Id like for you to meet miss Linda Ronstadt. Feeling better, down and withdrew feeling better cuz im over you learned my lesson, it left a scar now i see how you really are youre no good, youre no good, youre no good baby youre no good im going to say it again youre no good, youre no good, youre no good baby, youre no good heres a gal who really sings great. We had her on the show last year, and she was sensational. My first guest occupies a prominent place in the top 40 charts, and she has a big one right now. Linda ronstadt, one of the greats in Country Music. Welcome, please, Linda Ronstadt. Ladies and gentlemen, miss Linda Ronstadt. Baby, im going my way, forgot about you, baby because im in it to stay linda could literally sing anything. Youre no good no good to good i dont think anybody has tried more different styles and nailed it than linda has. Theres not that many people that can pull off new wave music and rock and those beautiful country ballads. Her range is huge. Goo nod no good no good she decided what she wanted to do. More important, what she was authentic at doing. And they always told her, no, you cant do this. Youll ruin your career. She did it anyway. No good someone once asked me why people sing. I answered that they sing for many of the same reasons birds sing. They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day. They sing so the subsequent generations wont forget what the current generations endured or dreamed or delighted in. There are a lot of really good singers out in the world, a lot of better singers than i am. What i did that was different from other singers, i did a whole lot of different kinds of material. People would think that i was trying to reinvent myself, but i never invented myself to start with. I just kind of popped out into the world. My mom grew up in michigan. Her dad was an inventor. He was the third to Thomas Edison in number of useful inventions in the 50s. He invented the electric stove, the electric toaster, the thermostat for westinghouse. But my grandmother had parkinsons disease, and he spent all his money trying to find a cure. And thats what i have now. My mom was really smart, too. She wanted to study math and physics and the university of arizona was really good for that. So she came out to tucson where she met my father. My greatgrandfather, friedrich ronstadt, came from germany to mexico in 1839. My fathers father, federico, moved to tucson when he was 14 to work as a wagonmaker. But his true passion was music. So he started the club philharmonico. He was the one who wrote the arrangements and taught everybody how to play their instruments. He was like the music man. If you wanted to serenade your sweetheart, youd give my grandfathers band a go. And if you had a wedding or a funeral, well, theyd show up for that. First time my mother ever saw my dad, he was riding his horse up the steps of her sorority house. My dad had a lovely baritone tenor voice. Knew a lot of beautiful mexican love songs that were rooted in his childhood. He serenaded my mother underneath her balcony, and she fell big for him. Im a rambler, im a gambler, im a long way from home if you people dont like me, you can leave me alone i grew up in tucson on the last ten acres of my grandfathers cattle ranch. We were very isolated. So if you wanted entertainment, you kind of had to make your own. There was a lot of music going on in that house. Some of it came in through the radio. That was my best friend in the world. What you got cooking we had an amazing radio in tucson because it was really close to the border. We could get the louisiana hayride. Get going louisiana hayride american standards. Cant help loving that man of mine but my grandmother and grandfather were Classical Music devotees. So i would go over to their house on saturday morning and listen to a live broadcast from the metropolitan opera. And come home, and my dad would be playing mexican songs on the piano. My mom would be playing some gilbert and sullivan piece. My sister loved hank williams. She loved Country Music. I cant help it if im still in love with you my brother would be singing really high soprano. He was in a worldclass voice choir, and he was their soloist. She wanted to know how to sing that way so i taught her. So she learned about vibrato and all that stuff when she was like 5, 6 years old. We learned so much about singing from each other. It was completely incorporated into what we did. We sang at the dinner table, we sang in the car, we sang with our hands in the dishwater. I thought spanish was this magical, musical language. When i was growing up, i thought people sang in spanish and spoke in english. If you spoke spanish on the playground, youd be punished. You werent allowed to do it. My sister and brother and i eventually formed a little group. We called ourselves the new union ramblers. We thought that sounded folky. Bobby kimmel was a guitar player that i met in tucson. He wrote songs about his own life. I remember them being one of the best vocal groups id ever heard. Bobby joined our family group, and then he and i used to play as a duet sometimes. We played little clubs in tucson, but there wasnt very much opportunity for us there. At some point, reality stepped in. My sister had three kids. And then my brother went to work for the police department. Bobby wanted to earn some money playing music, so he went off to california. And i was the last man standing. Well, actually now, new and existing customers can get our best smartphone deal. Its historic. That is historic. Which means. Im making history, right . Yea, i dont know if id exactly sa. Wow. Me, dave brown. Existing customer who got the greatest deal in history. Just like every other customer gets. Oh thats cool too. Its not complicated. At t is making history. Everyone gets our best smartphone deals. She always wanted her smile to shine. Now, she uses a capful of therabreath healthy smile oral rinse to give her the healthy, sparkly smile she always wanted. crowd cheering therabreath, its a better mouthwash. At walmart, target and other fine stores. All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray i went to l. A. With the intention of forming a band. When i saw the quality of the singers that were out there, i started writing to linda saying, if you come out, we could form a band and get a record deal. If i was in l. A. I knew they had more clubs to play in los angeles. California dreaming i was telling her, this is kind of an iffy thing. You might starve to death or you might find yourself washing dishes and waiting tables before you ever get discovered. She said, im willing to take the chance. I passed along the way i was 18 years old. We had a house on the beach for 80 bucks a month in santa monica. We split the rent three ways. It was just great. It was right on the beach. She knows im gonna stay once she got there, we got to work right away. We used to practice every day. Bobby introduced me to a really good guitar player named kenny edwards, and we formed a little band. We called ourselves the stone ponies. Look out your window, the rain is turning into snow we started playing beatnik dives and strange pizza parlors wherever we could get a job. Oh