceived by the photographer, not knowing that the pictures would be so shocking. When she visited Leibovitz to show them the pictures before releasing them, she says she told them out of the house. The photographers, which included a snapshot of Ronstadt sprawled across a bed in her underpants, were unwilling to let them veto any of the photographs. "Annie [Leibovitz] saw it as an extension of my personality," Ronstadt said in a 1977 interview. She was correct. However, I would not choose to show a picture like that to someone who didn't know me personally because only friends could bring the other parts of me into balance."

Ronstadt was also upsetting to her when the photo seemed to depict the most prominent woman in rock, having her 1977 appearance on the front page of Time magazine under the heading "Torchy Rock." Ronstadt sluggishly feared the image of her on the front page, when women were still struggling to tell them what to do and what to wear, and she talked about how the photographer kept requiring her to wear a dress, which was an image she did not want to show. In 2004, she appeared on CBS This Morning and said that this photo was not her because she did not sit like that. "Anyone who has seen Linda for ten seconds would know that I could not possibly have been her Svengali," Asher said. In every sector, she's a tenacious woman. She was everything that feminism is about, to me. Qualities that, Asher has described as a "negative" (in a woman at the time), were seen as "strong and bold" in a man. Ronstadt had been trying to be recognized as a solo female singer in the world of rock and roll, but her appearance on the Time cover didn't appear to have helped.

Rolling Stone proclaimed Ronstadt "by far America's best-known female rock artist." With Living in the United States, she scored her third number one album on the Billboard Album Chart, equaling the mark set by Carole King in 1974. With her version of "Ooo Baby Baby," she achieved a big hit single (Pop, AC, Country, R&B). Live in the United States was the first recording act to earn a double-platinum (over 2 million advance copies). The album's sales reached a whopping 3 million copies in the United States.

Billboard magazine honoured Ronstadt with three number-one awards for the year: Pop Female Singles Artist of the Year, Pop Female Album Artist of the Year, and Female Artist of the Year (overall).

On the album cover, the singer appeared on roller skates with a new short, persuaded hairdo. Ronstadt continued this theme on tour promotional posters with photos of her on roller skates in a picturesque setting with a large American flag in the background. By this point in her career, she was using posters to advertise every album and concert, which were not broadcast on radio or television at the time.

Ronstadt was also included in the 1978 film FM, in which disc jockeys were involved in an effort to broadcast a Ronstadt concert live without the knowledge of a competing station. Ronstadt appeared in the films "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," "Love Me Tender," and "Tumbling Dice." After Mick Jagger came backstage to perform "Tumbling Dice," Ronstadt said, "You do too many ballads, you should do more rock and roll songs."

Ronstadt conducted album promotional tours and concerts following the success of Living in the United States. On July 21, 1978, she and Jagger performed "Tumbling Dice" in Tucson, Arizona, where she and Jagger performed "Tumbling Dice." Ronstadt later said, "I loved it." I didn't have a hint of stage fright. I'm afraid to death, even though it's my own show. However, it was too much fun to be afraid of. Onstage, he's so silly it knocks you over. You have to be on your toes or else you'll end up falling on your face."

Ronstadt had established herself as one of rock and pop's most popular solo female performers by the end of 1978, and she earned her position as the first female artist to sell out concerts in arenas and stadiums housing tens of thousands of fans. She had six platinum-certified albums, three of which were ranked first on the Billboard chart, and several charting pop singles. In 1978 alone, she made over $2 million (equivalent to $50 million in 2021) and in the same year her album sales reached 17 million (equivalent to $249,000,000 in 2021).

As Rolling Stone dubbed her "Rock's Venus," her record sales continued to increase and set records themselves. Ronstadt had eight gold, six platinum, and four multi-platinum awards for her albums by 1979, an unprecedented achievement at the time. The RIAA has certified her 1976 Greatest Hits album for seven years, with seven of them rated platinum (over seven million copies sold). Volume 2 of the Greatest Hits, 1980, was released and certified platinum.

Ronstadt played in arenas from Australia to Japan, including the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne and the Budokan in Tokyo, in 1979. Lowell George, a friend of her friend Lowell George's, died at The Forum in Los Angeles during her benefit concert.

