Listening to.......

[GubGub (Al)]

A lot of Linda Ronstadt and Suzanne Vega.

I'm still not sure that I understand the Linda Ronstadt phenomenon. Great voice but largely meat and potatoes cover versions of mostly very well known hits by other people. Just why was she so huge in the US? Her version of Randy Newman's Sail Away is hugely ill advised. The sweetness and lack of irony in her voice singing those lyrics is massively jarring. Having said all that, I do still find her an easy listen.

With Suzanne Vega I am revisiting some of the albums that I have not played so often down the years, Songs In Red & Gray, Beauty & Crime and Lover Beloved: Songs From An Evening With Carson McCullers.

[Will S]

I'm with you on Linda Ronstadt. I bought 4 of her early albums when there was a cheap offer on Amazon years back, but they never really grabbed me.

Suzanne Vega, on the other hand...

[GubGub (Al)]

I'm with you on Linda Ronstadt. I bought 4 of her early albums when there was a cheap offer on Amazon years back, but they never really grabbed me.

Suzanne Vega, on the other hand...

Suzanne's latest album is up there with her very best.

[davidmjs]

I'm still not sure that I understand the Linda Ronstadt phenomenon. Great voice but largely meat and potatoes cover versions of mostly very well known hits by other people. Just why was she so huge in the US?

I reckon if you look at a lot of photos of her taken in the 60s and 70s you can probably work out at least a partial answer....

[GubGub (Al)]

I'm still not sure that I understand the Linda Ronstadt phenomenon. Great voice but largely meat and potatoes cover versions of mostly very well known hits by other people. Just why was she so huge in the US?

I reckon if you look at a lot of photos of her taken in the 60s and 70s you can probably work out at least a partial answer....

Well yes, she was certainly easy on the eye.

I have now moved on belatedly to Sly & The Family Stone's Greatest Hits (and in the car a Brian Wilson/Beach Boys marathon). Perfect sitting in the garden in the sunshine music.

[Shane (Skirky)]

I'm still not sure that I understand the Linda Ronstadt phenomenon. Great voice but largely meat and potatoes cover versions of mostly very well known hits by other people. Just why was she so huge in the US?

I think she was very much a product of her time - the mid seventies - when working out of California, constant touring, and a record company mogul who had taken to you and was determined to make you a star, very much paid off in spades.