how you love me there was a trip where i heard this band called the byrds. It had a light show and a lot of acid tripping kind of stuff going on. The whiskeyagogo is very rock and roll. I heard the doors there, and i thought theyd be really a hit band if theyd get rid of their singer. Open up the door youll see the winds are blowing there was the ashgrove. That was where you go for authentic folk music. Thats where i first heard ry cooder. Have you seen a vigilante man when the l. A. Rock n roll scene was here anding some, see, after the byrds did their thing with mr. Tambourine man, the whole damn thing broke loose. All the Record Companies went scurrying around like headless chickens trying to figure out what to do. Who can sing folk roke, and how can we define what this thing is going to be . Hey mr. Tambourine man play a song for me there was a lot of cross pollination that started happening in the mid60s, Country Music and folk music and rock music started commingling and blending. You would get all these hybrids. The troubadour just a few the troubadour was where everybody went to hang out and be noticed. If you wanted to make yourself known to the Record Community at large, you would go to the troubadour and play at open mic night. I cant even name all the great songwriters that went there. Joni mitchell, kris kristofferson, elton john. Every week, gamechanging songwriters. Some of them were dreamers and some of them were fools who were making plans and thinking of the future you tried to get a gig at the troubadour. You wanted to play the troubadour. All kinds of industry people hung around in the bar. The troubadour was a bustling place. They had a hootenanny night where artists would sing songs. Come and sing a few songs. I used to go to every hootenanny might to see if there was anybody really talented. The open mic hootenanny where youd wait and get on the list and go up there and sing your new song. You must travel to a beat of a different drum i heard a song called travel to a different drum by a group called the greenbrier boys. It was written by mike nesmith who was eventually going to join the monkees. You say it would work out, but honey child, ive got my doubts its just that i am not in the market for a boy who wants to love only me we got an Immediate Response from managers and people who were interested in our career. Herb cohen was managing frank zappa. We had heard that he had been a soldier of fortune. He may have killed somebody. He was a badass. But he was established, and he immediately said, i can get you a record deal. We recorded a few things, took those to the people in power. Capitol said, okay. We signed papers, and we were off and running. So we recorded it with a mandolin and a couple of acoustic guitars. And the Record Company didnt like it. So they said, well, come back. We want to recut the song. Suddenly, everything changed in the studio. They had a bunch of strings in there, and it was an orchestra session. I went, wait a minute. This isnt the way i thought about the song. I said, i dont want to put it on the record because that wasnt the way i originally envisioned it. You and i travel to the beat of a different drum oh, cant you tell by the way i run every time you make eyes at me it was a good thing they didnt listen to me because it was a huge hit. Im driving down the road in my car listening to ktkt radio. And all of a sudden shes singing different drum. I said, wait a minute. You cant see the forest i loved her voice from the first time i heard her. I was a freshman in college. Stone ponies, different drum. Yeah, baby. It was just like to pull back the covering of a fully developed vocal stylist. Yes, and i aint saying you aint pretty all im saying is im not ready most of the time as a critic, youre sitting there saying, well give the artist a plus for this, a minus for this. This is kind of good, thats not so good. Bang. It was like a home run. We were out on this tour, and herbie cohen comes to my hotel room and says, i need to tell you that when we get back to l. A. , the band is breaking up. Everybody said, i dont know about you two guys, but we want the girl singer. The Record Company wanted to develop me as a solo artist. Kenny decided to go off to india and find a guru and learn to meditate. And bobby started a folk club in l. A. Called mccabes. And i was left with what in the world to sing. I was by myself, a harmony singer with no material. Will you welcome, please, miss Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt, ronstadt. I knew you when you were a little stone poney i dont know what that means. I dont have any idea what that means. I know you were part of a group, right . Let me see. How do i explain this on television and not get yelled at . Maybe you dont. I think i dont. It has an inside meaning . Love will abide, take things in stride sounds like good advice but theres no one at my side and time washes clean, loves holds unseen thats what someone told me, but i dont know what it means cuz ive done everything i know to try and make you mine and i think its going to hurt me for a long, long time cuz ive done everything i know to try and make you mine and i think im going to love you for a long, long time i met her in the troubadour. She had this hit called long, long time. Apparently she knew who i was based on a record i had made with ricky nelson. She said, i like that band you put together for rick nelson. Could you do that for me . Shes got everything she needs, shes an artist she dont look back herbie cohen was the manager when i met her. He gave me these tickets to hawaii for the Capitol Records convention. Linda and i show up at San Francisco airport to fly to honolulu, and lo and behold there was the fbi to arrest us for receiving stolen property. Turns out herbie had bought the tickets in the lobby of the building from some guy, you know, probably for 25 cents on the dollar, they were hotter than a twodollar pistol. So we spent the day in jail. She fired herbie and asked me to fill in. I dont want your lonely mansion i was walking through the troubadour on my way to the bathroom. This band shiloh got up and did my exact version of silver threads and golden needles. Silver threads and golden needles i just went, what . God, what i was appalled that anyone would actually sit down with one of my records and learn the solo off, like a led zeppelin record. And i heard the drummer, and i thought he was really good. The drummer was a guy named don henley. Lindas first solo album came out in 1969, and i moved to l. A. In june of 1970. So my timing was pretty good. She had a bunch of dates back east, and we needed to put the band together quickly. So i hired him for 250 a week. Rescue me, i want you in my arms rescue me, i need your tender charms because im lonely i knew who she was because i had her album. I listened to that album a hundred times. Come on and rescue me she could seem vulnerable and very feminine, but when she opened her mouth to sing, everything got different. You know, it was just incredible. By my side you knew that there was a very solid core and a very determined woman. I just saw her walking past me in the troubadour, and she looked so cute. I just grabbed