BEFORE: I hope other people can also see the progression here - Divine had hit disco records, and so did the Bee Gees, who wrote "Islands in the Stream" for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, and Dolly released the album "Trio" along with Emmylou Harris and, of course, Linda Ronstadt. It makes perfect sense in retrospect, right? And I didn't even plan the chain along those lines, I was just looking at the cast of each documentary, but I guess ultimately that results in putting together the most logical order sometimes, right?
Dolly Parton carries over from "Dolly Parton: Here I Am".
THE PLOT: With one of the most memorably stunning voices that has ever hit the airwaves, Linda Ronstadt burst onto the 1960's folk rock music scene in her early twenties.
AFTER: Way back in 2018, I did my first chain of musical documentaries, starting with the birth Beatles and going through to the retirement of Rush - and while the whole year wasn't a perfect chain, the documentaries DID form a fully-linked chain of 53 films, it even shocked me that it was possible, but come on, they tend to interview the same people, over and over for these things - and then even if the interview subjects changed, nearly all those docs used footage of the Beatles or the Stones in them at some point. Still, considering that I went through docs on Chicago, the Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys,
James Brown, Metallica, Michael Jackson and even Lady Gaga in one fell swoop, that still seems like it was an accomplishment - one of endurance, if nothing else.
You may notice that this year's music docs haven't been about the top-tier acts, not in my book anyway, I'm really clean-up hitting now by watching docs about Joan Jett, Frank Zappa, the Bee Gees and Dolly Parton - these are not acts I tend to listen to in my everyday life. But I'm aware of the docs, and I'm aware of these musical artists, so let's cross them off - when I'm done this year, I'll have cleared the category again, except for docs about Pentatonix and Gordon Lightfoot, which I was unable to work in based on the cast lists that I have - perhaps there's some archive footage in those two docs that would have allowed me to connect them into the chain, but how am I supposed to KNOW that without watching them? Who gives a crap about Gordon Lightfoot, anyway?
But watching the Linda Ronstadt doc feels a bit more important - though I've seen the other side of some of these stories back in "The History of the Eagles", how Linda hired Don Henley out of his band Shiloh to be her drummer, and then found Glenn Frey because she was living with JD Souther, who was in a band with Frey. Then Henley and Frey went out on the road in Linda's band, and bonded over their shared love of American folk music/rock, and that's how the Eagles started - though they floundered for a while until Ronstadt covered their song "Desperado" and really turned it into something. Whatever happened to those guys, anyway? Oh, yeah, they're still out on the road playing "Hotel California", even though there are more ex-Eagles than current members (only Henley, Walsh and Schmidt remain, I think) and Glenn Frey Jr. is subbing in for his late father. Anyway, this part I seen already...
But there are plenty of other facets to Linda Ronstadt's career, like that duet with Aaron Neville, the tight harmonies of Ronstadt/Parton/Harris on "Trio" (really, they're like the female CSN) and that time Linda sang with the Muppets, pretending to be Kermit's ex-girlfriend (he dumped her for some PIG, very embarrassing). Then there was her whole venture into Mexican/Spanish music, which was part of her family's recreation when she was a child, then she re-discovered it singing back-up for Ruben Blades, then went full-on Hispanic and released her own album of Mexican folk songs, "Canciones de mi Padre", and I didn't realize Will Ferrell was riffing on that title with HIS spanish-language comedy film until just now.
Then there was her earlier foray into operetta when she appeared in "The Pirates of Penzance", both as a live theater production and then a movie made with the same cast. Or her three-album tour through the Great American Songbook, with help from arranger Nelson Riddle, who thankfully was still alive long enough to oversee the same arrangements he used for Sinatra's albums. With forays into new wave, big band, jazz, country, Latin music, there really wasn't a section of the music spectrum that Ronstadt couldn't work her way into - to her it was all just singing, and singing is singing, right? (There's no mention of how Linda covered Dolly's "I Will Always Love You", but way before Whitney Houston did...)
The film also manages to be rather coy when it comes to Linda's personal life - they never really say why she and JD Souther broke up (he claims to not remember) and then there's perhaps short shrift given to Gov. Jerry Brown, but no mention AT ALL of a relationship with a certain successful sci-fi filmmaker, and we all know that went down. I guess you just don't want to risk saying anything negatives about multi-millionaires with teams of lawyers... She was quite a looker back in the day, and probably got a lot of attention, thanks to the sexy (but still demure) Rolling Stone photo shoots. She never married, claiming she could never find anyone who was musically talented but also not a moron, who could also put up with her. She described herself as "lonely" in articles, but that's where you may end up if you never settle. Just sayin'. She did, however, adopt and raise two children (also not mentioned in the doc).
It's a bit of a bummer to see her at the end of the documentary, barely able to sing because of her Parkinson's disease - she can still harmonize with her brother and nephew, but she doesn't really count that as singing, not the way she used to belt out songs on stage in big arenas, anyway. Again, if you're judging someone by the company they keep, who else managed to collaborate with Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Warren Zevon, Philip Glass, Neil Young, Bette Midler, Rosemary Clooney, and Frank Zappa? Plus Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, James Ingram, Aaron Neville AND the Muppets? Nobody else, because doing all of that sounds impossible, but it somehow wasn't for her.
Also starring Linda Ronstadt (last seen in "Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll"), Peter Asher, Ruben Blades (last seen in "Hands of Stone"), Karla Bonoff, John Boylan, Jackson Browne (last seen in "David Crosby: Remember My Name"), Cameron Crowe (ditto), Patricia Casado, Ry Cooder, David Geffen (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Emmylou Harris (last seen in "The Last Waltz"), Don Henley (last seen in "History of the Eagles"), Robert Hilburn, Bobby Kimmel, Kevin Kline (last seen in "Life as a House"), Aaron Neville (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Ronstadt, Peter Ronstadt, Joe Smith, JD Souther, Waddy Wachtel (last seen in "Keith Richards: Under the Influence")
with archive footage of Nina Blackwood, Jerry Brown, Glen Campbell (last seen in "The Wrecking Crew!"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Cinema Verite"), Johnny Cash (last seen in "Sound City"), Stevie Nicks (ditto), Dick Cavett (also last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Gene Clark (also last seen in "David Crosby: Remember My Name"), Glenn Frey (ditto), Chris Hillman (ditto), Roger McGuinn (ditto), Felicia Collins, David Crosby (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation"), Neil Young (ditto), Sheryl Crow, Daryl Dragon, Anton Fig, Tim Hardin, Hugh Hefner (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Lena Horne, Elton John (last seen in "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"), Paul McCartney (ditto), Ringo Starr (ditto), Kris Kristofferson (last seen in "I Am Divine"), Will Lee, Anna McGarrigle, Kate McGarrigle, Sid McGinnis, Joni Mitchell (last seen in "Zappa"), Paul Shaffer (ditto), Frank Zappa (ditto), Laura Nyro, Joseph Papp, Gram Parsons, Teddy Pendergrass, Keith Richards (last seen in "ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas"), Nelson Riddle, Paul Rodriguez (also last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Frank Sinatra (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Rex Smith, Harry Dean Stanton (last seen in "The Last Stand"), Toni Tennille, Tanya Tucker, Carrie Underwood (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Hank Williams (last seen in "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan"), Paul Williams (last seen in "Baby Driver").
RATING: 6 out of 10 top ten singles
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