Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (9/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime: 95 minutes.

NR.

Linda Ronstadt literally burst out of nowhere. My assistant grew up almost next door to her in Tucson, went to the same high school (although my assistant was a couple of years older) but never heard of her in Tucson.

Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, it traces her from Tucson to Los Angeles where she got her start singing folk rock in the late ‘60s with The Stone Poneys. As music taste changed, so did her style as she segued into country-pop as a single and eventually put out an album of Mexican music that became the best selling Spanish-language album of all time.

This is told with interviews with her and her admiring compatriots like Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, Emmylou Harris, Aaron Neville, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and Ry Cooder, David Geffen, John Boylan, Peter Asher, and Cameron Crowe, all of whom give their own special insights to her career and talent.

She did things against the advice of just about everyone, like co-starring in Joseph Papp’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, for which she received a Tony Nomination.

Best, though, this is full of music. Unfortunately for me, anyway, the music is just a few bars from lots of songs instead of the entire songs. But this isn’t a concert, it’s a documentary and it was a treat to hear her sing parts of so many songs that she helped to make famous and to learn so much about her.