her by the hand and i said, i think you should cook me dinner. She said, okay, gave me her phone number. I called her in a couple of days, well, are you going to cook me dinner . She said, sure, come on over. I went over and she made me a Peanut Butter and jelly sandwich. I said come on, youre living with me. Got the blues oh lord baby say goodbye john david souther and Linda Ronstadt, they were a hot couple. J. D. Had a musical duo with a guy named glenn frey. Do me do you he was my best friend and first songwriting partner. We really did nothing but just listen to music and play guitars and try to write songs and then go to the troubadour. Glenn frey played pretty good guitar. So i went and talked to glenn, and said, do you want to do this tour with me . He said it would be really cool. Hed never been on the road before. Glenn frey and i shared a 12 hotel room with two twin beds in it. It was a very modest tour. I remember being in station wagons. Rooming together. Don and glenn each discovered that the other was a good singer and songwriter. And thats when they decided to get together and form a band. That band became the eagles. They wished us well. John was very supportive. Linda was supportive. And they basically said, just go for it. We didnt have much success with desperado. The Record Company didnt know what to do with it. And then linda made it into a classic. Desperado why dont you come to your senses come down from your fences and open the gate it may be raining but theres a rainbow above you you better let somebody love you, let somebody love you let somebody love you before its too late excuses. Were all guilty of making them. Those are advanced poses. Thats why at cvs, were making not making excuses a little easier, with the vitamins and supplements you may need. Now get a 10 gift card when you spend 30. Cvs. Healthier made easier. Fixodent ultra dual power now get a 10 gift card when you spend 30. Provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. Fixodent. And forget it. I knew the neil young tour was coming, and i thought this will be perfect for linda, because she had sung backup on his big hit heart of gold. So i called neils manager and i said, listen, linda is the right opening act for this. Youve got to help me out. They said, well, neil is going to go out alone. I want to live, i want to give lo and behold, a week later they called me and said, neils done a few dates in canada and its getting him too tired. He now wants an opening act, and youre it. Linda was quite reluctant at the time. She was so worried about the idea of playing a luke hockey arena tour at that point in her career. But we persuaded her this would be a good thing. Thank you. You would occasionally get somebody yell we want neil you know, but by the time the tour got going, she was holding her own. Ive been cheated, been mistreated when will i be loved ive been put down, ive been pushed round when will i be loved heres linda, who id never seen live before. Big stage, sold out, huge place. She comes out singing, and that voice filled this arena, where id seen concerts for a long time. Nobody filled this arena with a voice like Linda Ronstadt. And she just killed it. She slaughtered this crowd, who didnt come to see her, but they sure left knowing who she was. We did 78 dates in 90 days. We played before 18,000 to 20,000 people every night. We got to houston, and there was this new girl singer. Her name was emmylou. It was 1973 during the one tour i did with graham. Calliope calling children are falling in line to ride on the merry go round emmy started singing and in three notes, the entire place was dead quiet. It was like they started mass or something. Ride on the merry go round and she was beautiful. This girl with long hair and big brown eyes. And i thought, shes doing exactly what im doing, and shes doing it better. Do not worry how its done for a minute i thought, well, i can get jealous, and then i wont be able to enjoy her singing, or can i just become a slobbering, drooling fan like the rest of the people in the club and hope that maybe i can get her to sing with me. So i chose the latter. It was one of the best decisions i ever made. And emmy and i became immediate music and social friends. Linda had a lot to do with lifting me up at a very, very low time in my life. I had been kind of on my way working with graham parsons. I thought id found my voice, i had found something i loved to do, singing with him. Love hurts, love scars on the road to getting himself straight, he was drinking a lot less. He was loving the work. We loved singing together. We had a record we had just made. And apparently someone showed up with heroin, which he hadnt done in a while, and it killed him. It was devastating to lose him like that. Takes a lot of pain it was linda who stepped up as a friend, and we had just met each other. She brought me out to l. A. , had me stay at her house, and she talked about me to everybody, said how great i was and genuinely loved my singing, genuinely made me feel like i had something to offer at a very low time in my life. Love hurts save me, free me from my heart this time linda was always very tight with her girlfriends. They sang together. They shared music together. She was supportive of me. I was writing songs and hoping, you know, to make my own record. But of course linda was, you know, really coming into her own and starting to be really successful. And i know its insane i think a songwriter doing their songs is different than a singer doing their songs. But this again she definitely made into a bigger song. It wasnt to save me because i couldnt sing it like that. I made up my mind i would leave today and linda came out and turned it into this power ballad. Back then there wasnt competition with women. So i think, you know, women, there werent that many of us either. So i think there was a certain amount of banding together to sort of share our woman part of it. Its a song off our new album. About a real special place called home. Around the next bend, the flowers ascend the sweet smell of my home in the breeze linda and i are like sisters, around the same age. We were coming up and had the same mutual other musician friends and band members. You know, it was a community of artists. It wasnt sexually divided between just the women and men. We werent thinking in terms of that. Linda and bonnie raitt were two of the first women i was able to see as a Young Journalist and study the way they operated in this community. Were going to move into this world where were running bands with guys in them, but we can also look after each other. I said, if i can have it on my terms and you understand im not going to be told how to dress or what music to make, great. We were all throwing away all those conventions, you know . Move at your own pace. You can even finish the bachelors degree you started in 12 months for 10,000. Capella university. Dont just learn. Learn smarter. My hygienist cleans with a round head, so does my oralb. My hygienist personalizes my cleaning, so does my oralb. My hygienist uses just the right pressure, and so does my oralb. Oralb combines a dentistinspired brush head with the gentle energy of microvibrations for