Original subtitles

Right now I'd like you to meet a young lady,

a very lovely young lady,

that I really think has what it takes to be around

for a long, long time to come.

I'd like you to meet Ms. Linda Ronstadt.

~ Feelin' better ~

~ Now that we're through ~

~ Feelin' better ~

~ 'Cause I'm over you ~

~ I learned my lesson ~

~ It left a scar ~

~ Now I see How you really are ~

~ You're no good You're no good ~

~ You're no good Baby, you're no good ~

~ I'm gonna say it again ~

~ You're no good You're no good ~

~ You're no good Baby, you're no good ~

Here's a gal who really sings great.

We had her on the show last year and she was sensational.

My first guest occupies a prominent place

in the Top 40 record charts

and she has a big one right now.

Linda Ronstadt is one of the really great talents

in country music.

Would you welcome please Linda Ronstadt.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Linda Ronstadt.

~ Now baby and I'm going my way ~

~ Forget about you, baby ~

~ 'Cause I'm leavin' To stay ~

~ You're no good... ~

Linda could literally sing anything.

~ No good ~

I don't think anybody has tried more different styles

and nailed it than Linda has.

There's not that many people that can pull off new wave music

and rock and the most beautiful country ballads.

Her range is huge.

She decided what she wanted to do.

More important what she was authentic at doing.

And they always told her no, you can't do this,

you'll ruin your career.

She did it anyway.

~ Good ~

Someone once asked why people sing.

I answered that they sing for any of the same reasons

birds sing.

They sing for a mate.

To claim their territory.

Or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive

in the midst of a beautiful day.

They sing so the subsequent generations won't forget what

the current generations endured or dreamed or delighted in.

There are a lot of really good singers out in the world.

A lot of better singers than I am.

What I did that was different from other singers,

I did a whole lot of different kinds of material.

People would think that I was trying to reinvent myself

but I never invented myself to start with.

I just kind of popped out into the world.

My mom grew up in Michigan.

Her dad was an inventor.

He was the third to Thomas Edison in the number

of useful inventions in the 50s.

He invented the electric stove, the electric toaster.

The thermostat for Westinghouse.

But my grandmother had Parkinson's disease

and he spent all his money trying to find a cure.

And that's what I have now.

My mom was really smart too.

She wanted to study math and physics

and the University of Arizona was really good for that.

She came out to Tucson where she met my father.

My great grandfather Frederick Ronstadt

came from Germany to Mexico in 1839.

My father's father, Frederico, moved to Tucson when he was 14

to work as a wagon maker.

But his true passion was music.

So he started the Club Filharmonico Tucsonense.

He was the one who wrote the arrangements

and taught everybody how to play their instruments.

He was like the Music Man.

If you wanted to serenade your sweetheart,

you'd get my grandfather's band to go.

And if you had a wedding or a funeral,

well, they'd show up for that.

First time my mother ever saw my dad he was riding his horse

up the steps of her sorority house.

My dad had a lovely baritone tenor voice

and knew a lot of beautiful Mexican love songs

that were rooted in his childhood.

He serenaded my mother underneath her balcony.

And she fell big for him.

~ I'm a rambler ~

~ I'm a gambler ~

~ I'm a long way from home ~

~ If you people ~

~ Don't like me ~

~ You can leave me alone ~

I grew up in Tucson

on the last ten acres of my grandfather's cattle ranch.

We were very isolated so if you wanted entertainment

you kind of had to make your own.

There was a lot of music going on in that house.

Some of it came in through the radio.

That was my best friend in the world.

~ How's about cooking... ~

We had an amazing radio in Tucson

because it was really close to the border.

We could get the Louisiana Hayride.

~ Get goin' Louisiana Hayride ~

~ No use for callin' de roll ~

~ Can't help... ~

American standards.

~ ...loving that man of mine ~

But my grandmother and grandfather

were classical music devotees.

So I would go over to their house on Saturday morning

and listen to a live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera

and come home and my dad would be playing Mexican songs

on the piano. My mom would be playing

some Gilbert and Sullivan piece.

~ True peace of mind ~

My sister loved Hank Williams.

She loved country music.

~ I can't help it ~

~ If I'm still in love With you ~

My brother would be singing really high soprano.

He was in a world-class boys choir and he was their soloist.

She wanted to know how to sing so I taught here.

So she learned about vibrato and all that kind of stuff

when she was like five, six years old.

We learned so much about singing from each other.

It was completely incorporated into what we did.

We sang at the dinner table, we sang in the car,

we sang with our hands in the dishwater.

I thought Spanish was this magical musical language.

When I was growing up I thought people sang in Spanish

and spoke in English.

If you spoke Spanish on the playground you'd be punished.

You weren't allowed to do it.

My sister and brother and I eventually formed

a little group. We called ourselves

The New Union Ramblers.

We thought that sounded folky.

Bobby Kimmel was a guitar player that I met in Tucson.

He wrote songs about his own life.

I remember them being one of the best vocal groups

I had ever heard.

Bobby joined our family group

and then he and I used to play as a duet sometimes.

We played little clubs in Tucson but there wasn't very much

opportunity for us there.

At some point reality stepped in and my sister had three kids.

And then my brother went to work for the police department.

Bobby wanted to earn some money playing music.

So he went off to California.

And I was the last man standing.

~ All the leaves are brown ~

I went to LA with the intention of forming a band.

When I saw the quality of the singers that were out there

I started writing to Linda saying

if you come out we could form a band and get a record deal.

I knew they had more clubs to play in Los Angeles.

~ California dreaming ~

I was telling her this is kind of an iffy thing.

You might starve to death or you might find yourself

washing dishes and waiting tables

before you ever get discovered.

She says I'm willing to take the chance.

I was 18 years old.

We had a house on the beach for 80 bucks a month

in Santa Monica.

We split the rent three ways.

It was just great. It was right on the beach.

Once she got there we got to work right away

and we used to practice every day.

Bobby introduced me to a really good guitar player

named Kenny Edwards and we formed a little band

and we called ourselves The Stone Ponies.

~ Look out your window ~

~ The rain is turning Into snow ~

We started playing little beatnik dives

and strange pizza parlors, wherever we could get a job.

