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Linda Ronstadt: Greatest Hits, Volume Two

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the first Greatest Hits (1976) for Linda Ronstadt caught her as she was still a rising star in the California sound. Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1980) is the culmination of the peak years of Linda's popularity, 1977-1980.

When "Greatest Hits" was released, Linda was still pushing Hasten Down The Wind (also 1976). In early 1977, she had a surprise hit single with "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me", which is included here. The song was not one of Linda's biggest, but it's a powerful, memorable track.

In the fall of 1977, Linda released her biggest album ever, "Simple Dreams". The album contained no less than four major hit singles, two of which ("It's So Easy" and "Blue Bayou") were on Billboard's top 5 at the same time in late 1977. "Blue Bayou" showcases Linda at her best Patsy Cline vocal moment, "It's So Easy" is a classic country-rocker, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" was a great and sarcastic Warren Zevon number, and her version of The Stone's "Tumbling Dice" shows just what a great female rocker Linda is.

The next year, Linda topped the charts again with "Living In The U.S.A.", in which three hits are culled. "Back In The U.S.A." is sadly one of the weakest hits of her catalog. The Chuck Berry version is classic, but Linda's version is rather aimless. However, all is made up by Linda's smash top 10 jazzy version of "Ooh Baby Baby". Another classic Ronstadt-style track is "Just One Look".

Even though "Living In The U.S.A." was another #1 platinum smash for Linda, it became obvious her formula was getting stale. So Linda decided to shake things up and returned in early 1980 with "Mad Love". Guarenteed to show the Benatar's and Harry's that she is still a force to be reckoned with, "Mad Love" became another huge hit, even if it missed #1. The hard-rocking "How Do I Make You" was the first single and it quickly went top 10, then Linda released a breathtaking remake of "Hurt So Bad" that became an even bigger hit. The third single culled from the album, "I Can't Let Go" harkens back to her Stone Poneys days, but updated to sound 80's.

"Greatest Hits Vol. 2" was released in late 1980 and was the culmination of this stellar hitmaking period in Ronstadt's career. One more rock album (1982's Get Closer) after this and then Linda settled into the world of standards, Adult Contemporary and Spanish music, all genres she has done well at too.

Linda Ronstadt, to me, is the epitome of what an enterpreter singer should be. Her voice is magical and enigmatic. This second compilation of her music focuses on her hits from SIMPLE DREAMS (1977), LIVING IN THE USA (1978) and MAD LOVE (1980). It includes some inspired covers that she is known for doing, and doing well. Such include "It's So Easy", "Back in the USA", "Just One Look", "Blue Bayou" and "Hurt So Bad". It's worth the price of this CD alone for "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", if you don't have it on the original album. Many would say she lost her touch after this album, with her Spanish albums and Nelson Riddle collections, but I disagree, yet this is a good reminder for those that do hold that opinion, what a true legend she is. There will never be another Linda Ronstadt.

I remember first hearing Linda Ronstadt's amazing voice come crashing out of the radio sometime in the late sixties as the lead vocalist for the folk-rock group, the Stone Ponies. Her distinctive melodic scream of a vocal style is so distinctive it is hard not to compare with Roy Orbison, whose songs she sometimes recorded, as with "Blue Bayou", which is included here. This collection of her hit songs covers the decade or so before she went for the big band and "lush" sounds of her more recent work. It is hard to not appreciate a voice so singular and versatile, even if it is most usually delivered with a fevered wail. I once saw her in a small venue in Lenox, Massachusetts in a small amphitheater setting, with the audience sprawled over an expansive lawn that gradually rose above the covered stage area. She was so good with just her guitar and small group that it is difficult to describe her in words short of superlatives such as phenomenal.

Much of her seminal work is included here for you casual enjoyment, from "Hurt So Bad" to "Back In The USA", from "Poor. Poor Pitiful Me" to "It's So Easy", and all the others, including "Just One Look", "Tumbling Dice", "Oh, Baby, Baby", "Someone To lay Down beside Me", and several others. This album give us many of Linda's formidable hits, with a definitive play list that anyone would want to have to ensure an accurate representation of her volumes of work, from dozens of hit albums recorded and released over more than a decade of popular work. This is an essential album for your collection, and one I have both in the house and in the car. For easy listening as I zoom down the highway. Other than the Beach Boys, on the one hand, or Jackson Browne on the other, nobody articulates the southern California folk rock style as well or as consistently as Linda Ronstadt, the little woman with the big, big voice. Enjoy!