Ronstadt had outsold her female counterpart by the decade's end; she had five straight platinum LPs, one of which was Hasten Down the Wind and Heart Like a Wheel. Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, and Carly Simon had become "The Queens of Rock" in 1978, according to Us Weekly, "Rock is no longer exclusively male." Today's record books have been ruled by a new king.

She would go on to parlay her mass commercial appeal by translating The Great American Songbook, which was made popular a decade earlier by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and later the Mexican folk songs of her childhood.

Ronstadt's seventh platinum-selling album, Mad Love, was released in February 1980. It was a straightforward rock and roll album with post-punk, new wave influences, as well as tracks by singers such as Elvis Costello, the Cretones, and musician Mark Goldenberg who performed on the record himself. A live concert was filmed in April for an HBO special, as part of the album's promotion. This special's partial soundtrack (omitting the majority of the Mad Love tracks) was released in February 2019 as her first official live album.

For the sixth time, she also appeared on Rolling Stone for a record-breaking sixth time. Mad Love debuted on the Billboard Album Chart for the first week (a record at that time) and soared to the top-five this week, gaining to the top-five rankings for the first week. "How Do I Make You," originally recorded by Billy Thermal, and "Hurt So Bad," the project's top ten hits for Little Anthony & the Imperials, continued her streak of Top ten hits. Ronstadt received a 1980 Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female (although she was disqualified from Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion). "There are a lot of good female singers around," Benatar praised Ronstadt.

How could I be the best?

Ronstadt is still alive!"

Ronstadt began rehearsals for the first of many leading Broadway musicals in the summer of 1980. Joseph Papp and Kevin Kline appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, a New York Shakespeare Festival performance. Gilbert and Sullivan was a natural choice for her, since her grandfather Fred Ronstadt is credited with establishing Tucson's first orchestra, the Club Filarmonico Tucsonense, and that she had once arranged The Pirates of Penzance.

The Pirates of Penzance began as a limited engagement in Central Park in New York City's Central Park, before transferring to Broadway, where it became a hit, running from January 8, 1981 to November 28, 1982. Newsweek was emetic in its praise: "She has not ignored the colouratura demands of her job" Mabel's debut as a child in the G&S canon): From her entrance trilling "Poor Wand" to her grandstanding, she is clear she is able to scale whatever soprano peaks stand in her way." Ronstadt appeared in the 1983 operetta's film version as herself; this was her first film appearance in a motion picture (her other film appearances, such as in the 1978 tragedy, FM, being a woman in a concert video). Ronstadt received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the film version. She was nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, and The Pirates of Penzance received numerous Tony Awards, including a Tony Award for Best Revival.

Ronstadt had stumbled on La bohème as an infant through Lillian Gish's silent film and was determined to perform Mimi as a child. "Every soprano in the world wants to play Mimi," she was told when she met opera queen Beverly Sills. Ronstadt appeared in Joseph Papp's Public Theater in 1984. However, the operation was a critical and commercial failure, and it was finished after only a few nights.

Ronstadt's album Get Closer, a largely rock album with some country and pop hits as well. It was the first album from 1975 to 1990 not to be certified platinum. On the Billboard Album Chart, it reached number 31. "Get Closer" and "I Knew When" – a 1965 hit by Billy Joe Royal, were among the first hits for a female contemporary, while Jimmy Webb's "Easy For You To Say" was a surprise Top Ten Adult Contemporary hit in the spring of 1983. Country radio announced "Sometimes You Just Can't Win" and ranked it at number 27 on the charts, bringing it to number 27. Ronstadt also made several music videos for this album, which were also popular on the fledgling MTV cable channel. Ronstadt received two Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Vocal Performance/Female on the title track and another for Best Pop Vocal Performance/Female for the album. Kosh, the artwork's second Grammy Award for Best Album Package, won the artwork's second Grammy Award for Best Album Package.

Ronstadt embarked on a North American tour, becoming one of the top rock-concert draws of the summer and fall, coincident with the release of her Get Closer album. Her "Happy Thanksgiving Day" concert at the Reunion Arena in Dallas was broadcast live on NBC radio stations in the United States on November 25, 1982.