~ Oh how you love me... ~

There was the trip where I heard this band called The Byrds.

They had a light show

and a lot of acid tripping kind of stuff going on.

The Whiskey A Go Go was very rock and roll.

I heard the Doors there and I thought

oh they're be a really hit band if they get rid of their singer.

~ Go, love Open up the door... ~

There was the Ash Grove.

That was where you go for authentic folk music.

It's where I first heard Ry Cooder.

~ Have you seen that vigilante man? ~

Ry Cooder was then and now the most amazing guitar player

I've ever heard.

I knew that had good musicians in Los Angeles

but this guy is really something.

I thought I'm staying here.

I'm not going back to Tucson to live.

~ All over the land ~

She came to Los Angeles at a time

when the LA rock and roll scene was in gear and was going.

Because, see, after The Byrds did their thing

with Mr. Tambourine Man,

then the whole damn thing broke loose

and all the record companies when scurrying around

like headless chickens trying to figure out what to do.

Who can sing folk rock

and how can we define what this thing is going to be?

~ Hey Mr. Tambourine Man ~

~ Play a song for me ~

There was a lot of cross pollination

that started happening in the mid-60s, you know,

country music and folk music and rock music started

commingling and blending and you would get all these hybrids.

The Troubadour, just a few blocks from Hollywood Boulevard,

is known as an avant garde cafe.

It's the favorite of Hollywood's young and young at heart.

The Troubadour was where everybody went to hang out

and to be noticed.

You wanted to make yourself known to the record community at

large, you go to the Troubadour, play an open mic night.

I can't even name all the great songwriters

that came through there.

I mean, Laura Nyro, Neil Young,

Joni Mitchell, Tim Hardin,

Kris Kristofferson, Rick Nelson, Elton John,

Jackson Browne.

It was just week after week of amazing,

game-changing songwriters.

~ Some of them were dreamers ~

~ Some of them were fools ~

~ Who were making plans ~

~ And thinking of the future ~

I mean, you tried to get a gig at the Troubadour.

You wanted to play the Troubadour.

All kinds of industry people hung around in the bar.

The Troubadour is important because

that's where you can get seen.

It was the place to play.

Like the minor leagues in baseball.

This was your chance, this was your great chance.

The Troubadour was a bustling place.

They had a hootenanny night where new artists would come

and sing a few songs and I used to go to every hootenanny night

to see if there was anybody really talented.

The Hoot, the Monday night open mic Hootenanny

where you'd wait and get on the list

and you go up there and sing your new song.

You got two or three songs.

If you were no good you probably didn't last the second song

because were, "Hey, get off!"

And maybe not even the first song.

~ Oh, you and I, travel to the Beat of a different drum... ~

I heard a song called Different Drum

by this bluegrass group called The Greenbriar Boys.

~ Every time you make... ~

It was written by Mike Nesmith

who was eventually going to join the Monkees.

~ You cry and moan And say it will work out ~

~ But honey child I've got my doubts ~

~ You can't see the forest For the trees ~

~ So don't get me wrong It's not that I knock it ~

~ it's just that I am not In the market ~

~ For a boy who wants To love only me ~

We got an immediate response from managers

and people who were interested in our career.

Herb Cohen was managing Frank Zappa.

We had head that he had been a soldier of fortune.

He was have killed somebody.

He was a badass.

But he was established and he immediately said,

"I can get you a record deal."

~ I believe And I see no sense... ~

We recorded a few things, just the tree of us.

Then he took those to the people in power

and said, "I want to record these guys."

Capitol said okay.

We signed papers and we were off and running.

~ Live without me ~

So we recorded it with a mandolin

and a couple of acoustic guitars

and the record company didn't like it.

And so they said well come back, we want to recut the song.

Certainly everything changed in the studio.

They had a bunch of strings in there

and it was an orchestra session. I went wait a minute,

this isn't the way I thought about the song.

I said I don't want to put it on the record because

that wasn't the way I'd originally envisioned it.

~ You and I count to the beat Of a different drum ~

~ Oh can't you tell By the way I run ~

~ Every time You make eyes at me ~

It was a good thing they didn't listen to me

because it was a huge hit.

I'm driving down the road, you know, in my car

listening to KTKT radio and all of a sudden

she's singing Different Drum.

I said wait a minute!

I loved her voice from the first time I heard her.

I was a freshman in college.

The Stone Poneys, Different Drum.

Yeah, baby!

It was just like wow!

It was just like to pull back the covering

of a fully developed vocal stylist.

~ Yes and I ain't sayin' You ain't pretty ~

~ All I'm sayin' I'm not ready ~

Most of the time as a critic you're sitting there saying,

"We don't give the artist a plus for this and a minus for this.

This is kind of good, that's not so good."

Bang! It was like a home run.

~ Goodbye! ~

~ I believe in a... ~

We were out on this tour

and Herby Cohen comes to my hotel room and says,

"I need to tell you that when we get back to LA,

the band is breaking up."

Everybody said, "I don't know about you two guys

but we want the girl singer."

The record company wanted to develop me as a solo artist.

Kenny decided to go off to India and find a guru and meditate.

And Bobby started a folk club in LA called McCabe's.

And I was left with what in the world to sing.

I was by myself.

A harmony singer with no material.

The remarkable thing about the Stone Poney days was

she had the nerve to leave a male band

after it had already had a hit and go on her own.

Will you welcome please Ms. Linda Ronstadt?

Ronstadt, Ronstadt.

Did anyone ever suggest that that isn't the most musical name

in the world.

That maybe you should change it to Linda Marlow or...

Is there a Linda Marlow?

And once they learn how to pronounce my name,

that leads to free-for-all kinds of variations.

Glenn Campbell once called me Linda Bedstead.

You know, I remember you when you were nothing

but a little Stone Poney.

Oh yeah?

I didn't have any idea what that means.

I know that you were part of a group, right?

Let's see, how do I explain this on television

and not get yelled at.

Oh, then maybe you don't.

- I think I don't. - Oh, yeah?

Oh, is it an inside meaning?

Yeah, it has a lot of different...

