“It’s never too late for a new beginning in your life.” ~ Joyce Meyers
I’m going to stick with the music theme from last night because I just watched the Linda Ronstadt film: The Sound Of My Voice. Most people have no idea the long relationship I’ve had with Linda. It started when I lived in Tucson, Arizona, her hometown, from 1975-1979. I don’t remember the first time I heard her sing. I just remember she was always there, in my head, and after Hasten Down The Wind was released in August 1976, on my turntable, too. My first concert was at the AU stadium was the Doobie Brothers when I was 11. It was 1976. The next show was Linda’s Hasten Down The Wind tour. I seem to recall the shows were very close together, perhaps just a few weeks. In any case, I became more obsessed with Linda’s music after that show. I played along to every record I could get my hands on. The drummer, usually Russ Kunkle, was just incidental except for the fact that I, like so many others of my era, devoured record sleeve details as if they were leaves of a gospel. We memorized every producer, every musician, every lyric. Still, I never lost sight of Linda’s magnificence. Her voice was utterly transcendent to me. My mother knew I was going through a serious musical growth spurt at the time – I’d only had my first drum set for a year, if that – so she helped me find, and then call, Linda’s mother. After all, it wasn’t long distance. She lived just across town. Linda’s mother was very, very sweet to me, even the other three times I called. She was never anything but kind.
Time marches on. I grew up, and Linda did, too, musically anyway. She veered off into Mariachi and Opera and her Nelson Riddle phase. I was so excited when What’s New was released in 1983 until my boyfriend at the time said, “It’s not what you think. It’s an orchestra.” I threw back my shoulders and replied, “It doesn’t matter. It’s Linda and it’ll be great.” It was. That is if you liked American Standards a la Nelson Riddle. I did not, at least not at 18. Little did I imagine that a few years later, in 1987, I would be smoking a Marlboro in the lounge of the Complex Studios in Santa Monica when suddenly the door swings open and an overdressed woman looks at me with a furrowed brow and says gruffly, “Oh my God, cigarette smoke! I’ll have to open all the windows before I can come in here.” I might have been pissed if I hadn’t known immediately that it was Linda Ronstadt herself, complaining that I was smoking in the lounge of the studio where we were making our record and where, evidently, she had come to do some recording as well. She propped the door open, did a pirouette, and left without another word. I finished my cigarette, also without a word. I kept thinking, “If you hate smoke so much why the hell do you live in Malibu?” The smog that year had been so bad that I was in LA for two weeks before I ever saw the mountains. No one could see them for the smog! I was equal parts deeply disappointed and pissed. A few hours later, when our session had ended for the day, Kiya and I made our way back into the lounge. Linda was there and she was very, very different this time. She appeared to have no recollection of me or the smoke, thankfully. Waddy Watchel was chatting with her and he very kindly introduced us (Waddy was working on our record, which is how we came to be in the lounge again). As I so often did, and still do when I meet someone famous (or infamous), I smiled, said hello, and left it at that. She was very kind and encouraging as Waddy explained who we were and what we were doing there. She smiled that signature Linda Ronstadt smile. Her eyes really do sparkle.
I learned a lot making that record. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that famous people are just people. They’re as kind and as hateful as regular people. Fallible. Obnoxious. They might be gifted, but they’re still capable of being assholes. I stopped putting any of them on a pedestal. The nicest guys (or gals) we met and worked with also happened to be the best players. They seem to have mastered their egos: a rare thing no matter the discipline (I see this all too often in academia). So I was especially thankful that I had the chance to formally meet Linda because I had really awful experiences with a lot of the guys she played with, and it would have scarred me even more than I was already if she had been as awful as they were. She was not. A little odd with the double standard smog/smoke thing, but everybody’s weird somewhere somehow. It’s too bad that I’d become so hardened by the music business that I’d lost the glitter of that 12 year old girl who was obsessed with Linda’s music. But all that stargazed love and admiration and joy came back to me tonight watching her story. She has been an enormous influence. I’m sorry I didn’t tell her that when I had the chance. There will never be another voice like her.
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