Parkinson’s
disease may have stolen Linda Ronstadt’s beautiful singing voice but it hasn’t
taken away her ability to entertain audiences. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and Grammy Award-winning singer, author, and 2013 National Medal of Arts and
Humanities recipient has continued to tour the country, speaking about her
legendary career in music and her courageous spirit as she fights her illness.
In
September 2013, Ronstadt’s autobiography “Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir” was
released, becoming a New York Times Best Seller and prompting Ronstadt on a
book tour of the East and West Coasts. Ronstadt recently spoke at the Seawell Grand
Ballroom in Denver, Colorado April 13, and at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware, as part of the "Smart Talk Woman
Series" on May 13.
Known
as the “Queen of Rock” in the 1970s, Ronstadt, 68, once possessed one of the
greatest singing voices in music history, performing in a myriad of styles,
including folk, country, rock, pop, American standards, Mexican, Latin, jazz,
and Cajun. In 2009, Ronstadt officially retired from performing and since a
diagnosis in 2013, has been battling Parkinson’s disease.
Although
she can no longer sing, the Tucson, Arizona native now performs with a voice
that entertains and educates with knowledge, honesty, humor, wit, modesty, and
professionalism – the same qualities that have made her one of the most beloved
artists for generations of fans. Now happily residing in the heart of San Francisco, Ronstadt recently spoke about her career in music,
living with Parkinson’s, and what the future holds for her.
CDT: In August 2013,
it was reported that you had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and could
no longer sing. Since then you have written your memoir and toured the country,
promoting the book and speaking to audiences about your musical journey over an
amazing four-decade career. How different has this experience been for you as a
public speaker, now that you are no longer able to sing for audiences?
Ronstadt: It’s the weirdest
thing. I can still sing in my brain. There are a few songs that I’ve heard that
I missed back in the day, and I can hear exactly what I would do with them. But
I can’t do it. But speaking feels really comfortable. Oddly, I spoke so little
the whole time I was singing. It feels very natural because I know how the
story goes. If I’m being interviewed I know the answers generally. I don’t
worry that I’ll forget, but I worry that people will ask me why I’m not
singing. But I can’t.
CDT: When did you
first start to notice the symptoms of Parkinson’s, how did it affect your
singing, and what did you do to adapt to the changes in your voice?
Ronstadt: I actually
started noticing in the year 2000. It turns out that it shows up in your voice
before anything. They have a new way they can diagnose it; the earliest place
it shows up is in your voice. I remember when things started to be different. I
was making an album with Emmylou Harris and I noticed when I was in the studio
that when I’d go to do certain things that it wouldn’t happen. I’d start to
sing a note and my vocal cords would just clench up. If I would’ve known more
about Parkinson’s disease I probably would’ve figured it out. From then on it
was just every day. Then I’d start tripping and falling down, and I couldn’t
understand why. I also had terrible fatigue.
I only made one solo album after that in 2004. My voice was very limited and I
knew it was. I just had these songs that I had to get out of my system. I had a
great band and an offer from Verve to do the record, so I took this shot. Like
a painter, I just thought I’d have to think of myself as singing with a limited
palette. I just have these colors and I’m going to paint with those. It was
frustrating because some of that is pitch control. I had to really work on
pitch. But I had these stories and I just thought I was going to have to tell
these stories the best way that I could. It wasn’t until I developed a tremor
in my left hand that I got a diagnosis. It took a year to confirm the
diagnosis.
CDT: It turns out your
maternal grandmother had Parkinson’s disease. What do you remember about her and
how are you coping with your illness on a daily basis?
Ronstadt: I saw my
grandmother with end stage Parkinson’s disease. I knew her when I was three
years old when she was in the last stages of it, but I couldn’t really
understand it very well. But my great aunt on my father’s side had it also, so
it looks like it’s on both sides of my family.
Brushing
my teeth, washing my hair, and getting dressed in the morning is such a journey
for me. It used to be something that I never thought about. I don’t drive
anymore. I feel like I’m solving a really tough problem in arithmetic. Parkinson’s
isn’t always the same with everybody. The only hope is that it treats you
kindly. I just figure I have today. I can still talk and walk, but not very
far, and I can still do things for myself. I just feel like I have to be
grateful for that and tomorrow will have to take care of itself.
CDT: How involved have
you become in educating yourself about Parkinson’s and what types of treatments
have you sought out or experimented with?
Ronstadt: There are
pharmaceuticals which have horrible side effects, so I’m trying to avoid as
much of that as I can and for as long as I can. I can’t get along without it,
so I’m trying to take the mildest and easiest ones. For some reason a low
carbohydrate diet is very helpful. I don’t like meat so that makes it hard. I’m
mostly a vegetarian. So I’ve learned how to adjust my diet so it doesn’t set
off the shaking as badly. Sugars make it so much worse – sugars and dairy are
not good. I keep reading that coffee is good for Parkinson’s, and tea also. I’m
a long time tea drinker and I’ve never liked coffee. A lot of Parkinson’s
sufferers have said to me that they like marijuana and that it helps them a
lot. It doesn’t help me, it just makes it worse. It just makes me kind of
nervous.
