Customer Reviews

Prisoner in Disguise

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After watching yet another installment of American Idol I happened to revisit this great album and realized that none of the contestants are within a solar system of Linda's voice. When an artist has had as many hits and accolades as she has in her career it's easy to forget what an incredible stylist she was. And this album shows it all. She can go from haunting on the title cut, to heartbreaking on "Hey Mister," to spiritual on "Many Rivers," and to from-the-gut power on the end of "Heat Wave" effortlessly. It's hard to name another female vocalist as versatile as Ms. Ronstadt.

This is a classic Ronstadt album, recorded when she was really in her prime, busy cranking out the volume of hits and those seemingly effortless and sometimes facile interpretations of other people's songs, showing just how original an artist she was. Like the legendary Johnny Rivers, who always seemed to have a magical touch for turning other people's work into brilliant covers and best-selling albums, Ronstadt here does a star turn with other people's songs.

The title tune, written by friend and collaborator JD Souther, "Prisoner In Disguise" is a haunting, powerfully performed song. Then too, James Taylor's "Hey Mister, That's Me Up On The Jukebox," is powerfully interpreted. "Heat Wave" and "Tracks of My Tears" are sizzling, as is a banjo-strumming version of Neil Young's "Love Is a Rose". She soars with an interpretation of Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross," and a lovely effort at blue-eyed soul with Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You". I personally preferred this version of the song, which is quite beautiful without the vocal histrionics of the Whitney Houston recording, which I think ruin the song as a vehicle. All in all, this is a terrific album and one that is really a showcase for Linda at her very best. Enjoy!

Along with The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, and the Byrds, Linda Ronstadt pioneered the fusion and integration of country music and rock music. Seemingly forgotten by contemporary radio and music fans, her influence can be heard on nearly every radio station in the country. Ronstadt's impressive career ranged from Afro-Cuban to mariachi to pop standards to rock & roll to blues to country and everything in between. One needs only listen to contemporary country singers Terri Clark (who turned out an exact duplicate of Ronstadt's hit "It's So Easy" recently) or Trisha Yearwood, the Dixie Chicks or Martina McBride to hear the legacy of Linda Ronstadt. Her innovation and genre-hopping vocal skills influenced countless numbers of today's performers. So if you want to hear Trisha and Martina's lineage, check out "Prisoner in Disguise," and you will realize how pale a shadow they cast in relation to Linda's. "Prisoner in Disguise" is a genre-bending, radio-defying, gutsy romp that picks you up, carries you along, and never lets you down. Ronstadt -- at the peak of her long and successful career at the time of this recording -- doesn't miss so much as a note on this album. Fans of all kinds of music with all kinds of sensibilities will find absolute perfection here. Her song choices, her phrasing, her inflection, her raw vocal abilities are all on spectacular display, under the sure-handed leaderhip of producer Peter Asher. From the anthemic opener, Neil Young's "Love is a Rose," to the gospel-laced "Many Rivers to Cross," from the hard rocking Rolling Stones-cover "Roll Um Easy," to the sensitive, gently touching version of James Tayor's "Jukebox," Ronstadt thumbs her nose at the conventional wisdom that to be successful a singer must do one thing and do it well. Linda does all things better than anybody.

Linda's great winning streak as a singer, begun by the mass success of HEART LIKE A WHEEL in 1974-1975, continued with this hugely successful 1975 album, which found her mining a lot of different areas.

She gets to sing a traditional country duet with her pal Emmylou Harris ("The Sweetest Gift"), she does reggae ("Many Rivers To Cross"), she even steps into bluegrass territory (Neil Young's "Love Is A Rose"). Her remakes of such Motown standards as "Heat Wave" and "The Tracks Of My Tears" are far better than what such know-nothing Ronstadt bashers as Dave Marsh and Robert Christgau might lead you to believe.

But Linda really does herself proud with her definitive, and I do mean DEFINITIVE, rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You." She sings this song with a warmth, sensitivity, and drama that was totally absent in Whitney Houston's uttterly revolting remake for the movie THE BODYGUARD.

It's no secret that Linda became one of the most respected (and possibly intimidating) female singers in history. This glorious collection from the Queen of Country Rock is further proof of that.

