1967
https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/linda-ronstadt-through-the-years-her-life-in-photos/2024-01-17T23:34:18+00:00monthly0.7https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-849.jpg?quality=86&strip=allhttps://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-850.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1967]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt kicked off her career as a member of the folk rock band The Stone Poneys, recording a total of three albums with the group. Their first hit, “Different Drum,” made Ronstadt famous, but she later said she didn't think her vocals on the track were very good.“I mean, I was just shocked,” she told NPR in 2013. “I didn't want them to use it because I felt like I was struggling so [much] with the singing. And I thought that showed, you know, so clearly. But it was a hit. So when they put it out, that was a lucky thing for me that they didn't listen to me.”]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-851.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1969]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt released her first solo album, Hand Sown ... Home Grown. Her second LP, Silk Purse, dropped the following year and included her first hit single, “Long, Long Time.”]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-852.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1974]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt’s fifth album, Heart Like a Wheel, debuted to critical acclaim and commercial success. The LP included her iconic cover of “You’re No Good,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ronstadt later said that the track isn’t one of her favorites.“That was an afterthought,” she said during a 2015 interview with the Library of Congress. “It’s a good song. But not good for my voice. … I call [rock songs] ‘short-note songs.’ I like the track better without my singing on it.”]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-853.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1976]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt took home her first Grammy, winning Best Female Country Vocal Performance for the song "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)."]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-854.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1977]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt released her eighth studio album, Simple Dreams, which includes some of her most well-known songs: “Tumbling Dice” (a Rolling Stones cover), “Blue Bayou” (a Roy Orbison cover) and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” (a Warren Zevon cover). The album became the best-selling solo album of her career.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-855.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1979]]><![CDATA[During the mid-1970s, Ronstadt dated Jerry Brown, who was then the governor of California. The duo shared a Newsweek magazine cover in April 1979 but drifted apart the following year after his failed presidential campaign.“Neither of us ever suffered under the delusion that we would like to share each other’s lives," Ronstadt wrote in her 2013 memoir, Simple Dreams. "I would have found his life too restrictive, and he would have found mine entirely chaotic. Eventually we went our separate ways and embraced things that resonated with us as different individuals … We have always remained on excellent terms."]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-856.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1983]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt appeared on the big screen in a film adaptation of the musical The Pirates of Penzance alongside Kevin Kline and Angela Lansbury. That same year, she began dating Star Wars creator George Lucas following a brief romance with Jim Carrey. Ronstadt and Lucas were engaged before calling it quits in 1988.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-857.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1987]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt recorded the country album Trio with Parton and Harris. Lucas directed their music video for “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” Parton later described Ronstadt as “a perfectionist” in the 2019 documentary Sound of My Voice. “She’s a pain in the ass sometimes because she is such a perfectionist,” the country superstar quipped. “She will not have it unless it’s perfect. She used to make me sing those harmonies over and over and over.”Eight months after Trio, Ronstadt released Canciones de Mi Padre, her first album of traditional Mexican music. “I knew these songs because they were on the old records my dad had,” she told AARP The Magazine in 2022. “What I wanted to do was not to copy the songs so much as emulate the feeling of great Mexican singers like Lola Beltrán and Amalia Mendoza. I wanted to get that feeling, so I recorded their songs.”]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-858.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1990]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt adopted her daughter, Mary Clementine. Four years later, she adopted son Carlos. The singer rarely speaks about her kids, but she shared a sweet tidbit during a 2022 interview with AARP The Magazine. “My daughter didn’t know that I sang in English until she was about 6,” Ronstadt recalled. “She had only heard me sing in Spanish.”]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-859.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[1999]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt, Parton and Harris released Trio II. The album was originally recorded in 1994, but label disputes and scheduling conflicts prevented it from being released for five years.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-860.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2004]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt released what would become her final solo album, Hummin’ to Myself. Two years later, she released her final LP, Adieu False Heart, with Ann Savoy.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-861.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2011]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt announced her retirement from performing and recording. "I am 100 percent retired and I'm not doing anything anymore,” she told the Arizona Daily Star. “I'm at the ripe old age of getting to be 65 and I find that I don't have the power that I had, and that's not worth inviting people to spend their money."]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-862.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2013]]><![CDATA[In the run-up to the release of her memoir, Simple Dreams, Ronstadt revealed that she is no longer able to sing following a diagnosis of what was initially believed to be Parkinson’s disease. (She was subsequently reevaluated and diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy.)]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-863.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2014]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by The Eagles’ Glenn Frey. She had to miss the ceremony because of her health but wasn’t too upset about it. “I haven’t given it one thought, I have to say,” she told Billboard at the time. “It wasn’t anything I ever thought about. I never thought of myself as a rock 'n' roll singer.”That same year, former President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-864.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2019]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor alongside Sally Field and others. That same year, her documentary, Sound of My Voice, hit theaters.]]>https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Linda-Rondstadt-Through-the-Years-865.jpg?quality=86&strip=all<![CDATA[2023]]><![CDATA[Ronstadt’s 1970 hit “Long, Long Time” experienced a second surge of popularity after it appeared in an episode of HBO’s The Last of Us. The episode was named after the song, which played an important role in the relationship of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett). “I still love the song and I’m very glad that Gary will get a windfall,” Ronstadt told Billboard, referring to songwriter Gary White.]]>ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tr%2FMmp6aspmjsm%2BvzqZmn52VmXyorculnKuxXai2tbHMmqdod6OhwqiJy6KlnZldp7yvv9Oam61lpJ2%2FsMHGoWStoJVixqat0axkoZ2iYrmqssRmoKdloJ28tbvS
Enda Jantzen
Update: 2024-05-06