Alison by Linda Ronstadt

[johnfoyle]

Much as Elvis hated it (but loved, no doubt , the royalties) Linda Ronstadt's version of Alison has it's fans.

I've always had a rather guilty fondness for it , especially the saxophone bit . Not as much as this Rolling Stone
review from the time , but Ken Emerson had the right idea -

http://tinyurl.com/2jtdgo

(extract)

'It's telling that the best performance on the new record is one in which the artist expresses pity not
for herself but for another woman. "Alison" is an understated masterpiece that ranks with Linda
Ronstadt's very finest work. Surprisingly, the reversal of the singer's gender does remarkably little
violence to Elvis Costello's lyric. Instead, it's almost as if a sadder but wiser Ronstadt were
addressing with wary tenderness and a stern, hard-won strength her earlier persona, regretting her
victimization but refusing to indulge "the silly things" she said. And as Ronstadt argues with herself,
her voice and David Sanborn's buzzy alto sax merge sympathetically, divide and commingle once
more–mimicking each other in an intricate, eloquent pas de deux.'

A live version by Ms Ronstadt ( from Budokan Hall ,Tokyo, Japan, Feb.27 '79 ) has surfaced ; have a listen


http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2jh9fezhth0


Linda Ronstadt - Alison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAHktlvoZEE


Linda Ronstadt - Girls Talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQGzsJFdBEI

Linda Ronstadt - Party Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AinIiR3E0Bc


Linda Ronstadt - Talking In The Dark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg5xkHfhJ0g

[migdd]

For awhile, it was pretty hip to slag off Ronstadt as a California rock wannabee but I always liked her. She has an incredibly powerful and versatile voice and usually had a good ear for a great song. The two albums that contained EC material were among her weakest to my ears although I liked her version of Alison well enough. Her renditions of Party Girl and Talking in the Dark on the Mad Love album didn't hold up as well.

[And No Coffee Table]

http://theseconddisc.com/2011/09/01/different-drums-music-club-compiles-linda-ronstadt-and-george-benson/



Linda Ronstadt, The Collection (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX525, 2011)

CD 1

You’re No Good
Don’t Know Much – With Aaron Neville
When Will I Be Loved
Tracks Of My Tears
It’s So Easy
Different Drum – With The Stone Poneys
That’ll Be The Day
Carmelita
Just One Look
It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Hey Mister, That’s Me Up On The Juke Box
Back In The USA
Hurt So Bad
Ooh Baby Baby
The Blue Train
I Will Always Love You
How Do I Make You
Love Is A Rose
Tumbling Dice
Desperado
Silver Threads & Golden Needles
Roll Um Easy
Alison

CD 2

Heat Wave
Blue Bayou
All My Life – With Aaron Neville
Love Has No Pride
I Can’t Let Go
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Someone To Lay Down Beside Me
Hasten Down The Wind
Por Un Amor (For A Love)
The Waiting
I Will Never Marry – With Dolly Parton
Get Closer
Many Rivers To Cross
After The Gold Rush – With Emmylou Harris
Heart Like A Wheel
Frenesi
Dedicated To The One I Love
Winter Light
Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
Be My Baby
What’s New
Long Long Time

[verbal gymnastics]

Elvis and Linda have a few songs in common...

[Harry Worth]

Many years ago a good friend of mine found himself backstage after an EC gig and in the presence of the great man for the first time. Desperate to have more than a brief "hello" he blurted out the first thing that came into his head "What do you think of Linda Ronstadt?" He was met by a discussion terminating glare and his prayers for the ground to open up and swallow him whole right there right then were unanswered!

[martinfoyle]

Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt, 67, told AARP today that she “can’t sing a note” because she suffers from Parkinson’s disease

http://blog.aarp.org/2013/08/23/linda-r ... s-disease/

[migdd]

This is very sad news. I've been missing her voice and knowing now that I'll not hear anything new from her is more than a little bit heartbreaking. Hasten Down the Wind is due for a spin on the turntable tonight.