CDT: Throughout your
career in music you never wrote much of your own material, but you chose songs
from some great songwriters – songs that described what may have been going on
in your life at the time, and songs that you could relate to and that you felt
you could do authentically.
Ronstadt: If everybody
tends to write their own songs and sing them you wind up with a lot of mediocre
songwriters, because there are only a few really good ones. It’s like it used
to be in the old days with the standards, where you would get a great singer
like Ella Fitzgerald singing a song that was written by George Gershwin –
that’s a pretty good combination there. Then Sarah Vaughan comes along and
sings a Gershwin song and sings it in a totally different way. Then Billie
Holiday sings it probably better than anybody. Then Frank Sinatra comes along
and does it too. So you get a lot of incredible interpretations of very good
songwriting. And then there are the singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and
Randy Newman, and a lot of great girl singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and
Wendy Waldman. I knew so many good writers.
CDT: When you
assembled the band that would become the Eagles, you must have seen the
potential that they had. So when they decided they wanted to go out on their
own you gave them your blessing. They had incredible talent, but to this day
they still give you much credit and praise for their success.
Ronstadt: It started with
Glenn Frey, who was the former singing partner of my boyfriend at the time, who
was J.D. Souther. I knew Glenn through J.D. and was very fond of him. He was a
really good guitar player, but I didn’t realize what a good writer he was. I
asked him to go on the road with me because Bernie Leadon was in the Flying
Burrito Brothers and he couldn’t go with me on this tour. Glenn had never been
on the road before. Then I met this drummer Don Henley at the Troubadour. I
heard him play a song with his band Shiloh that I had recorded. He already knew
the arrangement, so we offered him the job and he said yes. So when the two of
them met each other that was the start of it – it was their talent combined.
Each realized the other was a really good songwriter, and Glenn found out what
a good singer Don was. He used to call him the secret weapon because he was
always sitting behind the drums. When they said they wanted to form a band,
John Boylan and I suggested the other two members. I suggested Bernie and he
suggested Randy Meisner. So between the two of us, we had something to do with
forming the band, but it was their talent and the pieces that came together
that consolidated into what the Eagles became. And all of their subsequent
musical developments and the different people that they added and brought in
made the band better and better.
But
music is a cooperative endeavor. There’s no room for competition really. You
should compete with your own self and try to do your best. Competing with
others never gets you anywhere, and trying to hold others back doesn’t either.
I always thought they should have their dream, and whatever they were trying to
do, I wasn’t going to hold them back from that. But I could benefit from it
because that meant I got to have a band for about a year while they were
getting themselves together, and they got to do what they did. So it worked
out.
CDT: The 1970s brought
you tremendous success, as you became the best-selling female artist of the
decade. Your hit records included “You’re No Good,” “When Will I Be Loved,”
“It’s So Easy,” “Blue Bayou,” and “Ooh Baby Baby.” You introduced a new
generation to 1950s and ‘60s rock and roll, with songs by artists such as the
Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, and Smokey Robinson. Do
you think you made a great contribution to pop music in that way?
Ronstadt: It’s a good
thing, but I was happiest when I got to work on the standards because I finally
had something to do with my voice. I felt like I was holding myself in a
strange limbo when I was trying to sing rock and roll because I never felt
fully invested in the attitude. When I started working with Nelson Riddle I
felt like I could really find who I was and find a real unlimited expression
for my voice.
CDT: When you starred
in Joseph Papp’s production of “The Pirates of Penzance” in 1980, how did that
experience prepare you for your later work, particularly the American standards
you recorded with Nelson Riddle, and the albums of traditional Mexican songs?
Ronstadt: It gave me a
fuller, richer voice because I started working in my upper register which I had
sorely neglected trying to belt rock and roll. I had that upper register, and
working on that exclusively for a year then gave me the ability to sort of pull
it down and marry it to my chest voice, and it gave me a complete voice for
standards. It was so liberating because I finally felt like I had gotten out of
a box that I was in my whole musical life and could finally get out of it.
And
Nelson Riddle had no clue who I was. That was great; I thought that was fine.
That meant that he didn’t have any preconceived ideas either. We met as fresh individuals
to each other, and we could see where we fit together emotionally, socially, culturally, and
artistically. It was just a good fit, and we became good
friends and confidants.
CDT: Since you are no
longer able to sing, what have you done to keep yourself involved in the music
world?