Ronstadt returned to Broadway for a limited run appearance in the musical show version of her album honoring her Mexican roots, Canciones De Mi Padre – A Romantic Evening in Old Mexico.

Ronstadt has said that she "got a bit bored and started to branch out" at the start of her career, and she's been doing it ever since." Her estimated net worth by 1983 was more than $40 million, mainly from records, concerts, and merchandising.

Ronstadt was chastised for accepting $500,000 to perform at the Sun City resort in South Africa, in breach of apartheid's policy. "The last place for a protest is in the arts," she said at the time, and "I don't like being told I can't go somewhere." Paul Simon was chastised for including her on his 1986 album Graceland, which was released in South Africa, but she defended her: "I know that her intention was never to assist the government there." She's very liberal in her political convictions and unquestionably antiapartheid."

Ronstadt was getting sick of playing arenas. She had started to feel that arenas, where people gathered around smoking marijuana and drinking beer, were "appropriate venues for music." She wanted "angels in the architecture," a reference to a lyric in Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" from Graceland. (Ronstadt sang harmony with Simon on "Under African Skies, a different Graceland track). Ronstadt's lyrics are a nodle to him: "Take this child, Lord," the singer sings from Tucson, Arizona. (See "Obvious" in the description above. Ronstadt has stated that she wants to perform in places similar to ancient Greece's theater, where the emphasis is on the stage and the performer.

Ronstadt's recordings in the 1980s were both commercially and critically profitable as her 1970s recordings. Ronstadt released six additional platinum albums between 1983 and 1990; two of them are triple platinum (each with more than three million copies sold); one of them has been certified double platinum (more than 500,000 copies sold) double-disc album; and two others are triple platinum (over two million copies sold).

Ronstadt produced and released an album of pop standards (later marketed in bootleg form) titled Keeping Out of Mischief, with the help of producer Jerry Wexler. However, Ronstadt's dissatisfaction with the result prompted her to cancel the campaign, despite regrets. In a Time magazine interview, she said, "Doing that killed me." Ronstadt had a seductive appeal on the album's music, but she told DownBeat in April 1985, citing Wexler for assisting her. Nonetheless, Ronstadt had to convince Elektra, her struggling record company, to allow this kind of album under her deal.

Ronstadt had enlisted the services of 62-year-old conductor Nelson Riddle by 1983. The two began working on a new and innovative way to revive the Great American Songbook, releasing a trilogy of classic pop albums. (1983), U.S. As of 2010, there are 3.7 million people; Lush Life (1984 — United States) — 1984 — Lush Life (1984 — Lush Life (1984); The United States was an island in the United States. As of 2010, the United States has 1.7 million people as a result of Sentimental Reasons (1986 — 1986 — United States. As of 2010, there have been 1.3 million (as of 2010). According to the three albums, there have been almost seven million copies in the United States alone.

Designer Kosh's album layout for What's New was unlike any of her previous disc covers. With a Walkman headset, Ronstadt was seen in a vintage gown laying on shimmering satin sheets. Ronstadt received some flak over the album cover and her foray into what was then regarded as "elevator music" by cynics, but the band stayed tight to record with Riddle, and What's New became a hit. The album debuted in September 1983 and spent 81 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart, and the RIAA acknowledged it triple platinum (over three million copies sold in the United States alone). Ronstadt received a second Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and a coveted critic, with Time magazine naming it as one of the year's best, most unorthodox, and unexpected albums of the year.

Ronstadt came under severe pressure not to record What's new or old with Riddle. According to jazz historian Peter Levinson, author of September in the Rain, Nelson Riddle, Joe Smith, president of Elektra Records, was concerned that the Riddle album would alienate Ronstadt's rock audience. Ronstadt did not entirely turn her back on her rock and roll past; the title track featured Danny Kortchmar as the old beau she bumped into during a rainstorm.

