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.

She released her last studio album in 2006 and announced her retirement in 2011. She had been robbed of her legendary voice by what she then thought was Parkinson’s disease (her condition was later re-diagnosed as the similar but rarer progressive supranuclear palsy). At age 79, she remains active in political and artistic causes.

Despite a long list of notable partners (including California governor Jerry Brown, writer/director Albert Brooks, and George Lucas), Ronstadt never married. She adopted two children, Mary and Carlos, in the 90s.

I recommend the documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, currently streaming on Amazon Prime, for those who want to dig a little deeper into her life and career. In addition to a host of interviews with her contemporaries, it features a ton of incredible live footage (including today’s SOTD).

I usually wrap up these Deep Dives with my ranked list of albums. Thirty-one seems like a whole lot to sort in any meaningful order, though, especially when so many of them are in completely different genres. So instead I’m going to offer up what I consider ten essential Linda Ronstadt albums, in order of release:

Heart Like a Wheel (1974)
Prisoner in Disguise (1975)
Hasten Down the Wind (1976)
Simple Dreams (1977)
What’s New (1983)
Trio (1987)
Canciones de Mi Padre (1987)
Winter Light (1993)
We Ran (1998)
Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999)