Ronstadt: There’s a
cultural center here that I’ve been very involved with for about 20 years
called Los Cenzontles. It’s a Mexican cultural center in a little strip mall
over in a really hard scrabble neighborhood in the East Bay in Richmond,
California. They do brilliant work, as good as any place I’ve ever seen in
terms of arts education. They teach singing, dancing, instruments, and visual
art, and they just do a fabulous job with these kids that have been dislocated
from their own cultures in Mexico. They come up here and they’re dealing with
all the rigors and strains and sorrows of immigration, trying to fit their
families in and trying to fit their culture in. They give them an incredible
grounding in their own culture and a way to validate where they came from and
who they are to start with. They really teach them to sing, play and dance, but
they don’t have to do it for performing necessarily. They grow up to be much
more confident, much better-rounded people, they have a much better chance of
staying in school, and there are fewer high school dropouts and fewer teenage
pregnancies. They learn how to use art to express their sorrows and their joys
and to socialize. They can get together and dance, and they can do these folk
dances that have really complex rhythms that come out of indigenous traditions
in Mexico. They can really sing and dance and play so they can communicate with
each other. It’s my other musical family besides my own.
CDT: Your modesty
throughout your career has been well-documented. For you it has always been
about the music, and awards and praises have always been secondary. But being
recognized for your achievements and the outpouring of love from fans that you
received after your diagnosis has to make you feel appreciated and respected.
Ronstadt: I know the range
of ability and what people did out there. I think I was a pretty good singer,
but I don’t consider myself among the greatest. There’s always going to be
somebody better than you, but it’s just fine. You just keep doing what you’re
doing.
But
people have generous hearts and it’s always nice to see that. The best thing is
I have really good family support and really good support from my friends, and
that’s what gets you through in the end.
CDT: In April 2014,
the CD “Duets” was released, a compilation of duets you have done with many
different artists throughout your career, including Emmylou Harris, Dolly
Parton, J.D. Souther, James Taylor, James Ingram, Aaron Neville, and Ann Savoy.
Do you have any future plans to release any more compilations of your work or
perhaps any previously unreleased tracks?
Ronstadt: Different record
companies always come up with something. There is something in the works, but
I’m not quite sure what it is exactly. I’m sure they’ll be squeezing things out
of the bottom of the toothpaste tube as the years go by (laughs). I’d like to
put out a collection of just Jimmy Webb songs. I think he’s one of the most
important songwriters in pop music of the 20th century. His songs always make
me cry. He knows how to voice chords so they just stab you right in the heart.
That’s the mark of a great songwriter. The voicings of the intro are always so
beautiful. He’s so not limited, he’s so extraordinary, and he has such range
and ability.
CDT: Talk a little
about the process of writing your memoir. Having not written very many songs
yourself, and never seeing yourself as a writer, taking on such a task had to
be a very unique and rather daunting experience for you.
Ronstadt: I never
considered myself a writer and I never kept a journal or anything like that. I
just wrote the occasional thank you note (laughs). It was kind of a challenge,
but I just started writing it and it just came out. I was surprised that it
did. When I turned it in, I didn’t know if they would try to change it or not.
They hardly touched my manuscript, so I was really happy about that. The
publisher Simon and Schuster gave me the best deal. They were interested in a
book about the music, and that was the only thing that piqued my interest.
CDT: How much do you
follow music today, and who are some of your favorite artists?
Ronstadt: I like Sam Smith.
When I heard him sing I thought ‘well that guy really knows what he’s doing.’
He’s got a really unusual vocal technique, a lot like Joni Mitchell in certain
ways. The way he uses his falsetto and bounces back down into his chest. He
does some things that I’ve never heard before and I thought that was good.
There are a lot of talented people out there. I don’t always resonate to it
because I’m from a different generation. But I liked what I heard from him. I
also loved Amy Winehouse; I thought she was wonderful until she fell apart.
What a voice she had; and her musicianship was really impressive until that
came apart too. I thought she was the one that got away.
CDT: In a February
2013 interview, you spoke about the power of music, and how essential it is in
our daily lives. Talk about the different ways in which music is so beneficial
to us and how important it has been for you personally.
Ronstadt: It’s been
everything for me. I was so obsessed with music from the time I was two. It was
just all I thought about really. We’re so focused on celebrity in our culture
that we assign all musicians to performance and then expect them to be
celebrities. But that’s just a tiny part of the story of what music does. I
think music has tremendous healing value. Even just different sounds. I think
the Greeks know a lot about it. They have different scales that get you into
different moods and different worlds. I think we’ve lost the ability and I
think we’ve lost touch with a lot of it.
CDT: What advice would
you give for anyone who wants to have a career in music or just participate in
music in one way or another?
Ronstadt: I wouldn’t know
where to start because I really don’t know the business anymore. What we get on
the radio today is such a narrow view of it. There’s a lot of music that’s just
for solitude, and for working out your problems all by yourself. There’s a lot
of music that you can do that you can share with other people, and there’s
music like choral singing. I think the only thing you can do is to just get on
stage and get in front of people. All I ever tell anybody is just plant your
feet and tell the truth. That’s what you can do in music, that’s what you can
do in visual art, and that’s what you can do in dancing. The most important
thing about art is ‘What are you saying? What is it you’re trying to say? Can
you make it clear?’ Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t. But you have to
do it with whatever tools you have available.