- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Living in the U.S.A. is Linda Ronstadt’s ninth solo album, and her third and final album to reach #1 on the Billboard album chart.
Linda Ronstadt – Living in the U.S.A. (1978): Living in the U.S.A. is Linda Ronstadt’s ninth solo album, following the three albums that she made with Stone Poneys, and her third and final album to reach #1 on the Billboard album chart. The cultural power of Linda Ronstadt became apparent when the photography from Living in the U.S.A. set off a national roller-skating craze. Arguably, Living in the U.S.A. is Linda Ronstadt’s most eclectic album: Songs run the gamut from the 1930’s pop standard “When I Grow Too Old to Dream”, to the Chuck Berry classic “Back in the U.S.A.”, to the R&B song “Just One Look”, to the Elvis Presley ballad “Love Me Tender”, to the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles hit “Ooh Baby Baby”.
More contemporary material on the album includes “Alison” by the pioneering British new wave/pub rock musician Elvis Costello (three Elvis Costello songs would follow on her new wave album Mad Love two years later) and “Mohammed’s Radio” by Warren Zevon. In honor of the recent passing of Elvis Presley, Don Eliot, an L.A. disc jockey at KIIS-FM came up with the idea of playing the original Elvis Presley recording of “Love Me Tender” with Linda Ronstadt’s version of the song from this album as a fantasy duet. The duet was then played on radio stations nationwide and became quite popular; although it was never offered for sale, I managed to find an image of the Elvis and Linda duet on a 45, presumably shared only among DJ’s. Other duets of this nature followed in later years. The most successful was “Unforgettable”, a duet by Natalie Cole with her late father Nat King Cole, combining his 1951 recording with a new version that Natalie made in 1991. “Unforgettable” reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 – the same chart position that “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole had in 1951–1952 – and also #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart. At the 1992 Grammy Awards, “Unforgettable” won three Grammys, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year. This copy is the red-vinyl edition of Living in the U.S.A.; there is also a picture disc and the regular black-vinyl release. In 2000, Linda Ronstadt noticed that her voice was deteriorating and reduced her activity, releasing her final studio album in 2006 – Adieu False Heart, a collaboration with Cajun musician Ann Savoy – and performing her last concert in 2009. In 2010, Linda Ronstadt contributed the arrangement and lead vocal to “A La Orilla de un Palmar” (“On the Edge of a Palm Grove”) on the Chieftains’ studio album San Patricio. This remains her most recent commercially available recording as lead vocalist. In August 2007, Linda Ronstadt headlined the Newport Folk Festival, marking her debut at this event, where she incorporated jazz, rock, and folk music into her performance. It was one of her final concerts. Linda Ronstadt announced her retirement in 2011 as the result of having Parkinson’s Disease; her condition was later diagnosed as progressive supranuclear palsy. However, Linda Ronstadt has continued to make public appearances. Also, in 2013, she published an autobiography, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir; and a documentary called Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice was released in 2019. According to Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Linda Ronstadt has sold a certified 30 million albums in the United States, making her the 9th best-selling female solo artist in the country. Linda Ronstadt has had an estimated 100 million record sales worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2019.