Linda Ronstadt: Greatest Hits

Linda Ronstadt

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: 1976
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Elektra / Wea
• ASIN: B000002GVU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,743 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording
Linda Ronstadt's appeal crossed so many genre lines it's impossible to categorize her as anything other than a gifted vocalist. She enjoyed success on country and rock charts alike with a voice that capably handled the requirements of both styles. There was a commanding roughness to her you-did-me-wrong classic, "You're No Good," that mixed both soul and R&B stylings into her vocals. In a similar vein, she handled the Motown standard, "Heat Wave," like a pro, this time giving it the slightest hint of a country twang. She even rose to the occasion of covering Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day." Rondstadt had some of her best moments with material that had a more emotional element, regardless of genre. "Love Is a Rose" and "Tracks of My Tears" are good examples of the disparate styles she could navigate with equal aplomb. Greatest Hits doesn't chronicle Rondstadt's hits past the mid-1970s, but is still worth owning, not only for the songs themselves, but as a point of reference in her career. --Steve Gdula

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Linda Rocks!, July 25, 2003

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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. 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.

All of her seminal work is included here for you casual enjoyment, from "When Will I Be Loved" to "When Will I Be Loved?", from "You're No Good" to "It's So Easy", and all the others, including "Long, Long Time", "That'll Be The Day", "Love Is A Rose", "Different Drum", "Heat Wave", and many others. This album give us all of Linda's formidable hits, all her in 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 twenty years 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!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS ONE'S THE PLACE TO START, July 26, 2004

By	N. N Wahlert "nnwahler" (seattle, wa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Linda's had quite a few careers, now, as a singer. She sang old torch ballads; she sang the part of Mabel in The Pirates Of Penzance; she even tried to cut it as a new-waver. There was ALSO that period, many, many years ago, when she was the sexiest little country-rocker there ever was (and, in my book, still is).

Linda's been one of those cover artists--the kind who'll try to pip somebody else's version of some previously-recorded hit. Artistically she's had varying degees of success with this, but in the present collection there's not one misfire. The way she puts over "You're No Good" and "Heat Wave" (with a little help from her L.A. session boys, Peter Asher & Andrew Gold), not to mention that hoe-down "Love Is A Rose" and ESPECIALLY that irresistible sing-along approach to "When Will I Be Loved" let one know instantly why she's considered one of the biggies.

Linda's earlier discography was one of the many special things about the seventies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars California Rock Epitomised on Ronstadt Hits Collection, July 4, 2003

By	Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This Linda Ronstadt greatest hits collection evokes its time and musical style as sharply and succinctly as her southern California contemporaries and former bandmates, the Eagles, who released their celebrated greatest hits collection the same year on the same label.

This best-of focuses on Ronstadt's first decade recording for Capitol and Asylum Records. Here, she recreates rockabilly for the 1970s by joining R&B (Motown's "Heat Wave," and "Tracks of My Tears"), folk (Michael Nesmith's "Different Drum," the Springfields "Silver Threads and Golden Needles.") and 50s rock (updating the Everlys' "When Will I Be Loved" and Buddy Holly's "It Don't Matter Anymore.")

Ronstadt would cover every chapter in the Great American songbook over her next 25 years, but never more naturally integrated songs like "You're No Good" (a #1 in 1974) into her own style. She seemed not to want to recreate an era (as with her Nelson Riddle standards collaborations from the 1980s) but to reinterpret previous decades' rock and roll for a new one.

This would template Ronstadt's music to this day: technically well sung, thematic LPs recorded with collaborators ranging from Aaron Neville to Emmylou Harris, with occasionally illuminating but sometimes embarrassingly clunky ("Hurt So Bad," "Ooo Baby Baby") results. All the more reason to pick up this first Greatest Hits set, which captures Linda Ronstadt at her most focused and an important musical period at its peak. Essential, but also check the occasionally in-print "Retrospective," which delves deeper into her more country-flavored work for Capitol.