What's New? Riddle is a new kid in the United States. "The younger audience feared what Riddle had done with Frank Sinatra, which was then deemed 'Vintage Pop'," Levinson said. Riddle, who worked with Ronstadt, brought his career back to focus in the enlightening three years of his life. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said, "Isn't the first album by a rock singer to celebrate the pop age," is the most important and worthwhile attempt to revive a pop culture's myth that Beatlemania and mass marketing of rock LPs for teenagers began in the mid-60s. ... The majority of the great band singers and crooners of the 40s and 50s established a half-century of American pop standards on hundreds of albums in the decade prior to Beatlemania; several of them are now out-of-print. What's New is the first album by a rock singer to be a hit in rehabilitating the Great American Songbook.

Ronstadt and Riddle performed these songs live in concert halls around Australia, Japan, and the United States, including multi-night performances at Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and Pine Knob.

Ronstadt's album for Verve Records, Hummin' to Myself, was released in 2004. It was her first foray into traditional jazz after Jerry Wexler's sessions with her band and her albums with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, but this time with a more personal jazz combo. Ronstadt's album was a quiet affair, with few interviews and only one television appearance as a promotion. It debuted at number 2 on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart, but it debuted at number 166 on the main Billboard album chart, peaking at number 166. Hummin' To Myself had more than 75,000 copies in the United States by 2010, despite her not having mass distribution as Warner Music Group did. The jazz cognoscenti also lauded the program for some critical acclaim.

Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris, associates and admirers of one another's work (Ronstadt had included a cover of Parton's "I Will Always Love You" on Prisoner in Disguise) in 1978, attempting to collaborate on a Trio album. The attempt, unfortunately, was unsuccessful. Ronstadt later discovered that not enough people were in charge at the time, and that most people were too involved with their own careers. (Though the album's plans to complete were shelved, a number of the songs were included on the singers' subsequent solo albums over the next few years.) For almost ten years, this concept album has been on the back burner.

The three threesomesome boys did eventually make their way into the recording studio, where they spent the next few months. In March 1987, they produced Trio, which they had imagined ten years before. It was a big hit, with Billboard's Country Albums chart ranked at number one for five weeks and debuting at the top ten on the pop charts for five weeks. Its four top ten Country singles, including "To Know Him Is to Love Him" which debuted at number one, grossing them over three million copies in the United States and winning them a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. In the company of Michael Jackson, U2, Prince, and Whitney Houston, the album was also a nominee for overall Album of the Year.

The three artists produced a Trio tribute in 1994. As with their aborted 1978 effort, juggling schedules, and competing priorities postponed the album's release indefinitely. Ronstadt, who had already paid for studio time and owed her record company a finished album, cut Parton's individual tracks at Parton's behest, continued Harris' vocals, and released a number of the albums, which she subsequently released on her 1995 return to country rock.

However, Ronstadt, Parton, and Harris decided to release the Trio II album in 1999, as was first revealed in 1994. It featured an ethereal version of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," which became a hit music video. The campaign was named Gold (over 500,000 copies were sold) and they received a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Ronstadt co-produced the album with George Massenburg, and the three women were also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Country Album.

Ronstadt released Canciones de Mi Padre, an album of traditional Mexican folk songs, or what she has described as "world class songs" at the end of 1987. Ronstadt's cover art was bold, bold, and colorful; it depicts Ronstadt in full Mexican regalia, in keeping with Ronstadt's history theme. Rubén Fuentes, a mariachi musician, was her musical arranger.

These canciones were a vital piece of Ronstadt's family history and musical roots. Canciones de mi Padre, a 1946 publication by Luisa Espinel, appeared in a University of Arizona booklet. Luisa Espinel, Ronstadt's aunt, was a British singer in the 1920s and 1930s. Fred Ronstadt, Linda Ronstadt's grandfather, and the songs she had learned, transcribed, and published were some of the ones he brought with him from Sonora. Ronstadt researched and extracted from her father Gilbert's favorites, and she gave her album by the same name as her aunt's book and as a salute to her father and his family. Despite being partially bilingual, Ronstadt has a solid grasp of the Spanish language, allowing her to perform Latin American songs with little discernible US accent; Ronstadt has often described herself as Mexican-American. Her formative years were spent on her father's side of the family. Ronstadt had actually collaborated with her father to write and compose "Lo siento mi vida," a piece that she also included on Hasten Down the Wind. Ronstadt has also credited Mexican singer Lola Beltrán as a central figure in her own singing style, and she recalls how Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, would often serenade her as a youth.

