Linda Ronstadt, born on July 15, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona, spent her childhood and early teenage years in the 1950s and early 1960s surrounded by music. Her family was very musical, with her mother playing the ukulele and her father singing Mexican songs and playing guitar. By the age of six, Linda was already singing harmony with her family. She recalled to People magazine, she thought, “Well, I won’t have to add, because I am going to sing.”
She grew up listening to a wide range of genres, including her father’s Spanish-language albums, country and western, top 40, blues, and gospel. She has stated that she doesn’t record any type of music she didn’t hear in her family’s living room by the time she was 10, highlighting the profound influence of her early musical environment.
In her early teens, around age 14, Linda began performing in local clubs and pizza parlors with her older brother Pete and sister Suzie. They formed a folk trio, sometimes billing themselves as “the Union City Ramblers” or “the Three Ronstadts,” and even recorded themselves as “the New Union Ramblers.” Their repertoire included folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican music.
By 1964, at the age of 18, Ronstadt decided to pursue music professionally. She briefly attended the University of Arizona but left after a couple of months to move to Los Angeles. There, she teamed up with Tucson native Bob Kimmel and Kenny Edwards to form the folk-rock band The Stone Poneys in 1964. This marked the true beginning of her professional career, leading to their signing with Capitol Records in 1966 and their breakthrough hit “Different Drum” in 1967.
Below are some photographs of Ronstadt from the 1950s and early 1960s, as she wasn’t famous yet:
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment