Oct 23rd in Pop History
On this day, October 23rd, in:
• 1976 - Linda Ronstadt on this day was at the # 1 spot on the Country music album chart with the Grammy Award winning Hasten Down the Wind. Her third straight million-selling album made Ronstadt the first female artist in history to accomplish this feat.
The album was also a cross-over hit, spending several weeks in the top three of the Billboard 200 album chart (pop chart), and climbing to # 1 on the Country album chart. It was the second of what would become four number 1 Country albums for her.
Hasten Down the Wind contained two major hit singles: Ronstadt's covers of Buddy Holly’s That’ll Be the Day (US Hot 100 # 11, Country # 27) and her reworking of Patsy Cline’s 1961 hit Crazy, reaching # 6 on the US Country chart in early 1977.
Linda Ronstadt is an award-winning superstar of both pop and country music. She has sold more than 100 million albums. She has also won 10 Grammys for songs in wildly different musical genres, including rock, country, Latin, and pop. When she tried her hand at opera, she received a Tony Award nod and a Golden Globe nomination for her stage and screen roles.
Linda Ronstadt’s Personal Struggle
For decades it seemed there was nothing Linda couldn’t do—or sing. But things took a turn in 2000, when her once-powerhouse voice began to fail her.
"I'd start to sing and then it would just clamp up," Linda told CBS Sunday Morning in early 2019. "My voice would freeze. And I said, 'There's something wrong with my voice.' And people would say, 'Oh, you're just a perfectionist.' I go, 'No, there's really something systemically wrong.’”
(According to countryliving.com) “The years went by and Linda’s voice continued to deteriorate but she never understood why. She delivered her final stage performance in November 2009, but it wasn’t until a few years later that she revealed she had Parkinson’s disease.
“She received the shocking diagnosis in December 2012, as she was finishing her memoir, Simple Dreams. The following year, she went public with her condition in a rare candid interview with AARP, also revealing another heartbreaking bombshell: “I can’t sing a note.”
“These days, the rock icon can’t walk far and has severe back pain that keeps her mostly homebound. But while Parkinson’s may have stolen her voice, her spirit — and her legacy —remains stronger than ever. “In my mind—in my imagination — I can still sing,” she told People.
“Now, she’s back in the spotlight for the release of a new documentary, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. In the documentary, friends and colleagues Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and more tell Linda’s story and sing her praises.”
In 2014, Linda was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Here is Linda Ronstadt on Spotify:
Enjoy this video of her live performance of That’ll Be The Day (her cover of the Buddy Holly song that went to # 11 on the charts):
Here’s Linda in concert with the title song to the album - Hasten Down the Wind:
This next video is The Linda Ronstadt Tribute in 2019 at The Kennedy Center Honors:
Also, on this day, October 23rd, in:
• 1956 - Elvis Presley recorded Don’t Be Cruel and Hound Dog in New York City. “The Jordanaires” provided the backing vocals, Hound Dog took 31 takes. The double-sided hit topped the Billboard chart for 11 weeks, and also was a top R&B and country-and-western success
• 1963 - Bob Dylan recorded The Times They Are A-Changin at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City
Also, on this day in…
• 1980 - Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual “Chappy” he wrote “John Lennon”
• 1988 - Michael Jackson became the first artist to have five # 1 singles from one album when Dirty Diana went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The other four chart-toppers from the album Bad were I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel and Man in the Mirror
