Aug. 14, 1975 review: Linda Ronstadt at the Century Theater

 


This was the year that everybody fell in love with Linda Ronstadt. 

Aug. 14, 1975 

Linda Ronstadt Provides Sweet, Honest Inspiration 

          Linda Ronstadt was remarking how requests shouted from the audience often sound like obscenities on stage, but there was no misinterpreting the guy who yelled, “I love you!”

          Ronstadt inspires guys that way. Buffalo blues singer Elmo Witherspoon, who briefly preceded her with the newest version of his House Rockers, announced he was going to stick around and check her over.

          A zaftig size 13 with country-girl good looks, Ronstadt’s biggest hangup has been that the male-dominated music world fantasizes about her instead of listening to her.

* * *

BUT JUDGING from her performance in the nearly-full Century Theater Wednesday night, that may no longer be a problem. Her singing was simply fabulous. Her voice has never sounded stronger, clearer or better controlled.

          Opening with the Flying Burrito Brothers’ wistful “Colorado,” she then charged into what may become her next oldie revival hit – Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day.”

          The slow solo ballads alternated with full-harmony rockabilly rousers throughout the 75-minute set.

          Her five sidemen – including David Lindley on fiddle and Ben Edwards on banjo and bass – played with great gusto, especially on the hits “You’re No Good” and “When Will I Be Loved.”

* * *

INCLUDED were several new songs from her upcoming Elektra-Asylum album (due next month), including a fresh Neil Young number, “Love Is a Rose,” and the old Motown hit, “Heat Wave.”

          The show hinted that Ronstadt may be the best of today’s women song stylists. She doesn’t seem to be locked into form like Maria Muldaur or dependent on vocal gymnastics like Minnie Riperton.

          And she cuts an honest swatch from country-rock – reaching back to Hank Williams and the Everly Brothers, borrowing from moderns like Jackson Browne and Little Feat’s Lowell George.

* * *

THERE’S NO artifice in her singing. It’s plain and straightforward. Same with her stage presence. No speeches or steps planned out. She’s a little awkward between numbers, even giggly, but she takes it as it comes.

          That naïve vulnerability is the key to her appeal. It’s the stuff that makes up the tender, unfortified frontiers of the heart. Her songs of longing and the pain of love play across romance’s essential hopes and universal hurts.

          She voice it herself so softly in her encore, the title tune from her “Heart Like a Wheel” album: “It’s only love/ And it’s only love/ That can wreck a human being/ And turn him inside out …”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Linda Ronstadt in September 1975 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, Calif.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Being a longtime Linda Ronstadt fan, it was especially gratifying to watch the rest of world discover her. The aforementioned album, “Prisoner in Disguise,” which came out in September, took her well on her way to becoming the most successful solo woman artist of the 1970s. Its first single – two of the songs she sang this night – became a double-sided hit. “Heat Wave” went Top Five on Billboard’s Hot 100 and “Love Is a Rose” was Top Five on Billboard’s Country charts.

* * * * *

FURTHER NOTE: All of these transcripts of old reviews and feature articles about the Buffalo music scene can be found here in a somewhat more legible and searchable form on my Blogspot site: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4731437129543258237.


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