Any assessment of Linda's worth as a singer must rest with her voice, which just so happens to be one of the premiere voices in either country or rock. Forget those hard-hearted cynical critics like Dave Marsh or Robert Christgau, who gleefully pan Linda every chance they get...and look downright foolish doing it!

Linda's second GREATEST HITS compilation looks at the 1976-1980 era of Linda's career, when she outsold every female singer on the planet. This album includes the heart-rending versions of such standards as "Blue Bayou", "It's So Easy", and "Hurt So Bad", as well as the deliciously macabre "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me".

A lot of people say that Linda Ronstadt fell off the wagon after this, and one can make the case that her albums of standards, Mexican rancheras, mambos, and lullabies, far from making critics take her seriously, actually made them ridicule her that much more. But none of the Ronstadt pretenders out there these days, least of all Faith Hill and Shania Twain, are ever going to replace Linda, the Queen of Country Rock. GREATEST HITS II is a prime example of why that will always be.

Hastily gathered for Christmas buying in 1980, "Greatest Hits Vol. II" shows that Linda Ronstadt, like her fellow Asylum (Records) inmates, the Eagles, pushed her sound from country to country-rock to rock, with gradually less effect.

The 10 songs are almost all cover versions, the earlier and countrier the better. Karla Bonoff's "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me" and Roy Orbison's "Blue Bayou" are tender, protective ballads experty sung by Ronstadt and played by Los Angeles ace session musicians (Waddy Wachtel, Russ Kunkel, the late Nicolette Larson). They also add acoustic rock snarl to "I Can't Let Go," Warren Zevon's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," and "It's So Easy," a fine Buddy Holly cover.

But things quickly unravel, as Ronstadt and friends fumble soul music styles she handled effortlessly before. She once introduced Hank Williams to Smokey Robinson in a gorgeous "Tracks of My Tears," but her "Ooo Baby Baby" here is pure cocktail jazz. "Hurt So Bad," is worse; Ronstadt shouting at the end over a grating Danny Kortchmar solo, robbing the song of its sad elegance. What's done to the Chuck Berry and Rolling Stones' tunes is criminal; "Back In The USA" and "Tumblin' Dice" might have worked with more honky-tonk arrangements, but Ronstadt's LA rock versions clink and clunk like square wheels. Much of punk/new wave's anger (co-opted for the "Mad Love" hits here) was aimed at the mellow California rock Ronstadt epitomised.

The next 20 years would find Ronstadt a moving target, shifting from pop standards to duet and trio albums to Southwestern music styles, movie music, and back to country/western. This hits album cliff notes Ronstadt's superstar era, but lags behind her first Greatest Hits collection and 1977's exceptional "Simple Dreams." Buy those before deciding on this.

If what you ever need is dance to the rhythm of a nice rock and roll beat, then take Linda Ronstadt' Greatest Hits, Vol. 2.

Linda gives justice to such rock and roll standards like 'It's So Easy', 'Poor, Poor Pitiful Me', 'Tumbling Dice' 'Just One Look' and 'Back In The U.S.A.'. The pining and feeling of homesickness that Ms. Ronstadt clearly exhibits in 'Blue Bayou' could make the great Roy Orbison proud!

This is one hell of an album.

There is only one reason for buying this album, Blue Bayou. One of the few "classics" that will reach into your very soul. You cannot be a living, breathing human being and not"feel" this song. Thank you Ms. Ronstadt.

I love her music. She can sing anything. I have her old albums (remember LPs?). The CDs are even better.

Remember Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies. Remember Linda Ronstadt and her ex-paramour ex-California Governor Jerry Brown. No matter. These songs and the earlier Volume I Greatest Hits are what you want to remember about Linda Ronstadt. No exactly a torch singer, not exactly a classic rocker, not exactly a country or folk singer. But comfortable in all those genres. The songs, for the most part, travel well over time as does her rendition of them. Stand outs here include the lengendary Roy Oberson's Blue Bayou and my favorite the Chuck Berry classic Back in the U.S.A. Hey, the Stone's Tumbling Dice is well done, as well.

This is what I have been looking for,for the long time.I enjoy it very much especially the 4th track.
The product was very well handled.