the wow of a professional clean feel every day. My mouth says wow and so does my oralb. The rock n roll culture is so male dominated and also seems to be dominated by hostility against women, this sort of sort of Sexual Identity that is used as a weapon against the populace, you know, women in particular, and everyone identifies with it. And its sort of sad to me, because what happens is that is rock n roll stars tend to end up isolating themselves more and more and more, thereby increasing their own feelings of alienation and anxiety, and they wonder why theyre so miserable, you know. Thats when they turn to drugs and destroy themselves, you know. And its just very silly. It just seems very silly. They lose they lose the ability to focus on themselves as a person, you know, rather than as an image, you know. And thats very dangerous, i think. And there are always a lot of people around them, managers and scene makers, groupies and whatever, that are willing to indulge them in anything they want, you know. It weakens them. It weakens them as people and eventually weakens them as musicians. I can walk, im drunk and dirty, dont you know im still willing out on the road late last night, i seen my pretty eyes in every headlight driven every kind of rig thats ever been made i was in new york, and somebody said, you have to go see this girl. Shes amazing. Shes one of the best singers youll ever hear. Shes brilliant. Shes credibly great looking. She sings barefoot and will knock you out in every respect. And she did. You show me a sign and ill be willing i was running the beatles record label apple when apple started to fall apart, and the beatles were breaking up and all of that. I went to america, and there i was being a manager. I wanted to go back to work as a record producer. So i suggested linda go and meet with peter, which we did, and he agreed to manage her. There was a high bar there. Peter asher had hung around with the beatles. He expected to make records that are huge successes. And he was poised to do that with linda, and geffen was, you know, ready to be their Record Company that would be there. I started Asylum Records and signed jackson browne, and then started signing other artists, and it turned into what it did. And i knew when i saw linda and the stone poneys that she was going to make it, and she was going to make it as a solo artist. And i knew she was going to be a big star. She didnt think so. She had very little confidence in those days. Im never really satisfied with what i do. And lots of times i hear that i did something wrong, and it bothers me. It can ruin my day, really. Linda never thought she was as good as she was. And that is an interesting paradox. Because shes confident about her ideas but not about herself and not about her singing. My involvement as a producer with linda came when she was having trouble finishing the album that became dont cry now. And thats when we decided the next album i would produce was heart like a wheel. Some say a heart is just like a wheel when you bend it you cant mend it these two canadian sisters, they were in an odd category. They didnt fit in pop music. They didnt fit in folk music. They didnt fit anywhere except they fit in my heart. Linda had the ability to hear a song and claim it. You claim it as your own as a singer. If you love it like that, you get inside it. You become it. She discovered that song and to me, i loved it. I thought it was beautiful. But i was also thinking, we should make some hits. I like a ballot singer. But we need some uptempo songs for the records and i thought wed use it to close the show. She knew the song, and decided to do a version of that song. We worked long into the next afternoon. Thats when linda turned out didnt like it. She said, i dont like it, it sounds like the beatles. Which it did but she came around and said, its great. Every song had a face that i sing it to. When something happens to me, some of these songs, the song can occur at the same time and that song or that song, if i can, ill burn to sing it. I cant not sing it. I cant help it if im still in love with you it would make the assumption that i was choosing the songs we were doing on these records, or that i had the arrangements, and i would have to keep explaining it was linda and me, in that order. Linda knew a good song and she knew why it was good. Better than you could. When you become that sharp of a song stylist, you get authorship. In a certain way. I consider her a real auteur. She didnt write songs, but she made songs happen the way she wanted to hear them. I cant help it if im still in love with you i cant help it if im still in love with you was a hit on the country chart. Youre no good was a hit on both the r b chart and the pop chart. I became the first artist to have a hit on all three charts at the same time. The avalanche of success was hitting everywhere. She was at the forefront of a kind of pop stardom that hadnt happened at that point. But people didnt notice the difficulty of being a woman, trailblazing, and having the success of a mick jagger. Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. I was always comparing myself nefertitito my sisters. Irl they were always thin and i wasnt. I ate a lot of food. And then after i had my son it was really difficult to lose the baby weight, and everything took so much time and energy and i didnt have that. And then i tried noom, it was easy and it was super convenient. Its effective, id say its life changing. My my name is nefertiri and noom worked for me. Visit noom. Com and lose the weight for good. People try to rape me, always think im crazy make me burn the candle right down baby i cant stay dont need your jewels in my frown now all you women are lowdown gamblers now i had gigs like in big sporting arenas, you know, stadiums and stuff like that. I knew the name of every arena in the country. We got a gig tonight at the spectrum in philly. Well be at the forum. Gig tomorrow night at the garden. Thats where we played. She was selling them all out. She was very good. The audience loved her. Records sold. She was on an uphill swing all the time. When we did that tour together, wed take turns closing and opening, you know. Try following Linda Ronstadt every night. I went to go see her at the universal amphitheater when she was wearing her boy scouts outfit, and it was just rockin. Linda was able to be really feminine and sexy in this world of men and somehow hold on to herself and do that and use that in the best possible way. There was a lot of dudes running around the stages then. But we were on the road with linda and killin it. She was killin every night. I know they liked my singing, and i know they were proud of what they were doing. But still in rock n roll, the idea that youre actually working for a chick singer, in their way, they saw it as not as cool if they were their own rock n roll band and just all the guys. There werent a lot of women musicians, so it was always a band of guys, you know. There werent women bass players and women guitar players, and sometimes some of these guys were they were tough. I got a lot tougher and more foulmouthed. I used to swear a lot. I mean i used to talk like a truck