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Song of the Day #6,564: ‘Blue Bayou (Live)’ – Linda Ronstadt

That’s a wrap on my three-week Deep Dive into the career of Linda Ronstadt, one of popular music’s most versatile and talented performers. Thirty-one albums, 11 Grammys, more than 100 million record sales worldwide, and one gorgeous set of pipes.

Ronstadt found extraordinary success in a laundry list of genres: folk, country, pop, rock, soul, jazz, and Latin, not to mention Christmas music and the Great American Songbook. Time and time again, she defied the odds and turned strange artistic detours into triumphs.

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Song of the Day #6,563: ‘River’ – Linda Ronstadt

I’ve now written about all but two of Linda Ronstadt’s 31 studio albums, and I thought the final two would group together nicely at the end.

First up is the oddest recording of her career, 1996’s Dedicated to the One I Love. This is a collection of rock songs performed in the style of children’s lullabies. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ sung against the backdrop of a crib mobile, this is the album for you.

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Song of the Day #6,562: ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ – Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt followed the excellent Winter Light with 1995’s Feels Like Home, a return to her country rock roots.

The album included a handful of tracks first recorded with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris for their initially abandoned second collaborative album. They would appear in remixed form on the Trio II album four years later.

Those tracks include a cover of Neil Young’s ‘After the Gold Rush’ and Randy Newman’s ‘Feels Like Home,’ two standouts that feel redundant on one album or the other depending on which you know better.

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Song of the Day #6,561: ‘Oh No, Not My Baby’ – Linda Ronstadt

I veered outside of chronological order when I wrote about Linda Ronstadt’s Spanish-language releases last week, so today I’m returning to the timeline.

Two years after the major success of Canciones de Mi Padre, Ronstadt struck gold again with 1999’s triple-Platinum Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. The album won three Grammys and joined Simple Dreams and What’s New as her top-selling releases.

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Song of the Day #6,560: ‘Telling Me Lies’ – Linda Ronstadt with Dolly Parton & Emmylou Harris

Continuing my Deep Dive into the discography of Linda Ronstadt…

I’m going to hop around in the chronology a little bit today to highlight a quartet of albums that found Ronstadt collaborating with other women.

Ronstadt has had a 50+ year friendship and creative partnership with two of the greats, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. Early in her career, she had covered their songs and featured them on her records, and the three artists discussed recording a full album together.

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