~ Love will abide ~

~ Take things in stride ~

~ Sounds like good advice ~

~ But there's no one At my side ~

~ And time washes clean ~

~ Love's wounds unseen ~

~ That's what someone Told me ~

~ But I don't know What it means ~

~ 'Cause I've ~

~ Done everything I know ~

~ To try to make you mine ~

~ And I think it's gonna Hurt me ~

~ For a long, long time ~

~ But I've done Everything I know ~

~ To try to make you mine ~

~ Think I'm gonna Love you ~

~ For a long, long time ~

I met her in the Troubadour.

She had this hit called Long, Long Time.

Apparently she knew who I was

based on a record I'd made with Ricky Nelson.

She said I like that band you put together for Rick Nelson.

Could you do that for me?

~ She's got everything She needs ~

~ She's an artist ~

~ She don't look back ~

Herby Cohen was the manager when I met her.

He gave me these tickets to Hawaii

for the Capitol Records convention.

Linda and I show up at San Francisco Airport

to fly to Honolulu and lo and behold there was the FBI

to arrest us for receiving stolen property.

Turns out Herby had bought the tickets in the lobby

of the building from some guy

probably for 25 cents on the dollar

and they were hotter than a two-dollar pistol.

So we spent the day in jail.

She fired Herbie and asked me to fill in.

~ I don't want Your lonely mansion ~

I was walking through the Troubadour one night

on my way to the bathroom.

This band Shiloh got up and did my exact version

of Silver Threads and Golden Needles.

~ Silver Threads And Golden Needles ~

I just went, "What?"

Does, you know, that solo, I thought, God!

I was appalled that anyone would actually sit down

with one of my records and learn the solo off it

like a Led Zeppelin record.

And I heard the drummer and I thought he was really good.

The drummer was a guy named Don Henley.

Linda's first solo album came out in '69

and I moved to LA in June of 1970.

So my timing was pretty good.

She'd had a bunch of dates back East

and we needed to put the band together quickly.

So I hired him for $250 a week.

~ Rescue me ~

~ I want you in my arms ~

~ Rescue me ~

~ I need your tender charm ~

~ 'Cause I'm lonely ~

I knew who she was because I had her album.

I listened to that album a hundred times.

She could seem vulnerable and very feminine

but when she opened her mouth to sing everything got different.

It was just incredible.

You knew that there was a very solid core

and a very determined woman.

Just saw her walking past me in the Troubadour

and she looked so cute.

I just grabbed her by the hand

and I said I think you should cook me dinner.

And she said okay and gave me her phone number.

So I called her a couple days

and I said, "Well, you gonna cook me dinner?"

She goes, "Sure, come on over." I came on over

and she made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And I fell in love with her.

Took her home and the next day I said,

"Listen, let's go get your stuff.

You can live here with me."

~ I got a feeling called The blues, oh Lord ~

~ Since my baby Said goodbye ~

John David Souther and Linda Ronstadt.

They were a hot couple.

~ All I do is sit and cry Oh Lord ~

~ That last long day he said goodbye ~

JD had had a musical duo with a guy named Glenn Frey.

He was by best friend and first songwriting partner.

We really did nothing but just listen to music and play guitars

and try to write songs and then go to the Troubadour.

Glenn Frey played pretty good guitar.

So I went and talked to Glenn and said,

"Do you want to do this tour with me?"

He said it would be really cool.

He'd never been on the road before.

Glenn Frey and I shared the $12 hotel room

with two twin beds in it.

It was a very modest tour.

I mean, I remember being in station wagons.

Rooming together, Don and Glenn each discovered

that the other was a good singer and songwriter.

And that's when they decided to get together and form a band.

That band became the Eagles.

They wished us well.

John was very supportive, Linda was supportive

and they basically said just go for it.

We didn't have much success with Desperado.

The record company didn't know what to do with it.

And then Linda made it into a classic.

~ Desperado ~

~ Why don't you come To your senses ~

~ Come down From your fences ~

~ And open the gate ~

~ It may be raining ~

~ But there's a rainbow Above you ~

~ You better let somebody Love you ~

~ ~

~ Let somebody love you ~

~ Before it is too ~

~ Late ~

I knew the Neil Young tour was coming

and I thought this'll be perfect for Linda

because she had sung backup on his big hit "Heart of Gold."

So I called Neil's manager and I said,

"Listen, Linda's the right opening act for this.

You've got to help me out."

And they said, "Well, Neil's gonna go out alone."

~ I want to live ~

~ I want to give ~

Lo and behold like a week later he called me and he said,

"Neil's done a few dates in Canada

and it's getting him too tired.

He now wants an opening act and you're it.

~ I never give... ~

Linda was quite reluctant at the time.

She was so worried about the idea of playing a huge

hockey arena tour at that point in her career.

But we persuaded her that this would be a good thing.

Thank you!

You would occasionally get somebody: "We want Neil!"

But by the time the tour got going, she was holding her own.

~ I've been cheated ~

~ Been mistreated ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ I've been put down ~

~ I've been pushed 'round ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ When I find a new man ~

~ That I want for mine ~

~ Always breaks my heart In two ~

~ It happens every time ~

~ I've been... ~

Here's Linda who I'd never seen live before,

big stage, sold out, huge place.

She comes out there and starts singing and that voice filled

this arena where I had seen concerts for a long time.

Nobody filled this arena with a voice like Linda Ronstadt.

And she just killed it.

She slaughtered this crowd who didn't come to see her

but they sure left knowing who she was.

We did 78 dates in 90 days.

We played before 18,000 to 20,000 people every night.

We got to Houston and there was this new girl singer.

Her name's Emmylou.

It was 1973 during the one tour I did with Gram.

~ Call happy calling Children are calling ~

~ In line to ride On the merry-go-round ~

Emmy started singing and three notes

the entire place was dead quiet.

It was like they had started mass or something.

And she was beautiful, this girl with the long hair

and big brown eyes and I thought

she's doing exactly what I'm doing.

She's doing it better.

~ Do not worry How it's done... ~

And for a minute I thought well I can get jealous

and then I won't be able to enjoy her singing.