driver. When i think about how i used to talk, im shocked. Without having any other girls along on the road, just automatically you start to imitate them. Linda was never comfortable being on the road, but obviously she she did her job, and part of her loved it. Who wouldnt love it . But i think there was another part of her that went, you know, this doesnt feel right. If i were going to choose something to do, it would not be to stand up in front of a lot of people. But i love to sing. I love to sing. I love music, so at some point, you do whatever you have to do to do music. She would confess to me that if she saw people in the front row, right, and somebody leans over and says something to the person next to them, she thought they were saying, you know, shes the worst singer ive ever heard. I dont like this. She really believed that. You get on the bus at night, card game going on, everybody blasting music or everyone else drinking, you know. A lot of drugs around. A lot of people would go onstage completely hammered, completely hammered. Everybody was up at night, and when the gig ended, you dont go home and have milk. It was kind of the nighttime danger fun part about not having to go to bed. You know, Keith Richards can do it. So can i. Lindas thing was diet pills. She went through a phase, mostly taking speed and not eating and being super skinny. It seemed like it was so hard to be out there day after day after day and to try to get up the energy to sort of do that when you were just rung out from the sense of being dislocated from place. I was with a bunch of people that were basically earnest and basically honest, and the kind of paranoia that was introduced by drugs, it was so directive in our ability to communicate with each other. And it really saddened me. And at some point we all just stopped. I feel so bad, i got a worried mind im so lonesome all the time since i left my baby behind on blue bayou saving nickels, saving dimes working till the sun dont shine where the folks are fun and the world is mine on blue bayou when Rolling Stone was ready to put Linda Ronstadt on the cover, that was her absolute peak up till then. Generally it was very male oriented denim clad warrior cover. So here comes Linda Ronstadt, and she and Annie Leibovitz put together this photo session that was like no other cover that had been on Rolling Stone before. She was honest and opened her heart. She said, this gets lonely, and i dont know where it ends up. Its an emotional journey, and im happy that i brought this kind of joy. But you know what . When im hear alone in this malibu home that looks very cozy, its lonely. Theres a lot of show Business People down here, you know . Its not my style exactly. Where did you live before . You know really i was on the road for about ten years, and i didnt exactly have a home. On blue bayou [ cheers and applause ] revitalr with proretinol plus hyaluronic acid and vitamin c. It visibly reduces wrinkles. Firms. And brightens. Now thats triple power. Revitalift triple power moisturizer from loreal. Aging is a journey. You cant always know whats ahead. Since 1995, seniors have opened their doors to right at home for personalized care. To be their guide. To steer them through uncharted territory. And when it comes right down to it, to keep them safe at home. After all, home is the best place to be. Right at home, navigating whats to come. To sing the National Anthem here at dodger stadium, miss Linda Ronstadt. O say can you see i remember my dad was watching her at the game. She sang the National Anthem. What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming and all of a sudden, there she is. She had come in the limo straight from the restaurant to the game to have something to eat. My parents had a small restaurant on melrose avenue across the street from what was then khj radio, which was the Radio Station of the day. Lindy walked in, and my dad was wearing a shirt that we call guayabera in mexico, that has four pockets and its white. And she said, this is a good place because hes wearing the shirt my dad wears. A lot of the people out of the troubadour also ate at lucys. Lucy was very, shall we say, loose with the check now and again if we were on hard times. Our customers were not just soon to be celebrities of the industries. They were the old guard of los angeles. I mean youre talking oldschool money. There was a big communal table that my father used to sit everybody at. So youd sit with policemen. Youd sit with firemen. Sometimes youd sit with an actor, a football player. You never had any idea who youd sit with. What happened is linda had decided that she wanted to change the eighttrack because she wanted to hear something else. So she had to step up on this little wine rack, and at that moment, the governor jerry brown comes in that room, and he sees her. And it was like, wow, whos she . So my father went and sat them together. Well, he fell in love with her. There was no question about that. Jerry likes passionate music, passionate women. You know, thats his deal. We had a really good time together. He went out to run for president for the last couple months and if had hadnt been for the fact i got to see him on tv, i would have forgot what he looked like. But he came back yesterday. Hes going to make it all better now. Thats what he told me anyway. I have yet to see. My boyfriends back and youre going to be trouble hey now, hey now, my boyfriends back did you have much of a problem when youre with jerry brown, people expecting you to have political views along the lines of governor browns whereas youre a singer, hes a politician. Our relationship was completely personal. It wasnt political at all. So, you know, he did politics. I did music. Right. Its easy to separate that. Now, you went to south africa recently. Did you receive criticism for going there . As far as i was concerned, it was just a gig. I dont think that if you disagree with the policies of the government, which i do very definitely disagree with the policies of the south african government, i dont think thats enough of a reason not to go and play music there. If i did that, i wouldnt be able to play in the United States because i dont agree with their policies about nuclear power, Nuclear Warfare. My god weve got this person running the country that i completely disagree with. If i decided i wasnt going to play where attitudes of racism prevailed i certainly couldnt play in australia or england or lots of places in the United States, a lot of places in the American South or boston, which is extremely racist. I went to south africa. It has a fascist, repressive government. Im very interested in the culture there. You say why does anyone think im controversial . Do you realize what youve just talked about here . Weve just received all your political views in one blow. Im teasing. I dont think my political views are very controversial. Who likes Nuclear Warfare . I remember her having the wall street journal in her bag one time in the 70s when she was dating jerry, and i went, you know, i had thought she was really smart. But shes really well read and very up on a lot of different things. Shes as wideranging in her critical, intellectual pursuits as