Linda Ronstadt was not only one of the most popular and top-selling artists of the ’70s, with three No. 1 albums between 1974 and 1978, but also one of the most adventurous.
From the start of her recording career, she championed young songwriters; her first hit in 1967, made with the group Stone Poneys, was a cover of “Different Drum” by Michael Nesmith, who was then best known as one of the Monkees but was eager to define himself beyond the group’s confines.
Ronstadt continued to support blossoming songwriters even as her career rocketed following the release of 1974’s Heart Like a Wheel. Tim Buckley, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, and the Eagles, who first came together as her backing band, all received Ronstadt’s big vocal treatment on some of their earliest songs, as detailed in the list below of Linda Ronstadt Albums Ranked.
READ MORE: Top 30 Country Rock Albums
Through country rock, AM pop, new wave, folk, jazz, standards, lullabies and mariachi music, Ronstadt has rarely rested on her laurels. Coming off a string of Top 10 hit covers (including Motown classics, R&B obscurities, and Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison songs), the First Lady of Rock recorded a trio of old standards starting in 1983, ahead of the trend and bucking tradition.
Ronstadt threw another curve by recording a straight country album with friends Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, which returned her to the Top 10 and earned her a Grammy. She then followed that with an acclaimed LP of traditional Mexican songs from her youth — all delivered in her vast, glorious and unmistakable voice.
Linda Ronstadt Albums Ranked
From rock and country to the Great American Songbook and new wave, she’s never been easy to classify.
Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