Or I can just become a slobbering, drooling fan

like the rest of the people in the club.

And hope that maybe I could get her to sing with me.

So I chose the latter as one of the best decisions I ever made.

And Emmy and I became immediate music and social friends.

Linda had a lot to do with lifting me up

at a very, very low time in my life.

I had been kind of my way working with Gram Parsons.

I thought I'd found my voice,

I had found something I love to do singing with him.

~ Love hurts ~

~ Love scars ~

On the road to getting himself straight

he was drinking a lot less, he was loving the work,

we loved singing together, we had a record we'd just made,

and apparently someone showed up with heroin

which he hadn't done in a while and it killed him.

It was devastating to lose him like that.

It was Linda who stepped up as a friend

and we had just met each other.

She brought me out to LA, had me stay at her house

and she talked about me to everybody.

Said how great I was and genuinely loved my singing.

Genuinely made me feel like I had something to offer

at a very low time in my life.

~ Love hurts ~

~ Save me ~

~ Free me ~

~ From love ~

~ This time ~

~ Well the train's gone ~

~ Down the track ~

~ and I'm I'm left behind ~

Linda was always very tight with her girlfriends.

They sang together, they shared music together, she was

supportive of me.

I was writing songs and hoping to make my own record

but of course Linda was really coming into her own

and starting to be really successful.

I think a songwriter doing their songs is different

than a singer do their songs.

Some people prefer the songwriter doing them, some

people prefer Linda doing them.

But "Lose Again" she definitely made

into a bigger song.

~ But nothing can save me ~

~ From this b=Ball and chain ~

Because I couldn't sing it like that.

~ I made up my mind ~

~ I would leave today ~

I mean Linda came out and turned it into this power ballad.

~ I know it's insane ~

~ Because I love you ~

~ And lose again ~

~ Oh, I love you ~

~ And lose again ~

Back then there wasn't competition with women.

So I think, you know, women,

there weren't that many of us either.

So I think there was a certain amount of banding together

to sort of share our woman part of it.

This is a song off our new album.

It's about a real special place called home.

That's a Karla Bonoff song.

I had made a demo of Home and we sent it off to Bonnie,

just a complete long shot, and she decided to record it.

~ Traveling at night ~

~ The headlights Were bright ~

~ And soon the sun came through the trees ~

~ Around the next bend ~

~ The flowers will send ~

~ The sweet smell of home In the breeze ~

Linda and I are like sisters, around the same age

and we were coming up and had the same mutual

other musician friends and band members

and, you know, it was a community of artists,

it wasn't sexually divided between just the women and men.

We weren't thinking in terms of that.

Linda and Bonnie Raitt were two of the first women

that I was able to see as a young journalist

and study the way they operated in this community.

We're going to move into this world where we're running bands

with guys in them but we can also look after each other.

I said if I can have it on my terms and you understand

I'm not going to be told how to dress or what music to make.

Great!

We were all throwing away all those conventions, you know.

The rock and roll culture is so male dominated and it also seems

to be dominated by sort of hostility against women.

That this sort of...

sort of sexual identity that is sort of used as a weapon

against the populace and women in particular

and then everyone identifies with it.

And it's sort of sad to me because what happens is that...

is that rock and roll stars end up isolating themselves

more and more and more, thereby increasing their own feelings of

alienation and anxiety and they wonder why they're so miserable.

That's really when they turn to drugs and destroy themselves.

It's just very silly. It just seems very silly.

They lose the ability to focus on themselves as a person

rather than as an image and that's very dangerous I think.

And there are always a lot of people around them,

managers and scene makers, you know, groupies and whatever,

that are willing to indulge them in anything they want.

It weakens them, it weakens them as people

and it eventually weakens them as musicians.

~ I been warped By the rain ~

~ Driven by the snow ~

~ I'm drunk and dirty ~

~ Don't you know ~

~ But I'm still ~

~ Willin' ~

~ Out on the road Late last night ~

~ I'd see my pretty Alice in every headlight ~

~ Alice ~

~ Dallas Alice ~

~ And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari ~

~ Tehachapi to Tonopah ~

~ Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made ~

I was in New York and somebody said

you have to go see this girl, she's amazing.

She's one of the best singers you'll ever hear,

she's brilliant.

She's incredibly great looking, she sings barefoot

and will knock you out in every respect and she did.

~ Whites and wine ~

~ And you show me a sign ~

~ And I'll be willin' ~

I was running the Beatles record label Apple.

When Apple started to fall apart and the Beatles were breaking up

and all of that I went to America

and there I was being a manager.

I wanted to go back to work as a record producer

so I suggested Linda go and meet with Peter

which we did and he agreed to manage her.

There was a high bar there.

Peter Asher had hung around with the Beatles.

He expected to make records that are huge successes

and he was poised to do that with Linda

and Geffen was ready to be their record company

that would be there.

I started Asylum Records and signed Jackson Browne

and then signing other artists and it turned into what it did.

And I knew when I saw Linda and the Stone Poneys

that she was gonna make it and she was gonna make it

as a solo artist and I knew she was going to be a big star.

She didn't think so.

She had very little confidence in those days.

Linda was feeling like she wasn't good enough

to be on Asylum Records.

I said to her that that was crazy.

I'm never really satisfied with what I do.

And lots of times I hear that I did something wrong

and it bothers me, it can ruin my day really.

Linda never thought she was as good as she was

and that is an interesting paradox

because she's confident about her ideas

but not about herself and not about her singing.

My involvement as a producer with Linda came when she was

having trouble finishing the album that became Don't Cry Now.

And that's when we decided that the next album I would produce

was Heart Like a Wheel.

~ Some say a heart Is just like a wheel ~

~ When you bend it ~

~ You can't mend it ~

The McGarrigle Sisters, who were these two Canadian sisters,

they were in an odd category.

They didn't fit in pop music, they didn't fit in folk music,

they didn't fit anywhere except they fit in my heart.

We just heard Heart Like A Wheel,

then I went I have to sing it.

~ When harm is done ~

~ No love can be won ~

~ I know it happens ~

~ Frequently ~

~ But I can't... ~

Linda has the ability to hear a song and claim it.

