Linda Ronstadt "The Sound Of My Voice"

[JohnnyRingo]

During my treatments last week I've been watching a Linda Ronstadt documentary titled "The Sound Of My Voice" and I have to rec it to everyone who has heard her sing. " She can break your heart and mend it at the same time".

She wasn't much for songwriting but her voice would chart any composition. One of her earliest hits made money for Michael Nesmith in 1967 for writing "A Different Drum" which her and The Stone Poneys took straight to #1. I was surprised one of the Monkees wrote that song back in 1964! The rest of the movie features many collaborators and friends telling their stories and songs you forgot but loved.

Anyway, I know how many feel about Amazon, but my Kindle is my lifeline at dialysis treatments and it's free to stream this 90 minute doc on Prime:

[Raven123]

1. Among the greatest. Her versatility is stunning

Could interpret and own any piece of music she sang. Amazingly accepting of the disease that ended her career. I listen to her music regularly.

[Sector 001]

2. 'I'm a practicing atheist'

Linda Ronstadt on her new book, Parkinson’s disease, racism and religion: ‘I’m a practicing atheist’

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2022/09/22/linda-ronstadt-on-her-new-book-parkinsons-disease-racism-and-religion-im-a-practicing-atheist/

Letter to the Pope
The book also includes a chapter entitled “Wait a Minute, Your Holiness,” which recounts the letter she and her friend, Reverend Mary Moreno-Richardson, sent to Pope Francis seven years ago.

“When I learned in 2015 that Pope Francis had apologized to Indigenous peoples for the brutal harm done to them by the Catholic Church in colonial times but was also about to canonize the Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, one of the brutalizers, the dissonance was too much to bear,” she writes.

The letter concludes: “Our concern is that to canonize him would not only be an affront to the California Indians that survive, it would tarnish the images of the saints we cherish. We implore you to reconsider the canonization of Junípero Serra.”

Serra was indeed canonized later in 2015. Did Ronstadt expect Pope Francis to respond to her written plea?

“I’m sure he never saw my letter,” she said. “But I felt I needed to write it no matter and put it in the book.”

Ronstadt sputtered good-naturedly when asked if she was no longer a practicing Catholic.

“I’m a practicing atheist,” Ronstadt said. “But I like this Pope and I think he would do more if he could. I think he’d let priests marry and would (OK) gay marriage.”

[The Blue Flower]

3. Watched it Friday night

It's a great documentary. Reminded me of what made her so great. What she could do with a song was amazing: phrasing, dynamics, volume, color. She owned her songs like nobody else.

[JohnnyRingo]

4. I know!

I think if I got real high and wrote a song, something I've never done before, and gave it to Ronstadt, she would take it to the top the charts.