Linda Ronstadt | Biography, Albums, Songs, & Facts (2024)

Linda Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.) is an American singer, with a pure, expressive soprano voice and eclectic artistic tastes, whose performances called attention to a number of new songwriters and helped establish country rock music.

After winning attention with a folk-oriented trio, the Stone Poneys, in California in the mid-1960s, Ronstadt embarked upon a solo career in 1968, introducing material by songwriters such as Neil Young and Jackson Browne and collaborating with top country-oriented rock musicians (including future members of the Eagles). Produced by Briton Peter Asher, Ronstadt’s album Heart Like a Wheel (1974) sold more than a million copies. It also established the formula she would follow on several successful albums, mixing traditional folk songs, covers of rock and roll standards, and new material by contemporary songwriters (e.g., Anna McGarrigle, Warren Zevon, and Elvis Costello).

In the 1980s and ’90s, with mixed success, Ronstadt branched out. She starred in the Broadway version of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical The Pirates of Penzance (1981–82) as well as the film (1983). Working with big-band arranger Nelson Riddle, she released three albums of popular standards, What’s New (1983), Lush Life (1984), and For Sentimental Reasons (1986). Each of her three collections of Spanish-language songs—Canciones de mi padre (1987), Mas canciones (1991), and Frenesí (1992)—won a Grammy Award. A long-awaited collaboration with country singers Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris resulted in Trio (1987), followed by Trio II (1999), which included the Grammy Award-winning single “After the Gold Rush.” Her album of children’s songs, Dedicated to the One I Love, also won a Grammy, in 1996. Ronstadt’s subsequent releases included the jazz album Hummin’ to Myself (2004) and the folk-oriented Adieu False Heart (2006).

Ronstadt received a lifetime achievement award from the Latin Recording Academy in 2011. Two years later she revealed that she suffered from Parkinson disease (a diagnosis later changed to progressive supranuclear palsy). The condition prevented her from singing and led to her retirement. In 2014 Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her other honours include the National Medal of Arts (2014), a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement (2016), and a Kennedy Center Honor (2019). Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019) is a documentary about her life and career. Ronstadt published the autobiographies Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir (2013) and Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands (2022; cowritten with Lawrence Downes); the latter also included recipes.