- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- With Hasten Down the Wind, her second album after Heart Like a Wheel, Linda Ronstadt and producer Peter Asher had settled into an easy groove.
Linda Ronstadt – Hasten Down the Wind (1976): After a few albums of (more or less) pure country, Linda Ronstadt perfected her sound when she connected with one of the top record producers of the 1970’s, Peter Asher; he was also Ronstadt’s manager for several years. Peter Asher and Gordon Waller performed as Peter and Gordon, a British duo who enjoyed several years of success, particularly with their #1 hit in 1964, “A World Without Love”. The song was written by Paul McCartney but credited as Lennon/McCartney as was all of his music and that of John Lennon while their partnership lasted. As a producer, Peter Asher was second to none in the 1970’s; James Taylor was his other main client. Together with his work for those two superstars, Peter Asher helped create the Southern California Sound of that time period by also producing albums for J. D. Souther, Andrew Gold, and Bonnie Raitt.
After working on a few tracks on her previous album Don’t Cry Now (1973), Peter Asher helmed Linda Ronstadt’s 1974 breakthrough album, Heart Like a Wheel; it was a #1 album and featured a #1 single, “You’re No Good”. Linda Ronstadt’s music is normally described as country rock, though she performs in a multitude of styles; as examples, Ronstadt covered numerous Motown songs in this period and recorded a new wave album in 1980, Mad Love. This has required her to hire a variety of back-up musicians for her albums; several of the backing musicians for many of her recordings evolved into the Eagles. In her 1977 cover story for Time magazine, Linda Ronstadt was quoted as saying: “If you find a band that can play rock ’n’ roll, they can’t play a country shuffle to save their lives. I swear to God, if I could find a drummer who could play all that s–t, I would marry him.” By the time Hasten Down the Wind came along – her second album after Heart Like a Wheel – Linda Ronstadt and Peter Asher had settled into an easy groove, crafting great singles and albums alike. In that time period, Linda Ronstadt was the only female rock musician who could fill arenas like the guys. Hasten Down the Wind includes three songs by Karla Bonoff, who then launched a productive career as a singer and as a songwriter; one of these songs, the closing track “Someone to Lay Down Beside Me” is one of my very favorite Linda Ronstadt songs. Linda Ronstadt also covers Willie Nelson – “Crazy”, best known for the legendary version by Patsy Cline (some critics even think Linda bested her on the song); Warren Zevon – the title song “Hasten Down the Wind”; and Buddy Holly – his first big hit, “That’ll be the Day”. Two songs on the album were co-written by Linda Ronstadt, including “Lo Siento Mi Vida” (“I’m Sorry My Love”), which she wrote with her father Gilbert Ronstadt and her former bandmate in the Stone Poneys, Kenny Edwards. “Rivers of Babylon” is built around a Bible passage. Hasten Down the Wind was Linda Ronstadt’s third consecutive Platinum album (out of a total of seven), reaching #3 on the Billboard album charts.