You claim it as your own as a singer.

If you love it like that you get inside it.

You become it.

~ But my love for you Is like a sinking ship ~

~ And my heart is on that ship out in mid-ocean ~

Heart Like a Wheel, she discovered that song,

brought it to me and I loved it.

I thought it was beautiful but I was also thinking

in terms of we should make some hits.

~ Feelin' better ~

~ Now that we're through ~

~ Feelin' better ~

~ 'Cause I'm over you ~

I'm a ballad singer, I like to sing ballads best

but we needed some up-tempo songs for the record

and as an afterthought I had this song

that we'd used to close the show.

~ You're no good You're no good ~

~ You're no good Baby, you're no good ~

~ I'm gonna say it again ~

~ You're no good You're no good ~

~ You're no good Baby, you're no good ~

She knew and loved the song, I knew and loved the song,

and we decided to do a version of that song.

I stayed up all night assembling this very complicated,

intricate layered guitar piece.

We worked very long into like the next afternoon.

And that's when Linda turned up and didn't like it.

She said, "Oh, I don't like it. It sounds like the Beatles,"

which it did sound like the Beatles

but in the end she came around and said,

"You know what, I was wrong. It's great."

~ I'm tellin' you now baby And I'm going my way ~

~ Forget about you, baby 'Cause I'm leaving to stay ~

Every song that I sing has a face

that I sing it to, you know.

And so when something happens to me,

it's really funny, I know so many songs.

When something happens to me

the song will occur at the same time.

I'll think oh, this song or that song, you know.

And if it's a song I can sing then I'll have to sing it,

I'll just burn to sing it. I can't not sing it.

~ I passed you on the street ~

~ And my heart Fell at your feet ~

~ I can't help it ~

~ If I'm still In love with you ~

He would make the assumption that I was choosing the songs

that we would do on these records or that I was working

out the arrangements or this, that, and the other.

And I would have to keep explaining that

it was Linda and me in that order.

~ Still in love with you ~

My sister used to play all these Hank Williams records.

So I thought I can do that.

~ Came slowly stealing ~

~ As I brushed your arm ~

~ And stood So close to you... ~

Linda knew a good song

and she knew why it was good and better than that

she knew how to sing it better than you can sing.

When you become that sharp of a song stylist,

you get authorship in a certain way.

I consider her a real author.

She didn't write songs but she made songs happen

the way she wanted to hear them.

~ I can't help it if I'm still in love with you ~

I Can't Help it if I'm Still in Love With You

was a hit on the country charts.

You're No Good was a hit on both the R&B chart and the pop chart.

So I became the first artist to have a hit on all three charts

at the same time.

Heart Like A Wheel was a huge turning point for her.

The avalanche of success was hitting everywhere.

She was at the forefront of a kind of pop stardom

that hadn't happened at that point

but people didn't notice the difficulty of being a woman,

trailblazing and having the success of a Mick Jagger.

~ People try to rape me Always thinking I'm crazy ~

~ Make me burn the candle right down ~

~ Baby ~

~ I can't stay ~

~ Don't need no jewels In my crown ~

~ 'Cause all you women ~

~ Are low down gamblers ~

Now I had gigs like in big sporting arenas,

you know, stadiums and stuff like that.

I knew the name of every arena in the country.

We got a gig tonight at the Spectrum in Philly.

We'll be at the Forum.

Gig tomorrow night at the Garden.

That's where we played.

She was selling them all out.

~ This low down bitchin' ~

~ Got my poor feet a itchin' ~

~ Can you see The deuce is still wild ~

She was very good.

Audience loved her.

Records sold.

She was on an uphill swing all the time.

~ Got to roll me ~

~ Call me the tumblin' dice ~

When we did that tour together

we'd take turns closing and opening.

You know. Try following Linda Ronstadt every night.

~ Honey Got no money ~

~ Sixes and sevens and nines ~

~ Hey now baby I'm the rank outsider ~

I went to go see her at the Universal Amphitheater

when she was wearing her Boy Scouts outfit

and was just rocking.

~ Baby... ~

Linda was able to be really feminine and sexy

in this world of men and somehow hold onto herself and do that

and use that in the best possible way.

There was a lot of dudes running around the stages then.

But we were on the road with Linda and killing it.

She was killing every night.

~ The tumbling dice ~

~ You got to roll me ~

I know they liked my singing and I know they were proud

of what they were doing but still in rock and roll

the idea that you're actually working for a chick singer,

in their way they sort of saw it as not as cool

as if they were their own rock and roll band

and they were just all the guys.

~ Baby, baby Got to roll me ~

There weren't a lot of women musicians

so it was always a band of guys.

There weren't women bass players and women guitar players

and sometimes some of these guys were, they were tough.

I got a lot tougher and more foul mouthed.

I used to swear a lot.

I mean, I used to talk like a truck driver.

When I think about the way I used to talk, I'm shocked.

Without having any other girls along on the road,

just automatically you start to imitate them.

Linda was never comfortable being on the road

but obviously she did her job and part of her loved it.

Who wouldn't love it?

But I think there was another part of her that went,

"You know, this doesn't feel right."

If I were going to choose something to do

it would not be to stand up in front of a lot of people.

But I love to sing, I love to sing.

I love music so at some point you do whatever you have to do

to do music.

She would confess to me that if she saw people in the front row

and somebody leans over and says something to the person

next to them, she thought they were saying, you know,

she's the worst singer I've ever heard.

I don't like this.

She really believed that.

You get on the bus at night, card game going on,

everybody blasting music

or everyone else drinking, you know.

A lot of drugs around.

A lot of people would go on stage completely hammered,

completely fucking hammered.

Everybody was up at night and when the gig ended

you don't go home and have milk.

It was kind of the nighttime danger fun part about

not having to go to bed.

You know, Keith Richards can do it, so can I.

Linda's thing was diet pills.

She went through a phase mostly taking speed

and not eating and being super skinny.

It seemed like it was so hard to be out there day after day

and to try to get up the energy to sort of do that

when you were just wrung out

from the sense of being dislocated from place.