[Jack of All Parades]

To think that I will never hear her distinctive and powerful timbre live ever again is most sad indeed. Though some of the songs in this retrospective are far from my favorites of her past performances, it does give a fair sampling. Her rendition of the Hank Williams' song has always connected with me:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... ic+Blog%29

[johnfoyle]

Just found this , that I posted elsewhere here -

Elvis has always been rather dismissive of the 1970's covers of his songs by Linda Ronstadt ; this interview extract seems to indicate a level of co-operation at the time.

http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/intpb.htm


Playboy Interview: Linda Ronstadt

a candid conversation with the first lady of rock
about her music, her colorful past, her new image
and her "boyfriend," jerry brown

Interview by Jean Vallely
April, 1980

( extract)
PLAYBOY: How did you get the new tunes?

RONSTADT: Elvis Costello, who I think is writing the best new stuff around, wrote three of the songs.

PLAYBOY: What did Costello think of your cover of his song Alison?

RONSTADT: I've never communicated with him directly, but I heard that someone asked him what he thought and he said he'd never heard it but that he'd be glad to get the money. So I sent him a message. "Send me some more songs, just keep thinking about the money." And he sent me the song Talking in the Dark, which has not been released here, and I love it. I also recorded Party Girl and Girl Talk.

PLAYBOY: You also have three songs from Mark Goldenberg. Who's he?

RONSTADT: Next to Elvis Costello, he's writing my favorite new rock 'n' roll. He's part of a group called the Cretones. He's great. I don't know how this album will sell. I'm sure I'll be attacked: "Linda's sold out, trying to be trendy, gotten away from her roots." But, well, can't worry about what the critics say.

...........later

PLAYBOY: Before we get to the year 2000, what about the music just ahead - in the Eighties?

RONSTADT: The Eighties is a season of change, kind of like the Sixties just before rock 'n' roll exploded. A lot of us are kind of walking around wringing our hands and wondering what the music will be like. The most interesting things seem to be coming out of England again. At least my favorite things: Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Rockpile. L.A. looks like it has dried up as far as ideas are concerned. Right now there is a real vacuum. I keep turning the radio dial a lot.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A review from the time is detailed in it's analysis -

http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/revmad1.htm

Album Review / Mad Love
Rolling Stone #314, April 3, 1980
Review by Stephen Holden

( extract)

The arrangements strike the same attitude as the singing. Utilizing one or two guitars with lots of fuzz tone, organ-dominated keyboards, bass, drums, very few backup vocals and no sweetening, the settings are bleak, spare and downright hermetic. What little drive Mad Love has is muted and mechanistic: every take sounds like the 200th. Such studio meticulousness lends the music a desolate ethereality that's as unreal as Ronstadt's vocal punkiness. It's hard to imagine these performances live because the "crudeness" here is so high-tech chic.

Elvis Costello's compositions are probably the worst casualties of this salon approach. Costello's songs boast some of the snappiest melodies in all of rock & roll, but as Ronstadt demonstrates, their lyrics aren't easily penetrable. Battlegrounds of rage, frustration and fearful longing, they demand an unpretty voice like Costello's and fierce, clanging settings. By treating Costello's work as pop lieder, Linda Ronstadt and Peter Asher simply undermine its neurotic urgency.

Ronstadt sings "Party Girl" in the first-person singular, thereby becoming the girl to whom Costello originally addressed the tune. This silly idea changes the song from a desperate declaration of love into a murky tear-jerker whose pathos is underscored by the most lethargic of tempos. "Girls Talk" comes off as a ringing high-school anthem to teenage gossip rather than a fiery expression of sexual paranoia. "Talking in the Dark," a number that vents the psychotic extremes of hostility and need, is sung with a jaunty macho swagger that barely acknowledges Costello's shrewd craziness.

[Jack of All Parades]

A thoughtful assessment of her talent from the New Yorker blog:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/c ... songs.html

[johnfoyle]

Poignant thoughts from Linda Ronstadt in the new issue of Record Collector

[johnfoyle]

Newish to youtube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxJib9v ... e=youtu.be


Linda Ronstadt - Party girl (Elvis Costello cover , live Hollywood 1980)