Heart Like A Wheel

About Heart Like A Wheel

Heart Like A Wheel (1974) is Linda Ronstadt's fifth solo album release and the last-ever of her studio projects for Capitol Records, arriving a year after 1973's Don't Cry Now, by her outgoing contract, Ronstadt owed Capitol one more album and, as such, brought in producer Peter Asher, who worked with her on Don't Cry Now, and multi-instrumentalist and arranger Andrew Gold. Asher and Gold have been credited over the years as being a collaborative part of the album's artistic success.

The result — a more refined and streamlined mix of country and Rock music than her previous releases, with less of a folk influence — proved to be Ronstadt's commercial breakthrough, the album that many critics later said would standardize the musical formula for her subsequent albums in the 1970s. Released in late 1974, Heart Like A Wheel became the first of her three No. 1 peaks on the Billboard album chart, reaching the perch for the week ending Feb. 15, 1975, right alongside the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, "You're No Good." Ronstadt was featured for the first time on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in its March 27, 1975, issue. The B-side of the single for "You're No Good," a cover of Hank Williams's "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)," peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart (link). The recording features harmony vocals by Emmylou Harris.

The follow-up single release, a cover of the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved," spent two weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in late June 1975. It also became Ronstadt's first #1 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart (link). The B-side of "When Will I Be Loved," a melancholy cover of a Buddy Holly & the Crickets song, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," subsequently climbed the Pop, Adult Contemporary and Country charts (link).