“I Never Will Marry”
With Johnny Cash
“Long Long Time”
“You’re No Good”
With Andrew “Thank You For Being a Friend” Gold on guitar and the great Jeff “Skunk Baxter” on congas!
“When Will I Be Loved”
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An artist like Linda Ronstadt exposes a significant flaw in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s execution of its own concept.
First, one must admit that all judgments of music’s quality are subjective at least to a degree. There are people out there who think the Beatles were rubbish. So no judgment the Rock Hall makes can be backed up by “facts of quality”, only statistics of popularity at best. In short: it can, in the main, only be opinion-based. So the arguments of fans against the inductees the committee select, or for the ones they don’t, have validity because our criteria are the same as the committee’s: opinion. That said, I try to be responsible about my rantings against the Hall, though I do think it’s obscene that the work of The Moody Blues from 1967-72, and that of Chicago from about ’69 to ’75, for example, haven’t been recognized.
But Linda Ronstadt is a different case. She falls through a crack the Hall may want to patch up, though the patch might look a little messy.
Again, recognizing that this can only be an opinion-based argument, I think the following opinion would find a lot of support among those who listened to pop radio forty years ago:
Some of the best popular rock of the 70’s was released under the Linda Ronstadt banner.
She worked the same country-pop musical territory as the Eagles, who were in fact her studio band before they found stardom. Her singles were the equal of theirs in terms of songwriting, performances and production. But notice I didn’t phrase my opinion this way:
Linda Ronstadt belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
That’s an opinion that may or may not have as much support. And it’s clearly not the opinion of the Rock Hall’s committee. Probably because there are two main differences between Ronstadt and Hall inductees like the Eagles–other than levels of cocaine usage of course; they don’t call it the “rock hall” for nothing.
1) The Eagles primarily wrote their own material. Linda Ronstadt performed almost exclusively covers. Hmm. This does have validity with me to a point. In my own mind the Beatles will always be “greater” than Elvis (whatever that means) because they were the best pop songwriters of their generation in addition to what they did as performers and “pop stars”. Kind of like Babe Ruth was greater than Barry Bonds because he could pitch.
But no one held cover versions against Elvis. Or indeed any Motown act. Should it disqualify Ronstadt?
2) Secondly and more to the nub of the matter for me: Linda Ronstadt’s great singles are her best argument for the Hall–not her great stage presence or a groundbreaking style or any musicianship (she didn’t play an instrument). But those great singles were produced by a committee of sorts. As I said, the Eagles played on her early work. Andrew Gold, Waddy Wachtel, Russ Kunkel and some of the same stellar musicians who made Steely Dan records helped make those singles great. Listen again to “You’re No Good” or “When Will I Be Loved”–sometimes a guitar solo or great ensemble playing could be a highlight of a Linda Ronstadt song. It’s odd to say but perhaps true that if the same music had been released under a band name, that band would be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But the label on the record said “Linda Ronstadt”. And she was “just a singer in a rock ‘n roll band” to borrow a phrase. But if the “great pop by committee” approach didn’t keep a lot of Motown acts out of the Hall, once again why should it hold Ronstadt back?
So: my opinion is that if there is a museum dedicated to Rock and Roll (a weird idea in the first place) and it encompasses acts that straddle the borders of rock, pop and country (The Mamas and the Papas and Brenda Lee are in) then the great pop music credited to Linda Ronstadt ought to be recognized. And the simplest way to do that is to induct Linda Ronstadt–even if a girl, a microphone and a re-worked song don’t fit your mold as snugly as you may wish.
And I think Three Dog Night should be inducted by precisely the same logic.
Every Moment Has A Song 