Canciones de Mi Padre received a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance in Ronstadt. The RIAA awarded it double-platinum in 2001 in the United States for shipments of over 2 million copies, making it the country's highest-selling non-English-language album. The album and a later theatrical stage performance served as a measure of Latin cultural revival in North America.

Ronstadt produced and performed a dramatic stage performance in concert halls around the United States and Latin America to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic audiences. These performances were later released on DVD. Ronstadt has returned to Broadway for the fourth time in La bohème for a limited-run engagement. During PBS' annual fund drives, the stage performance was a hit with audiences, earning Ronstadt a Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in a Variety or Music Program.

In the early 1990s, Ronstadt released two more albums of Latin music. Ronstadt's promotion, like the majority of her albums in the 1990s, was a slower affair, with Ronstadt making only a handful of appearances to promote them. They were not as popular as Canciones De Mi Padre, but in some circles, they were highly praised. Mas Canciones, a follow-up to the first Canciones, was released in 1991. She received the Grammy Award for Best Mexican/Mexico American Album on this album. She stepped outside of mariachi's niche and went for well-known Afro-Cuban songs the following year. Frenes was the artist's name on this album. Ronstadt received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album, this time for the first time.

Ronstadt appeared in the lead role of archangel San Miguel in La Pastorela, or A Shephard's Tale, a San Juan Bautista musical film. Luis Valdez wrote and directed it. The production was part of the PBS Great Performances collection.

Canciones de Mi Padre had been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in December 2020, according to the program.

Ronstadt opted to return to recording mainstream pop music in the late 1980s, while celebrating the success of her big band jazz collaborations with Riddle and her surprise hit mariachi albums. With "Somewhere Out There," she returned to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1987, peaking at number two in March. The sentimental duet with James Ingram was nominated for several Grammy Awards before winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, despite being included in the animated film An American Tail. The song was also nominated for Best Original Song and High Sales, as well as a million-selling gold single in the United States, making it one of the first 45 artists to do so. It was also accompanied by a famous music video. Steven Spielberg asked Ronstadt to record the theme song for the animated sequel "Dreams to Dream," which was named "Dreams to Dream." Despite the fact that "Dreams to Dream" failed to achieve fame on "Somewhere Out There," Ronstadt's Adult Contemporary hit in 1991, as shown by "Dreams to Dream."

Ronstadt also released a mainstream pop album and several hit singles in 1989. Cry Like A Rainstorm Howl Like The Wind is one of the singer's most successful albums, in terms of production, production, management, sales, and critical acclaim. It was Ronstadt's tenth Top 10 album on the Billboard chart, debuting at number 7 and being certified triple-platinum (over three million copies were sold in the United States). The album has also been nominated for Grammy Award recognition. Aaron Neville, a New Orleans soul singer, appeared on several of Ronstadt's songs.

Ronstadt employed the sounds of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Tower of Power horns, the Skywalker Symphony, and dozens of artists. It included duets with Aaron Neville, "Don't Know It" (Billboard Hot 100 number 2 hit, Christmas 1989) and "All My Life," both of which were long-running top-selling adult contemporary hits. Several Grammy Award nominations were earned by the duets. Both the 1989 and 1990 Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal awards were lauded. Ronstadt's last known live Grammy Award appearance on the telecast was in 1990 when she and Neville appeared "Don't Know It" together. In 2007, Ronstadt reflected, "I can do things with a different artist that I can't do by myself." "I can do things with Aaron that I can't do alone."

She appeared in a concert at the Tokyo Dome in December 1990 to celebrate John Lennon's 50th birthday and raise environmental concerns. Miles Davis, Lenny Kravitz, Hall & Oates, Natalie Cole, Yoko Ono, and Sean Lennon were among the other participants. Happy Birthday, John, is an album that was released.