I was with a bunch of people that were basically earnest

and basically honest

and the kind of paranoia that was introduced by drugs

was so destructive in our ability to communicate

with each other.

That really saddened me.

And then at some point we all just stopped.

~ I feel so bad ~

~ I got a worried mind ~

~ I'm so lonesome ~

~ All the time ~

~ Since I left my Baby behind ~

~ On Blue Bayou ~

~ Saving nickels Saving dimes ~

~ Workin' 'til The sun don't shine ~

~ Looking forward To happier times ~

~ On Blue Bayou ~

~ I'm going back someday ~

~ Come what may ~

~ To Blue Bayou ~

~ Where the folks are fine ~

~ And the world is mine ~

~ On Blue Bayou ~

When Rolling Stone was ready to put Linda Ronstadt on the cover

that was her absolute peak up until then.

~ If I could only see ~

Generally it was a very male-oriented

denim-clad warrior cover.

So here comes Linda Ronstadt

and she and Annie Leibovitz put together this photo session

that was like no other cover that had been

on Rolling Stone before.

She was honest

and opened her heart.

She said, "This gets lonely and I don't know where it ends up.

It's an emotional journey

and I'm happy that I brought this kind of joy.

But you know what? When I'm here alone

in this Malibu home that looks very cozy, it's lonely."

There's a lot of show business people down here, you know.

It's not my style exactly.

Where did you live before?

Nowhere really. I was on the road for about ten years

and I didn't exactly have a home.

~ On Blue Bayou ~

Singing the National Anthem here at Dodger Stadium,

Ms. Linda Ronstadt.

~ Oh, say can you see? ~

I remember my dad was watching her at the game.

She sang the National Anthem.

~ What so proudly we hailed ~

~ At the twilight's... ~

All of sudden there she is.

She'd come in the limo straight to the restaurant from the game

to have something to eat.

My parents had a small restaurant on Melrose Avenue

across the street from what was then KHJ Radio

which was the radio station in the day.

Linda walked in and my dad was wearing a shirt

that we call in Mexico Aloe Vera

and it has four pockets and it's white and she said,

"This is a good place

because he's wearing the shirt my dad wears.

A lot of the people who hung out at the Troubadour

also ate at Lucy's.

Lucy was very shall we say loose with the check

now and again and if we were on hard times.

Our customers were not just soon-to-be celebrities

of the industries, they were the oligarch of Los Angeles.

I mean, you're talking old-school money.

There was a big communal table that my father

used to sit everybody at.

So you'd sit with policemen, you'd sit with firemen,

sometimes you'd sit with an actor, sometimes you'd sit...

a football player. You never had any idea who you'd sit with.

What happened was Linda had decided

that she wanted to change the 8-track

because she wanted to hear something else.

So she had to step up on this little wine rack

and at that moment the Governor Jerry Brown comes in

that room and he sees her and it was like wow!

Who's she?

So my father went and he sat them together.

And, well, he fell in love with her.

There was no question about that.

Jerry likes passionate music.

He likes passionate music, passionate women,

that's his deal.

We had a really good time together.

He went out to run for president for the last couple of months

and he pending for the fact that I got to see him on TV

I may have forgot what he looked like.

But he came back yesterday.

He's gonna make it all better now.

That's what he told me anyway.

I have yet to see.

~ My boyfriend's back And you're gonna be trouble ~

~ Hey now, hey now My boyfriend's back ~

~ When you see him coming... ~

Did you have much of a problem when you're with Jerry Brown

people expecting you to have political views

along the lines of Governor Brown?

Whereas you're a singer, he's a politician.

Our relationship was completely personal,

it wasn't political at all.

So, you know, he did politics, I did music.

- Right. - It's easy to separate that.

You went to South Africa recently.

Did you receive criticism for going there?

As far as I was concerned it was just a gig.

I don't think that if you disagree with the policies

of the government, which I do very definitely disagree

with the policies of the South African government,

I don't think that's enough of a reason not to go

and play music there.

If I did that I wouldn't be able to play in the United State

because I don't agree with their policies about nuclear power,

nuclear warfare.

I mean, my God, we've got this person running the country

that I completely disagree with.

If I decided that I wasn't going to play where attitudes

of racism prevailed, I certainly couldn't play in Australia

or England or lots of places in the United States,

a lot of places in the American South or Boston

which is extremely racist.

I went to South Africa, it has a fascist repressive government.

I'm very interested in the culture down there.

You just got finished talking.

You say why does anyone think I'm controversial.

Do you realized what you've just talked about here?

We've just received all your political views in one blow.

I'm teasing. I'm not putting it down.

I don't think my political views are very controversial.

Who likes nuclear warfare?

I remember her having the Wall Street Journal in her bag

one time in the 70s when she was dating Jerry and I went,

you know, I had thought she was really smart but she's really

well read and very, very up on a lot of different things.

She's as wide ranging in her critical intellectual pursuits

as she is in her music pursuits and you don't find that kind

of depth and eclecticism in pop music.

Jerry needed somebody that could be full-time there for him.

You couldn't have two careers in that family.

~ I never will marry... ~

There's not enough time.

~ I'll be no man's wife ~

~ I tend to stay single ~

~ For my rest of my life ~

I mean, the same reason I never got married.

I don't know, I think it's hard being a woman

in the music business.

You know, it's a different kind of life.

~ Rushing waters ~

~ Went over my head ~

Well you don't need to get married, you what I mean?

It's like we have our own income

and you don't have to have the state verify

that you love somebody

and when that relationship's over you leave.

Neither one of us are really made for marriage

or I think long-term relationships.

Why did you break up?

I can't remember. Maybe she could tell you.

~ It's so easy to fall in love ~

~ It's so easy to fall in love ~

~ People tell me Love's for fools ~

~ But here I go Breaking all the rules ~

~ Seems so easy... ~

My mom wanted to be a scientist but she had four kids

and I think it was also a little bit of a disappointment.

~ It's so easy To fall in love... ~

She always said to me go out and have a life.

You don't just have to get married, there are alternatives.

~ It's so easy to fall in love ~

~ It's so easy to fall in love ~

I have to confess, I got a really bad crush on this guy.

