Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019)

I better start by acknowledging a lifelong blind spot for Linda Ronstadt. As it happens, this amazing documentary does little to change that, but it helps me see how much I missed about her and more generally how wrong I've been, what a fully rich and rewarding career she has had. It reminded me how much I like what I do like from her pop and rock period, such as the early hit with the Stone Poneys, "Different Drum." It helped me make my peace with "Long Long Time," an aching hit ballad I never cared for until I saw it here (in fact, I hated it so much I regularly changed the station on it when I was 15). And it pointed out the obvious about "You're No Good," which is that the production turns it into a type of late Beatles rave-up. Somehow I never noticed that and I have always liked the song a lot. I was particularly struck by how The Sound of My Voice didn't even mention my favorite song by her, a cover of Karla Bonoff's "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me" (and Bonoff is one of those interviewed here). Of course, it salutes her primary sin by my lights, all those terrible covers from the '70s ("When Will I Be Loved," "That'll Be the Day," "It's So Easy"), including Elvis Costello material. Costello complained about her covers and ended up looking a little like Jonathan Franzen 20 years later complaining about Oprah Winfrey, but I still agree with him to the extent that I don't think she brought that much to his songs (beyond beefed-up royalties, which, let's face it). But Elvis Costello is not mentioned either. My key associations with Linda Ronstadt turn out to be footnotes or not important at all. The Sound of My Voice sails past them with barely a note, which I take as one measure of how out of step with Ronstadt's career and talent I have been. 

All those things I really hated, which came in the '80s and later, look different in the context of her entire career. First there's the turn to Gilbert & Sullivan operetta—I have never been a G&S fan, even casually. Then there is the American songbook move, recording Tin Pan Alley standards arranged by Nelson Riddle. She might have been the first rock star to do it and I remember, in the mid-'80s, finding it particularly repulsive. But I have softened since then, perhaps partly by the lesser attempts of Rod Stewart and especially Bob Dylan in comparison, and partly by a lifetime's parade of Woody Allen movies finally insinuating a taste for such stuff in me. What we see here of those sessions is absolutely stunning, truly. Great material, sensitively performed. But Linda Ronstadt was not done yet. Next she hooked up with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris and what we see here of that is equally stunning. But there's more. Then she turned to doing traditional Mexican mariachi music, and that stuff was just as flattening as what came before. I mean, I'm telling you, this documentary is amazing. Dolly Parton has a great quote in this where she talks about Ronstadt's voice and her ability to use it as a serious instrument, crafting it into many different shapes and guises with a perfectionism that's bracing. That is Ronstadt's great talent, her genius, and it's what's on display in this amazing show. You really don't have to be a fan—or even become one—to appreciate that. It makes the tragedy of losing her voice to Parkinson's all the more poignant and devastating. This is that rare biographical picture that turned me around completely on its subject even if it didn't have that much specific effect on my taste. Even if you don't like '70s arena rock, covers of standards (Tin Pan Alley or rock era), country harmonies, or mariachi music—none of which has been a major cup of tea for me—you're still likely to come out of this amazed that one person could do them all so convincingly. She's a pretty cool person too. I'm just going to go ahead and say this is essential.