Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir
Linda Ronstadt
Mistakes are part of life, so I try to learn from mine.
Take my declarations about genres. Every time I declare I don’t read a particular type of book, I find myself behaving in a contradictory manner.
Consider Exhibit A: biography, a category that includes autobiography and the successful publisher-created Continue reading
That Girl from Arizona
When it comes to writing about music I seem to find myself stuck in the 70s. Maybe it’s easier to make sense of the songs I’ve been listening to for most of a lifetime.
Or maybe I just can’t stand today’s Swedish-produced pop music.
In any case, no female performer from my teen years stands out more than Linda Ronstadt. More than once I’ve referred to her as the first Mexican-American girl I ever had a crush on. That ethnic bit is true. The Ronstadts were immigrant farmers from Continue reading
Despite myself, I am terribly sentimental about the Fourth of July. Without disrespecting anyplace else, it’s a singular privilege to live in this grand, glorious mess of a nation which is still, as far as I know, the only one built on an idea.
There are two things that make at least this American proud. One is the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics when after watching nation after homogeneous nation march by the US contingent rolls in, a fabulous mosaic of all the types of people who are just like the rest of us (only faster or stronger or more coordinated, it is the Olympics after all). The other is in the music this Continue reading
An Honest Con 