At the end of 1993, Ronstadt released the highly acclaimed Winter Light album. It contained New Age recordings such as the lead single "Heartbeats Accelerating" as well as the self-penned title track and featured the glass harmonica. It was her first commercial flop since 1972, peaking at number 92 in Billboard, although Feels Like Home, Ronstadt's long-awaited return to country-rock in 1995 included her interpretation of Tom Petty's classic hit "The Waiting." "Walk On," Ronstadt's rollicking, fiddle-infused flip side, resurfaced on the Country Singles chart for the first time since 1983. In Billboard's Adult Contemporary Top 40, an album track named "The Blue Train" charted for ten weeks. This album did marginally better than its predecessor, peaking at number 75. Both albums were eventually removed from the Elektra/Asylum catalog. In 1993, Ronstadt was nominated for three Lo Nuestro Awards: Female Regional Mexican Artist of the Year, Female Tropical/Salsa Artist of the Year, and her version of "Perfidia" was also listed as the Year's Best Tropical/Salsa Song of the Year.

Ronstadt released Dedicated to the One I Love, an album of classic rock and roll songs reimagined as lullabies in 1996. The album debuted at number 78 on Billboard and received the Grammy Award for Best Musical Album for Children.

Ronstadt's We Ran, her first album in over two years, was released in 1998. The album dates back to Ronstadt's country-rock and folk-rock heyday. With vivid interpretations of songs by Bruce Springsteen, Doc Pomus, Bob Dylan, and John Hiatt, she returned to her rock 'n' roll roots. Glyn Johns produced the album. At the time of its removal in 2008, the album was a commercial failure with 57,897 copies sold. It is Ronstadt's lowest-selling studio album, according to the Elektra/Asylum catalog. We Ran did not chart singles, but critics were raving about it.

Ronstadt, despite We Ran's failure, kept pushing forward with this adult rock discovery. She released the album Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, a folk-rock-oriented project with Emmylou Harris, in the summer of 1999. It received a nomination for the Best Contemporary Folk Album and debuted in Billboard's Top ten of Billboard's Country Albums chart. Nielsen SoundScan has been in print since December 2016, with a total of 223,255 copies sold.

Ronstadt returned to her concert roots in 1999, performing with the Eagles and Jackson Browne at the Staples Center's 1999 New Year's Eve performance, which kicked off the December 31 end-of-the-millennium festivities. "It was our intention to host a spectacular celebration as a salute to the twentieth century," Staples Center Senior Vice President and General Manager Bobby Goldwater said, "Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt are three of the century's most popular performances. "The performers' appearances in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve will be a singular and memorable night of entertainment."

Ronstadt completed her long-term employment with the Elektra/Asylum brand in 2000. With the debut of A Merry Little Christmas, her first holiday collection, which includes rare choral works, the somber Joni Mitchell song "River," and a rare recorded duet with Clooney on Clooney's signature song, "White Christmas," she began.

Ronstadt has gone on to release one album each under Verve and Vanguard Records since leaving Warner Music.

Ronstadt's new friend, singer and musician Ann Savoy, collaborated with her old friend, guitarist and music scholar Ann Savoy, to record Adieu False Heart in 2006. It was an album of roots music that included pop, Cajun, and early-20th-century music and was released on the Vanguard Records label. But despite touring for the first time this year, Adieu False Heart was a commercial failure, peaking at number 146 in the United States. It was the last time Linda Ronstadt would record an album after she began to lose her singing ability as a result of a degenerative disease later discovered to be progressive supranuclear palsy, but it was first diagnosed as Parkinson's disease in December 2012. Adieu False Heart, a Louisiana record, features a cast of local musicians, including Chas Justus, Eric Frey and Kevin Wimmer of the Mamou Playboys, Dirk Powell, and Joel Savoy, as well as a collection of Nashville musicians, including fiddler Stuart Duncan, mandolinist Sam Bush, and guitarist Bryan Sutton. Two Grammy Award nominations were given to the album: Best Traditional Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

Ronstadt contributed to the compilation album We All Love Ella: On the track "Miss Otis Regts," Ronstadt paid tribute to jazz music's all-time most heralded artist.