We had a little romance for a while but it wasn't long lived.

He dumped me for this pig.

Well, at least I got his picture.

~ Does he love me? ~

~ I want to know ~

~ How can I tell if he loves me so? ~

~ Is it in his eyes? ~

~ Oh no, you make believe ~

~ Is it in his size ~

~ Oh no You'll be deceived ~

~ If you want to know if he loves you so ~

~ It's in his kiss ~

~ That's where it is ~

To present the nominees for favorite female

in rock and pop are Teddy Pendergrass and Tanya Tucker.

The nominees are: Linda Ronstadt.

Ms. Barbara Streisand.

And Donna Summer.

You open the envelope.

I'm too nervous.

I'll do the gentlemanly thing here and I'll open it.

- If you will read. - Okay. And the winner is...

Linda Ronstadt.

Linda was the queen.

She was like what Beyoncé is now.

She was the first female rock and roll star.

~ Want love? ~

~ Get closer ~

She was the only female artist the have

five platinum albums in a row and most of them multi-platinum.

~ Hold my hand ~

For favorite female in rock and pop...

Favorite country single...

Blue Bayou by Linda Ronstadt.

- And the winner is... - Takes another one.

- Linda Ronstadt. - The winner is Linda Ronstadt.

~ You make a fuss when her eyes ain't on you ~

~ Well give us something to look forward to ~

~ Remember all those other girls who ran ~

The nature of being a pop musician is that you get

these things that are successful

and you have to sing them for the rest of your life.

Over and over and over again and they start sounding

like your washing machine.

I didn't like singing in big arenas because the sound

was like, you know, you'd hear the guitar solo that

they played last week still ringing around the rafters.

So I started looking for other things to do.

There is this feeling that she has about the music itself

rather than the career itself.

You know, some people are just hardcore careerists.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You know, it's how your mind works that makes the difference.

It's how you see yourself or how you see yourself in the world,

you know.

And not everybody's a pure art for art's sake

and not everybody's a pure careerist either,

especially in music

because musicians love music or they wouldn't do it.

She wanted to change.

She got tired of doing arena rock,

she wanted to try different things.

I picked up the phone and called my great friend John Rockwell

who writes music criticism for the New York Times.

I said I hate playing these big sporting arenas.

It's not good for the audience, it's not good for the band.

I want to sing in a theater with a proscenium and a curtain.

He said well the next time you come to New York

I'll take you down to meet this fellow named Joseph Papp.

He has a theater, it's called the New York Public Theater

and he does Shakespeare and he does musicals; he did Hair.

He wanted to do The Pirates of Penzance.

My mom was a Gilbert and Sullivan lover.

She had a big book of Gilbert and Sullivan songs on the piano.

And I actually learned all the soprano parts as a kid.

And I loved singing them

but I never got a chance to in rock and roll.

That was in her roots, that was in her upbringing,

it was part of her authentic musical experience.

Joe called me and said if I wanted to do the part

I could have it.

And I said no I have to come and audition

because I didn't know whether I could sing it or not.

She wanted to be certain that she would do it well.

They thought being able to say Linda Ronstadt's in it

would be good for business.

But her concern was whether it would be good for the show.

I was there for several rehearsals and she was fabulous.

She just grabbed it by the horns and...

That was the first job I was ever offered

where I actually got to sing like that.

I was delighted, I really was. But I can't do it very well yet.

Because it's really hard. You can't learn that overnight.

- You got to be in training. - In training, yup.

Linda had a great voice and she had a great vision for herself

and she didn't want to just be singing rock and roll,

she wanted to do everything.

~ Hold, monsters! ~

~ Ere your pirate Caravanserai ~

~ Proceed, against our will to wed us all ~

~ Just bear in mind that we Are Wards in Chancery ~

~ And father is a Major-General ~

I knew some of her songs, sure.

But operetta?

~ Prepare! ~

~ Unhappy General Stanley ~

A week into rehearsal we all sang through the score

just sitting in a circle in chairs

and when I heard her voice it was just

this belle canto soprano gorgeous musical,

celestial yet earthy, just pure,

something so pure, it just made me cry.

I just remember just listening to that voice,

it was just singing that stuff...

Touching.

~ Oh, sisters, Deaf to pity's name ~

~ For shame! ~

~ It's true that he has Gone astray ~

~ But pray ~

~ Is that a reason Good and true ~

~ Why you ~

~ Should all be deaf To pity's name? ~

Gilbert and Sullivan? Really?

A rock star who has the guts to go out there

and do that kind of musical comedy.

She just didn't care.

To her it was like a mountain to climb.

Linda can bring herself to sing anything.

She could sing opera, she could do anything with her voice.

I couldn't do all that.

Kevin Kline and I were both nominated

for Tony Awards for that show.

Kevin deserved it more than I did.

All I did was walk around and sing.

My mom died during Pirates of Penzance.

I wasn't with her when she died.

And I just couldn't quite get it through my head

that she was gone out of the world

and I was never going to see her again.

She'd had all these records -- Louis Armstrong,

Ella Fitzgerald,

Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee.

And I thought I'd like to try to sing some of those songs.

~ Only the lonely ~

When we lived together almost every evening the last record

we listened to was a Frank Sinatra album

called Songs for Only the Lonely.

With Nelson Riddle arranging.

Constantly people were telling Linda you can't do this.

I'm guilty.

When she was going to do the Nelson Riddle album

I didn't think it was a good idea,

not because she couldn't do it

but because we had this run going with rock and roll records

and country rock.

I said I'd like to find somebody that can write arrangements

like Nelson Riddle.

They said why don't you just ask Nelson Riddle?

Well I didn't know he was still alive.

You were the only person that I knew that could do

orchestrations like this.

I didn't know where you were,

whether you'd be interested in working with me.

Whether you'd ever heard of me or not.

And as soon as I started learning the songs

they just got inside me.

I wanted to record them and I wanted to do it

worse than anything I've ever wanted to do.

I remember your phrase for this.

You said these are songs I cannot not do.

I can't not do them.

At some point it's like falling in love.

Choice doesn't even enter into it.

