Simple Dreams
A Musical Memoir
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
In this memoir, iconic singer Linda Ronstadt weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the 1960s and ‘70s.
Tracing the timeline of her remarkable life, Linda Ronstadt, whose forty-five year career has encompassed a wide array of musical styles, weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the 1960s and ‘70s.
Linda Ronstadt was born into a musical family, and her childhood was filled with everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Mexican folk music to jazz and opera. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, in this beautifully crafted memoir, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey.
Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folkrock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the 1970s. One of her early backup bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda went on to become the most successful female artist of the decade.
In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success, including stories behind many of her beloved songs. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang “Heart Like a Wheel”—longing, graceful, and authentic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Born in 1946 in Tucson, Ariz., Ronstadt counted among her relatives a grandfather who wrote an arrangement of Pirates of Penzance generations before she starred in it on Broadway, and an aunt whose collection of folk songs, Canciones de me Padre, would lend its title to Ronstadt's first Spanish-language album. As a kid, she listened to opera at her grandparents' house and mariachi rancheras on Mexican radio, and she harmonized with her siblings while singing Hank Williams songs. All this resulted in Ronstadt's gift for musical genealogy and an almost scholarly dedication to learning the music of different cultures, combined with an insatiable desire to emulate what she heard. Reading Simple Dreams, one sees why its author, a perpetual student of her craft, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Berklee College of Music: the book is a well-written glimpse into musical history as it was being made by Ronstadt and her peers.
