Linda Ronstadt

About Linda Ronstadt

Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946 in Tucson, Arizona) is an American popular vocalist and entertainer whose vocal styles in a variety of genres have successfully resonated with the general public over the course of a four-decade-long career. As a result, she has earned multiple Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden Globe nominations. A singer-songwriter and record producer, she is recognized as a definitive interpreter of songs. Being one of music’s most versatile, and commercially successful female singers, she was for a time the "highest paid woman in rock". In total, she has released over 30 solo albums, more than 15 compilations or greatest hits albums, and has collaborated with various artists on over 120 other albums. She also has charted 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles, 21 of which have reached the top 40, 10 of which have reached the top 10, three peaking at No. 2, and the No. 1 hit, "You're No Good".

Establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s at the forefront of California's emerging folk rock and country rock movements, genres which later defined post-60s rock music, Linda Ronstadt became the lead singer of a successful folk rock group, The Stone Poneys. Later, as a solo artist, she released Hand Sown ... Home Grown in 1969, considered the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. During these years as greater fame eluded her, Ronstadt actively toured with Jackson Browne, The Doors, Neil Young and others, made television show appearances, and began to contribute her voice to a variety of albums such as Carla Bley's jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill. However, with the successful release of chart-topping albums such as Heart Like A Wheel, Simple Dreams, and Living In The USA, coupled with the fact that Ronstadt became the first female "arena class" rock star, setting records as one of the top-grossing concert artists of the decade, Ronstadt became a star of the highest magnitude[10] and the most successful female rock singer of her era.[11] [12][13] Recognized as the "First Lady of Rock"[14] and the "Queen of Rock", Ronstadt was voted the Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s.[14] Her rock and roll image was equally as famous as her music, appearing six times on the cover of Rolling Stone, Newsweek and Time. In the early 1980s Ronstadt went to Broadway, garnered a Tony nomination, teamed with composer Phillip Glass, recorded traditional music, and collaborated with famed conductor Nelson Riddle, an event at that time viewed as an original and unorthodox move for a rock and roll artist. This venture paid off,[15] and Ronstadt remained one of the best-selling vocalists throughout the 1980s with multi-platinum selling albums such as: What's New, Canciones de Mi Padre and Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. Ronstadt has continued to successfully tour, collaborate, and record celebrated albums, such as Winter Light, Hummin' to Myself, and Adieu False Heart. Ronstadt's thirty-plus album catalog continue to be best-sellers, with a majority of them certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum.[16] Selling in excess of 100 million records worldwide and setting records as one of the top-grossing concert performers for over a decade, Linda Ronstadt was the most successful female rock singer of the '70s and one of the most successful female recording artists in U.S. history. A consummate American artist, Ronstadt opened many doors for women in rock and roll and in music by championing songwriters and musicians, pioneering her chart success onto the concert circuit, and being at the vanguard of many musical movements.[17]

Linda Ronstadt was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1946 to Gilbert Ronstadt (1911-1995), a prosperous machinery merchant who ran the F. Ronstadt Co.,[18] and Ruthmary Copeman Ronstadt (1914-1982), a homemaker with a gift for science. She was raised along with her brothers Peter (who served as Tucson's chief of police from 1981-1992) and Michael and her sister Gretchen (Suzy), on the family's 10-acre ranch. The family was featured in Family Circle magazine in 1953.[19] Her father, Gilbert, came from a leading and pioneering Arizona ranching family[14] and was of Mexican-American, with some German and English, ancestry. Her father's grandfather, Frederick Augustus Ronstadt (who went by the name Federico Augusto Ronstadt) immigrated to the West (then a part of Mexico) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany, and married a Mexican citizen. The marriage resulted in several children, including Federico José María Ronstadt (Linda's grandfather), who eventually settled in Tucson.[20][21] The Ronstadt family has contributed much to arts and culture in the American Southwest.[22] So great are their contributions to Arizona that their history and influence, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies and music, is chronicled in the library of the University of Arizona, Linda's alma mater.[23] Her mother, Ruthmary, was of Anglo-American descent with German, English, and Dutch heritage. Ruthmary was the daughter of the prolific American inventor Lloyd Groff Copeman, and was raised in Michigan. Lloyd, with nearly 700 patents to his name, invented an early form of the toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first electric stove, and an early form of the microwave oven. His flexible rubber ice cube tray earned him millions of dollars in royalties.[24] He once told his grandson that he could walk into any store or home and find one of his inventions.