Album Review – LINDA RONSTADT – Simple Dreams (40th Anniversary) (WEA)
Review by Geoff Jenke
Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt was originally released in 1977 and was Linda’s 8th and most successful studio album. It spent 5 weeks at number 1 in the USA, displacing Fleetwood Macs Rumour album from the top notch.
Side one (talking the old vinyl record) is made up of ballads except for the rocking Buddy Holly opening track It’s So Easy. Session man Waddy Wachtel shines on guitar. The songs 1950’s flavour stays with the Linda version. For the rest of the side we get ballads starting with Warren Zevon’s song of solitude, Carmelitta. Linda does her best country work on the song.
Simple Man, Simple Dream and Sorrow Lives Here (a bit of a theme developing?) follow with Sorrow Lives Here having only a piano to back Linda’s voice. The song is morose and beautiful at the same time.
Linda rounds off side one with the traditional song I Never Will Marry with Dolly Parton helping out on backing vocals. For a great version of this song search Youtube for the duet Linda does with Johnny Cash. Awesome.
Side two kicks off with Roy Orbison’s Blue Bayou and is Linda’s performance is electrifying. The band remain “buried” in the background bringing the vocal performance to the fore.
Things start to crank up with Warren Zevon’s Poor Poor Pitiful Me, with the band coming to the fore this time. Ronstadt takes the Rolling Stones Tumbling Dice and makes it her own. Originally a strong male song, she takes the often bawdy (for Linda) song and turns it on its head.
The album finishes with yet another ballad, Old Paint. It reminds me of people sitting around a campfire singing old songs
The album proves Linda Ronstadt can sing anything. Country, pop, rock and even old traditional classics. For me a few more rockers would have been welcome.
This edition comes with three bonus live tracks in It’s So Easy, Blue Bayou and Poor Poor Pitiful Me.
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