Trivia / Linda Ronstadt

• Acclaimed Flop: 1993's Winter Light, which received rave reviews and is considered by fans to be among her best work, but only reached #92 on the Billboard charts and didn't even reach Gold status.
• Black Sheep Hit: "Different Drum" was this for The Stone Poneys. They usually sung as a three-piece vocal harmony, while "Different Drum" had Ronstadt doing the vocals herself. It succeeded in giving them their first major hit, but the tensions caused by record label execs only interested in Ronstadt lead to the band breaking up.
• Breakup Breakout: The only reason anyone remembers The Stone Poneys is because they're "the band Linda Ronstadt got started in." It's no coincidence that when their albums were later remastered and re-released, they were rebranded as Linda Ronstadt and The Stone Poneys.
• Chart Displacement: "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" has long been a favorite of American pop and country oldies radio despite its relatively modest peaks of #31 on the pop chart and #46 country.
• Colbert Bump: Ronstadt wearing roller skates on the cover of Living in the USA gave roller skating a resurgence of popularity, making it a popular fad in the 1980s.
  • Ronstadt herself received one from Johnny Cash early in her career, when she was still primarily a country singer.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Elvis Costello said that he did not like her versions of his songs, although the money he made from her version of "Alison" was enough to keep him and the Attractions touring - Until he began donating the royalties to anti-apartheid charities after she performed at Sun City. He retracted his comments in 2020, stating that she was a great singer.
  • Despite it being one of her biggest hits and best known songs, Ronstadt isn't particularly fond of "You're No Good". She said in 1983 that she views it as one of her worst vocal performances and that she doesn't enjoy singing it.
• Follow the Leader:
  • Along with Gloria Estefan, Ronstadt laid the groundwork for the 1990s Latin boom that culminated with artists like Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias topping the charts by the decade's end.
  • Ronstadt established herself by making pop-oriented country music that earned a mixed reception from country fans, before abandoning country altogether to do mainstream rock music, which catapulted her to being one of the most commercially successful singers of her time. Doesn't this sound familiar?
• One-Hit Wonder: Not her, obviously, but "Long Long Time" is a songwriting example. Its composer, Gary B. White, was a guitarist on the LA folk music scene who only had a handful of total writing credits.
• Revival by Commercialization: Ronstadt had a resurgence similar to that of Kate Bush early 2023 after "Long Long Time" was prominently featured in The Last of Us (2023).
• She Also Did:
  • Played Mabel in a film version of The Pirates of Penzance.
  • She sang backing vocals for Neil Young on his album Harvest and its sequel, Harvest Moon.
• Sleeper Hit: Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind was an unexpected smash hit when released in 1989, which gave Ronstadt a career resurgence through the early 1990s.