I like musicians’ memoirs. I have Dylan’s and Keith Richards’s, and I just got word from Barnes and Noble that my copy of Linda Ronstadt’s “Simple Dreams” has been shipped and should be here by the weekend.
The way the music biz works, it’s the songwriters who get the royalties forever, not the interpreters. Buy Linda’s book!
The best I can tell, “the way the music biz works” is rather poorly these days.
Linda Ronstadt is something special. Warmth and beauty with killer pipes. She wrote it herself, no ghost writer and despite side stepping all those love affairs the book is a groovy, honest, clear headed and thoroughly engaging read. If you love music and rock and roll this is as good as it gets. Maybe next time she’ll give us some info on relationships. A great read none the less.
Sounds good, Steve. I so respect Linda’s taste in composers and “sidemen” (imagine I used a non-sexist term, I just don’t know what it is), I will be fascinated to hear her stories of her encounters with the likes of Warren Zevon, Jimmy Webb, Neil Young, Karla Bonoff, Mike Nesmith, J.D. Souther, the McGarrigle sisters, and a mysterious personage who gave her some of her best material, Eric Kaz. Plus, she’s mostly a Southwestern gal, so her impressions of Arizona and L.A. in the 60s and 70s would be worthwhile. Finally — she got to work with the great Nelson Riddle on those standards albums like “What’s New?” What was that like?
I think it’s “session musicians” now, John. đ
Yeah, I think the only thing we can complain about is that it’s only about 210 pages long.