Linda Ronstadt’s music has been a part of my life since I was a teenager and first heard the song “You’re No Good” on the radio in the mid-70s. She had a couple of other hits before that, including “Different Drum” and “Long, Long Time”, but I never connected the fact that these songs were from a woman born and raised in Tucson. When her breakthrough album “Heart Like A Wheel” came out in late 1974, it was huge news, and everyone in Tucson talked about Linda being a hometown girl. That album was the first one I ever really got to know and love. I bought every album she released after that, one by one. I was never really interested in her work with the Stone Poneys, or her first two solo albums, “Hand Sown, Home Grown” and “Silk Purse”, however. Her songs selections on those albums weren’t as appealing to me and her voice sounded twangier then, and in my opinion, not as well developed as it was when she released “Heart Like A Wheel”.

I saw Linda perform at the Tucson Community Center twice in the late 70s, and then again much later at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference. I even got to meet her once back in 2004. She remains one of my very favorite singers, and I have nearly all of her recordings either on lp, cassette or cd. I played her music all the time on my radio show, the Chicano Connection too. I’ll always love her.

Her birthday is coming up soon, so I thought I’d create my own playlist of tunes she recorded that I especially enjoy listening to. Most of these are either folk songs or country songs. I think Linda does an exceptional job interpreting these kinds of tunes. I also love her rock material and her music in Spanish, but this time around, for the most part, I’m focusing on Linda Ronstadt, the barefoot folkie.