she is in her musical pursuits. You dont find that kind of depth in pop music. Jerry needed somebody that could be fulltime there for him. You couldnt have two careers in that family. I never will marry theres not enough time. Ill be no mans wife i intend to stay single for the rest of my life the same reason i never got married. I dont know. I think its hard being a woman in the music business. You know, its a different kind of life. You dont need to get married. You know what i mean . We have our own income, and you dont have to have the state verify that you love somebody. And when that relationship is over, you leave. Neither one of us are really made for marriage or, i think, longterm relationships. Why did you break up . I cant remember. Maybe she could tell you. Its so easy to fall in love its so easy to fall in love people tell me loves for fools here i go breaking all the rules my mom wanted to be a scientist, but she had four kids, and i think that it was always a little bit of a disappointment. She always said to me, go out and have a life. You dont just have to get married. There are alternatives. Its so easy to fall in love its so easy to fall in love i have to confess i got a really bad crush on this guy. We had a little romance for a while, but it wasnt longlived. He dumped me for this pig. Well, at least i got his picture. Does he love me, i wanna know how can i tell if he loves me so is it in his eyes oh, no, you make believe if you wanna if he loves you so its in his kiss thats where it is to present the nominees for favorite female in rock and pop are Teddy Pendergrass and tanya tucker. The nominees are Linda Ronstadt. Miss barbra streisand. And donna summer. You open the envelope. Im too nervous. Ill do the gentlemanly thing here, and ill open it if you will read. Okay. And the winner is Linda Ronstadt. Linda was the queen. She was like what beyonce is now. She was the first female rock n roll star. Want love, get closer she was the only female artist to have platinum albums in a row and most of them multi platinum. For favorite female in rock and pop. Favorite country single, blue bayou by Linda Ronstadt. The winner is Linda Ronstadt. Give us something to look forward to the nature of being a pop musician is that you get these things that are successful. Then you have to sing them for the rest of your life, over and over and over again. And they start sounding like your washing machine. I didnt like singing in the big arenas because the sound was like, you know, youd hear the guitar solo that they played last week still ringing around the rafters. So i started looking for other things to do. Get closer there is this feeling that she has about the music itself rather than the career itself. You know, some people are just hardcore careerists. Theres nothing wrong with that. Not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. And certainly not arthritis. Voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. And it can help you too. Feel the joy of movement with voltaren. Look at that. Rakutens app is super helpful, i open the app, find the store i want to use, start buying and it gets me tons of cash back. Im an on the go kind of rakuten user for sure. I love the rakuten app, it has all my Favorite Stores at the top. I use rakuten for almost everything i buy. I Just Got Paid to shop. My favorite thing about rakuten is just getting money back in the mail. I mean, who wouldnt want cash back. You should sign up using my referral code because then we both get money. Shop. Get cash back. Repeat. Sign up today and get cash back with rakuten. Shop. Get cash back. Repeat. Its time you make the rules. So join the 2 Million People who have switched to xfinity mobile. You can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data thats right for you to save even more. And youll get nationwide 5g at no extra cost. All on the most reliable network. So choose a data option thats right for you. Get nationwide 5g included and save up to 300 a year on the network rated 1 in customer satisfaction. Its your wireless. Your rules. Only with xfinity mobile. She has about the music itself rather than the career itself. You know, some people are just hardcore careerists. Theres nothing wrong with that. You know, its how your mind works that makes the difference. Its your how you see yourself or how you see yourself in the world, you know . And not everybodys a pure art for arts sake, and not everybodys a pure careerist either, especially in music because musicians love music or they wouldnt do it. She wanted a change. She got tired of doing arena rock. She wanted to try different things. I picked up the phone and called my great friend John Rockwell who writes music criticism for the new york times. I said, i hate playing these big sporting arenas. Its not good for the audience. Its not good for the band. I want to sing in a theater with a per seen yum and a curtain. He said, the next time you come to new york, ill take you to meet joseph papp. He does musicals. He did hair. He wants to do the pirates of penzance. My mom was a gilbert and sullivan lover. She had a big book of gilbert and sullivan songs on the piano, and i actually learned all the soprano parts as a kid. And i loved singing them. But i never got a chance to in rock n roll. It was in her roots. It was in her upbringing. It was part of her authentic musical experience. Joe called me and said if i wanted to do the part, i could have it. And i said, no, i have to come and audition because i didnt know whether i could sing it or not. She wanted to be certain that she would do it well. They thought being able to say Linda Ronstadt is in it would be good for business. Her concern is whether it would be good for the show. I was there for several rehearsals and she was fabulous. She just grabbed it by the horns and that was the first job i was ever offered where i actually got to sing like that. I was delighted. I really was because its really hard. You cant learn that overnight. Youve got to be in training. In training, yep. Linda had a great voice, and she had a great vision for herself, and she didnt want to just be singing rock n roll. She wanted to do everything. Just bear in mind that we are wards in chancery i knew some of her songs, but operetta . We all sang through the score just sitting in a circle in chairs, and when i heard her voice, it was just this bel canto soprano, gorgeous, musical, celestial yet earthy, just pure. It just made me cry. I just remember listening to that voice, it would just singing that stuff, touching. If true he has gone astray is that your reason good and true gilbert and sullivan, really . A rock star who has the guts to go out there and do that kind of musical comedy . She just didnt care. To her it was like a mountain to climb. Linda can bring herself to sing anything. She can sing opera. She can do anything with her voice. I couldnt do all that. Kevin kline and i were both nominated for tony awards for that show. Kevin deserved it more than i did. All i did was walk around and sing. My mom died during pirates of penzance. I wasnt with her when she died, and i couldnt just quite get it through my head that she was gone out of the world and i was