Ronstadt appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in August 2007, where she brought jazz, rock, and folk music to her set. It was one of her last shows.

Ronstadt appeared on "A La Orilla de un Palmar" on the Chieftains' studio album San Patricio in 2010. (With Ry Cooder). This is her most popular song as lead vocalist on record.

Ronstadt was interviewed by the Arizona Daily Star in 2011 and announced her resignation. She revealed to Alanna Nash, writing for AARP, that she has Parkinson's disease and "can no longer sing a note." Her condition was then reevaluated as a chronic supranuclear palsy. Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands was released in 2022.

Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10, 2014. Ronstadt was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in July 2019. The Tucson Music Hall at the Tucson Convention Center was officially renamed The Linda Ronstadt Music Hall on May 7, 2022, during the International Mariachi Conference.

Ronstadt has released three number-one pop albums, ten top-ten pop albums, and 38 charting pop albums as of 2019. She has 15 albums on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, including four that have reached number one. Ronstadt's singles have earned her a number one hit and three number-two hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with ten top-ten pop singles and 21 reaching the top 40. On the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, she has two number-one hits and two number-one hits, as well as two on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Rolling Stone said that a whole generation "but not for her," Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Costello had to do.

She has recorded and released more than 30 studio albums, as well as making guest appearances on over 120 albums by other artists. The classical minimalist Philip Glass' album Songs from Liquid Days, a hit classical record with other key pop stars either singing or writing lyrics, was included on her guest list (Ronstadt's two tracks on the album featured her singing lyrics written by Suzanne Vega and Laurie Anderson). She appeared on Glass's sequel to record 1000 Airplanes on the Roof. She appeared on Graceland with Simon Felland, where she performed a duet with Simon "Under African Skies." There is a verse dedicated to Ronstadt, her voice, harmonies, and her birth in Tucson, Arizona, in the album. In the Simpsons' episode "Mr." she appeared herself. "Funny How Time Slips Away," with Homer Simpson on The Yellow Album, Plow" and sang a duet.

Ronstadt has also appeared on albums by a diverse range of artists, including Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, J. D. Souther, Emma Parsons, Keith Parsons, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Earl Scruggs, Susan Watson, J. M. Murray, Martha Muldaur, and Richard Nixon (specifically his musical interpretation of Faust), Anne McGarrigle, William Smith, Kevin Neville, Teresa Davis, the Seldom Scene, Keith Taylor, Ronstadt has written songs for several artists, including "Try Me Again," which was covered by Trisha Yearwood; and "Winter Light," which was co-written and produced with Zbigniew Preisner and Eric Kaz and Sarah Brightman, as a singer-songwriter.

her three best-selling studio albums to date are Simple Dreams, 1983's What's New, and 1989's Cry Like The Wind. Each one has been issued by the Recording Industry Association of America for over three million copies sold. The 1976 compilation Greatest Hits, which has been available for over seven million units as of 2001, is her highest-selling album to date. Ronstadt was the first female concert artist to sell out large audiences; she also became the top-grossing solo female concert artist for the 1970s. She stayed a major touring artist into the 1990s, when she returned to smaller venues. Ronstadt was dubbed the "#1 Female Artist of the Decade" in the 1970s by Cashbox magazine, a rival of Billboard at the time. Heart Like a Wheel (1974) at number 164, and Linda Ronstadt, 2002 at number 324 were among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" on "Rolling Stone." The 2012 update included only the compilation, but it was raised to the position once occupied by Heart Like a Wheel.

Ronstadt has worked as a producer on albums from various artists, including her cousin David Lindley, Aaron Neville, and singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb. Cristal – Glass Music Through the Ages, an album of classical music with glass instruments by Dennis James, on which she appeared on several of the arrangements. Ronstadt also produced the Grammy Award-winning Trio II in 1999. She has received a total of 27 Grammy Award nominations in various fields including rock, country, pop, and Tropical Latin, and she has received 11 Grammy Awards in the categories of Pop, Country, Tropical Latin, Musical Album for Children, and Mexican-American. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded Ronstadt with the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2016.

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