This was the first Linda Ronstadt album I ever heard back in late 1970. I had never quite heard anything so pure and wondrous as this voice and to this day wonder if I will ever hear any one sing like her again. Perhaps Trisha Yearwood is a close second these days.
This album contains such classic tracks as Love is a Rose, Prisoner in Disguise and Silverblue. The arrangements are fabulous. There are many different styles tackled but the album has a wonderful flow.
It is so exciting to be able to have this album on CD as my old vinyl was well and truly worn out. Even today this album stands up - my 18 year old son commented 'wow who's that singing!'. He was hearing the voice of an angel that can still move people 30 years on! Thankyou Amazon for bringing this CD to my attention.

This album, like so many of Linda's albums, contains plenty of covers. Among them are Love is a rose (Neil Young), Hey mister that's me on the jukebox (James Taylor), Roll um easy (Little feat), Tracks of my tears (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles), Heat wave (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas), Many rivers to cross (Jimmy Cliff) and I will always love you (Dolly Parton) - quite a variety of sources including folk, rock, Motown country and reggae, reflecting Linda's eclectic musical tastes.

The other songs might be covers or originals. They are two John David Souther songs (the title track and Silver blue), one Anna McGarrigle song (You tell me I'm falling down) and the traditional-sounding Sweetest gift - this song is a duet with Emmylou, which has since been covered by the Judds and by Trisha Yearwood.

Somehow, Linda and her producer, Peter Asher, managed to create a cohesive album from an unlikely collection of songs. My favorite tracks are I will always love you (the earliest cover of this song that I know of, recorded just a few months after Dolly's original), Love is a rose, Tracks of my tears and Sweetest gift, but there's a lot of wonderful music here. Among her rock albums of the seventies, my favorite is Simple dreams but this one is a close second.

I gonna make this terse. Listen to "Hey Mister, That's Me Up On The JukeBox", "Tracks of my tears", "Prisoner In Disguise", and "Many Rivers to cross". If that doesn't persuade you, then nothing will. One of the best female interpreters next to Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand.

After the chart-topping success of HEART LIKE A WHEEL, Linda Ronstadt released PRISONER IN DISGUISE in 1975, an extremely successful follow-up effort which bolstered her standing as one of America's most popular singers. Opting not to fiddle with a formula that was working, Ronstadt delivered another collection of well-crafted, carefully arranged rock, pop and country songs that showed off her talent for covering good tunes and rendering them in a way that allowed the melodies to soar on the strength of her graceful voice.

The album yielded two strong singles: an exuberant version of the Motown classic "Heat Wave" and a silky-smooth rendition of Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby Baby," featuring lyrical alto saxophone touches by veteran session man David Sanborn. Ms. Ronstadt makes great use of the poignant ache in her voice on elegaic ballads like James Taylor's "Hey Mister, That's Me Up on the Jukebox" and Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which she sings with considerably less vocal histrionics than Whitney Houston would in her remake of the tune some 20 years later, which is a good thing.

When "I Will Always Love You" was released with "The Bodyguard" soundtrack I wanted to scream that this song had already been done and done TEN TIMES BETTER by Linda Ronstadt. Linda has it over most of today's pop and country artists by leaps and bounds. This album doesn't suffer with age. It is a timeless classic.

While Linda's other albums may have been more popular than this one is her best. EVERY track on this album is FANTASTIC. Whether it is the beautifully eloquent version of Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" or the wild and vibrant Lowell George tune "Roll Um Easy" (featuring the master himself playing the slide guitar!) Linda brings something new and exciting to each song that was previously released by others.

The best thing, though, about this album is the general feel that you get when you listen to the music and look at the album cover that it was produced by a group of people that were just getting together to make music and be creative together. All of the tracks are pure and clean without mechanical wizardry distorting them. Linda is not an artist that has ever needed special effects. Her voice is the real deal: powerful,electric, and simply beautiful.

Everyone else can eat their hearts out.

Linda Ronstadt's 1975 album PRISONER IN DISGUISE is a timeless classic. Every song is a gem and there's something different about each one. Her interpretations of each song is a nice reminder of why she is a master interpreter of song. While everyone hypes up Whitney Houston's bland version of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You", Linda Ronstadt's version is the best cover version I've heard of the song. She brings love and warmth to the song, unlike Whitney's blaring vocals which distract from the beauty of Parton's lyrics. Linda does great covers of the Motown classics "Heat Wave" and "Tracks of My Tears". Some other favorites of mine on the album include "You Tell Me That I'm Falling Down", "Prisoner In Disguise", "The Sweetest Gift", "Many Rivers To Cross", "Love Is A Rose", "Hey Mister That's Me Up On The Jukebox", essentially every track is a winner. This is the real deal here, just real talent. A classic album that should not go unnoticed.