never going to see her again. Shed had all these records, louis armstrong, ella fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, peggy lee. I thought id like to try to sing some of those songs. Only the lonely go when we lived together, almost every evening the last record we listened to was a Frank Sinatra album called songs for only the lonely with Nelson Riddle. Constantly people were telling linda, you cant do this. Im guilty. When she was going to do the Nelson Riddle album, i didnt think it was a good idea, not because she couldnt do it but because we had this run going with rock n roll records and country. I said id like to find somebody that can write arrangements like Nelson Riddle. They said, why dont you just ask Nelson Riddle . Well, i didnt know he was still alive. You were the only person that i knew that could do orchestrations like this. I didnt know where you were, whether youd be interested in working with me, whether youd ever heard of me or not. As soon as i started learning the songs, they just got inside me. I wanted to record them, and i wanted to do it worse than anything ive wanted to do. Its like falling in love. Choice doesnt even enter into it. Whats new, how is the world treating you i would think, my god, how can i sing these songs . Ella fitzgerald has sung them, Billie Holiday has sung them. Frank sinatra has sung them. Handsome as ever she studied all of those records, and she studied every available version she could find of each one of those songs. She is a real student. Whats new, how did that romance come through she told me she wanted to get those songs out of the elevator. She meant thats the only place you heard them, and she wanted to point out that thats not where they belonged. They were some of the best songs ever written. Need with less of the sugar you dont. [grunting noise] ill take that. Woohoo 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. With nutrients to support immune health. The albums theyve all sold, about ten years to get this together, where they wanted to Work Together and made an album called trio and it was well worth the time. Would you welcome Linda Ronstadt, dolly parton, emmylou harris. I had met dolly. I saw her singing on the grand ole opry, and she was a wonder to behold. What you have in front of you is one of the most beautiful girls youve ever seen. You know, shes just gorgeous. When she opened her mouth and started to sing, i fell on the floor. Shes an amazing singer. Jolene, jolene, jolene im begging of you please dont take my man i told emmylou about her, and then emmy met her somehow. When i made my first trip to nashville, the powers that be set up a meeting with dolly, and she was making a record in her studio. And it was like unbelievable. It was better than any disneyland visit. They kind of found my music somewhere and kind of wanted to meet me, and thats kind of how we all started. Emmy called me up, and she said, Dolly Partons at my house. You have to come over. I was living 40 minutes away, and i got there in 20 minutes. She came over, and there we were, the three of us. We were there with our idol, dolly. They had this big old house, almost like a bunch of hippies. They had different bedrooms. It was just a free for all kind of house, a dream for musicians. And somebody said, well, sing something. Bury me beneath the willow, under the weeping willow tree so he may know where i am sleeping and perhaps hell weep for me so i started singing that, and they said, sing it again. Here come all these harmonies. Oh, it was chilling, chilling, chilling. Bury me beneath the willow, under the weeping willow tree where he may know where i am sleeping and perhaps hell weep for me when we heard our voices, it was like injecting some kind of serum into your veins. It was like a high like weve never felt. We sang first in a living room and said, well, this sounds really good. It was special. It was like a sister, a sound of sisters, musical sisters. Wont you bury me beneath the willow, under the weeping willow tree where he may know at that moment, we thought we have to do a record. To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him just to see him smile makes my life worthwhile we learned so much about singing from each other because you get to sort of be them for a second when youre shadowing in a harmony. Its like getting on an eagle and getting to see the world through that eagles experience. You know, i get to sing through dollys voice or sing through emmys voice when i sing real close harmony. Why cant he see me the only big disagreements would be are we going to use autoharp or dulcimer on this song . Sometimes we would disagree about who would sing lead because emmy and i want dolly to sing lead on everything. You sing lead. No, you sing lead. Linda is such a perfectionist. Shes a pain in the ass sometimes because she is such a perfectionist because she will not have it unless its perfect. She used to make me sing those harmonies over and over and over, and i said im going to sing it the same way no matter. No, youre not. Youre going to hit this one note. See, i dont know all those intricate harmonies like emmylou and linda do. I just sing that raw stuff from feeling, and it aint always proper, but it sounds good. Is to love, love, love him and i do linda, youve sung just about all types of music, light opera. Youve been on broadway, rock n roll, pop. Whats your next project going to be . Im going to do an album of mexican music, of Traditional Mexican music. Im kind of a Traditional Mexican myself. I grew up about 40 minutes from the mexican border. My family are mexican, and that is my roots. Thats what i came from, and i have been dying to do this record for years and years, and im getting around to it this year. Boy, im going to do it. I dont think people thought of her as as mexican. It certainly never came up. I never heard it. I mean the name ronstadt is not hernandez. Ronstadt is a germansounding name. No, shes certainly from mexican heritage, but it wasnt the most apparent thing. I want to see where you put your d. Is it on the roof of your mouth, the back of your teeth . When he asked me if i would sing a harmony on his record, i was completely delighted because you can only learn by doing. I cant there isnt a book you can get, you know, to say how do you learn how to be a singer in spanish . And its always been a dream of mine to make an album of these mexican songs that i learned from my father. My father had a beautiful bare i tone voice. He sounded like a cross between Pedro Infante and Frank Sinatra. If there was a dinner party, hed get the guitar out and just sing, and i always would fall asleep in somebodys lap listening to my dad sing a beautiful song. As a family, we always sang in spanish even though i didnt understand much of what i was singing. It was something i learned to do. It was kind of like lip reading. I used to kind of chameleon in harmony along with my father. To learn to sing that style as a grownup professional singer, that took some doing. See . I always forget the beginning. Oh, yeah. Is it this way . The latin way . Okay. I got it. Im learning all these new things. My dad invited me to go to the tucson mariachi conference. That way i got to meet the mariachi. Those good bands, youre going to go in a symphony and not find better musicians. Theyre all virtuoso players. I picked a couple of songs, the band said these songs are very traditional and very difficult to you. I said these are the only songs i know, so we better learn them. I went to the president of my Record Company, who is a man who genuinely likes music, and i said, look, ive made all these records for you. Theyve sold. Im going to do this just for me. This might be selfindulgent. If it sells two copies, i dont care. If i dont record this music, im going to die. I dont understand any spanish. I didnt understand how popular those songs were, but this is a lady who wanted to do it her way and who was going to say no . [ singing in spanish ] its the largest selling Spanish Language album in the history of the industry. Thats the whole Linda Ronstadt story right there in a nutshell. Linda deciding she wants to do something. The Record Company telling her she cant. She goes ahead and does it anyway, and they jump onboard as the thing starts to take off. They loved it because they were here from mexico. Even though their kids who had grown up here and become american citizens, who is this girl singing songs so beautifully . The fact that she went on and did that and did it in such a big way, that was a brave thing to do. Many people would have been terrified, ill mess up my career, you know. But obviously she had purpose, personal decision. It was good. [ singing in spanish ] to have that traditionalism going along on the bus with me from town to town where id only sung pop music, to take that part of the dirt with me, you know, that part of the soil of the land where i came from to cleveland and cincinnati and new york, that was a thrill. You should have seen central park with, you know, close to a Million People in it. When the mariachi got up onstage with their big hats, the place fell out. They went nuts. There was such a thing of pride that went from the stage to the audience. It was just great. This song was written by me and my father. [ singing in spanish ] my dad died when he was 84. There was a kind of a peace that happened when he died. In the three or four days before he died, he was reading us passages from the book love in the time of cholera. It was just a great sharing. It was a different experience being with my father when he died than it was with my mother. I knew i was going to miss him, but i accepted it better. He had what i would describe as a beautiful death. Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. Aging is a journey. You cant always know whats ahead. Since 1995, seniors have opened their doors to right at home for personalized care. To be their guide. To steer them through uncharted territory. And when it comes right down to it, to keep them safe at home. After all, home is the best place to be. Right at home, navigating whats to come. Were going to get serious, serious now, going to turn you on the our brother aaron neville. Aaron neville was on stage singing his beautiful song, arianne. Arianne, like a bomb come ripping through my window on a kawquiet and rainy sunda somebody told me she was in the audience so i called her up on stage. Usually i never do anything like that because i like to rehearse everything first. I wasnt going to say no to aaron neville. After that, i got an autogra autograph. It said, to aaron with love. Ill sing you with any time, any place, in any key. Look at this face the next morning i woke up and my first thought was, boy, i like singing with aaron neville. That sounded really good. Then i thought, boy, you idiot, everybody sounds good singing with aaron neville. I thought, we got to make a record together. I dont know much but i know i love you that may be all i need to know all kind of rumors going on on that one. They said, oh, linda and aaron, theyre married or whatever. Just crazy stuff. Look at these dreams, so big and so the producer told us, if you dont make it real, aint no sense doing it, so had to make it look real. That may be all there is to know at the studio, i said, see you at the grammys. I know i love you. Homina. Too nervous. Want to say thank you to linda and my wife joelle. Aaron i and won two grammys for that record. But as time went on, there was something really wrong with my voice. I just lost a lot of different colors in my voice. Theres a lot of things you do in singing. You turn your voice to different planes to make different sounds, and i couldnt do anything of. Turned out i had parkinsons disease. Singing is really complex. I was made most aware of it by having it vanish. I still sing in my mind, but i cant do it physically. I sang my last concert november 7, 2009. It was a mexican show. Must have been quite a reckoning to have this marvelous instrument that could always hold the notes, hit the notes and shape the notes, could no longer hold the notes without quavering. But theres a lot of good records with her magnificent voice on them. I hear her laughing in my head all the time. I hear that cackle in my head, so im sort of never without her. I can imagine not being able to sing for linda is awful. But i also know nobody who could handle that kind of change or adjustment in a more logical and thoughtful and intelligent way than linda. I dont think she misses going on the road. I dont imagine she misses making records. I think she missed singing with her friends and singing and living with her family. Theres just no one on the planet that ever had or ever will have a voice like lindas. You know, im grateful for the time i had. I got live a lot of my dreams, and i feel lucky about it. Another person with parkinsons said life after death isnt the question. Its before death. So how are you going to do it . How are you going to live . Gloria singing in Foreign Language ] couldnt find the part there. I dont even know my speaking range anymore. You said before that you couldnt sing anymore. This isnt really singing. Believe me, its a few notes sketched in, but its not really singing. I would enjoy it much more if i could sing, but i cant let them sing this without me. S the a family thing. Shall we . You guys ready . Yeah. ] si [ singing in Foreign Language ] [ singing in Foreign Language ] we get to eat . Yes. Good. I have been cheated been mistreated when will i be loved . I have been put down i have been pushed round when will i be loved . When i find a new man that i want for mine always brings my heart to it happens every time i have been i have been lied to when will i be loved . When i find a new man that i want for mine always brings my heart into it happens every time i have been cheated been mistreated when will i be loved . When will i be loved . Tell me when will i be loved . [ cheers and applause ] probably the most important cultural event in the history of america, and thats a whole new generation of freaks. Its what guys gets off on, the high energy event. You can bet your bottom we got them, baby. Unless you have been living in a sealed cave you probably noticed americas latest crazy is disco dancing. This is punk rock and its purpose so the promote violence, sex, and destruction, in that order. Pur