~ What's new? ~

~ How is the world ~

~ Treating you? ~

I would think oh my God, how can I sing these songs?

Ella Fitzgerald has sung them, Billie Holiday has sing them,

Frank Sinatra has sung them.

~ Handsome as ever ~

She studied all of those records

and she studied every available version she could find

of each one of those songs.

She is a real student.

~ What's new? ~

~ How did that romance ~

~ Come through? ~

She told she wanted to get those songs out of the elevator.

She meant that that's the only place you heard them.

And she wanted to point out that that's not where they belong.

They were some of the best songs ever written.

~ Why am I asking what's new? ~

I went to her house and tried to talk her out of it but

as soon as she told me Nelson Riddle was going to do it,

I said well I'd like to come to the record session.

When my sister was in high school she got to go

to her senior prom and she got to wear these strapless dresses

with a lot of tool

and I always wanted one of those dresses.

By the time I got to high school

styles had changed and I never got to have one.

So I said I'm going to put a show together,

we're all going to get to wear those dresses.

~ So dream ~

~ Dream ~

~ Dream ~

This is a real treat tonight.

We have three marvelous singers on the show

and would you know how many times they have been nominated

for Grammys between them?

Forty-five times in total.

The albums they've all sold are in the multi-millions

and I guess it's taken the ladies about ten years

to get this together where they wanted to work together

and made an album called Trio and it was well worth the time.

The album is described as old-timey but it's sensational.

Would you welcome Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton,

Emmylou Harris?

I had met Dolly.

I saw her singing on the Grand Ole Opry

and she was a wonder to behold.

What you have in front of you is one of the most beautiful girls

you've ever seen.

She's just gorgeous.

When she opened her mouth and started to sing

I fell on the floor.

She's an amazing singer.

~ Jolene, Jolene ~

~ Jolene, Jolene ~

~ I'm begging of you Please don't take my man ~

I told Emmylou about her

and then Emmy met her somehow.

~ Jolene ~

When I made my first trip to Nashville the powers that be

set up a meeting with Dolly and she was making a record

in her studio and it was like unbelievable.

It was better than any Disneyland visit.

~ Eyes of emerald green ~

They kind of found my music somewhere

and kind of wanted to meet me

and that's kind of how we all started.

Emmy called me up and she's like Dolly Parton's at my house,

you have to come over.

I was living like 40 minutes away

and I got there in 20 minutes.

She came over and there we were, the three of us

and we were there with our idol Dolly.

They had this big old house, almost like a bunch of hippies

just living up there, different people and musicians.

They had different bedrooms.

It was just a free-for-all kind of house.

A dream for musicians.

And somebody said well sing something.

~ Bury me beneath the willow ~

~ Under the whipping willow Tree ~

~ So he may know Where I am sleeping ~

~ And perhaps He'll weep for me ~

So I started singing that

and then they started saying sing that again.

I go "Oh, bury me..."

And here come all these harmonies

and oh it was just chilling, chilling, chilling.

~ Beneath the willow ~

~ Under the weeping willow Tree ~

~ Well he may know Where I am sleeping ~

~ And perhaps He'll weep for me ~

When we heard our voices

it was like injecting some kind of serum into your veins.

It was like a high like you've never felt.

We sang first in a living room

and said well this sounds really good.

It was special, it was different.

It was like a sound of sisters, musical sisters.

~ Won't you bury me Beneath the willow ~

~ Under the weeping willow Tree ~

~ Where he may know where... ~

At that moment we thought we have to do a record.

~ To know know know him ~

~ Is to love love love him ~

~ Just to see him smile ~

~ Makes my life worthwhile ~

We learned so much about singing from each other

because you get to sort of be them for a second

when you're shadowing them in harmony.

It's like getting on an eagle and getting to see the world

through that eagle's experience.

I get to sing through Dolly's voice

or sing through Emmy's voice when I sing real close harmony.

~ Why ~

~ Can't he see me? ~

~ How I... ~

The only big disagreements would be are we going to use autoharp

or dulcimer on this song.

- - Yeah.

Sometimes we would disagree about who would sing lead

because Emmy and I always wanted Dolly

to sing lead on everything.

Oh, well Dolly will sound great on that.

You sing lead! No, you sing lead!

Linda is such a perfectionist.

She's a pain in the ass sometimes

because she is such a perfectionist.

Because she will not have it unless it's perfect.

She used to make me sing those harmonies over and over

and I said I'm going to sing it the same way no matter what.

No, you're not! You're going to hit this one note.

And see I don't know how to, all those intricate harmonies

like Emmylou and Linda do.

I just sing that raw stuff from feeling

and it ain't always proper but it sounds good.

~ Yes just to know ~

~ Is to love love love him ~

~ And I do ~

Linda, you've sing just about all types of music.

Light opera; you've been on Broadway, rock and roll, pop.

What's your next project going to be?

I'm going to do an album of Mexican music,

of traditional Mexican music.

I'm kind of a traditional Mexican myself.

You know, I grew up about 40 minutes from the Mexican border,

my family are Mexican, and that is my roots.

That's what I came from and I have been dying to do

this record for years and years

and I'm getting around to it this year.

Boy, I'm going o do it.

Our neighbor that lived behind us in the garage apartment

was Harry Dean Stanton, great character actor

and a great singer of Mexican folk songs.

We would hear him up until the wee hours singing

these Mexican folk songs, these canciones.

And Linda knew all those songs.

I don't think people thought of her as...

as Mexican.

It certainly never came up. I never heard it.

I mean, the name Ronstadt is not Hernandez.

Ronstadt is a German-sounding name.

No, she's certainly from Mexican heritage

but it wasn't the most apparent thing.

I want to see where you put your D.

Say ganador.

Ga...

The phrasing, Ganador.

Ganador.

Ganador.

- Dor? - Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

Is it on the roof of your mouth, the back of your teeth or...

When he asked me if I would sing a harmony on his record

I was completely delighted

because you can only learn by doing. I can't...

there isn't a book you can get, you know,

how do you learn how to be a singer in Spanish?

It's always been a dream of mine to make an album

of these Mexican songs that I learned from my father.

My father had a beautiful baritone voice.

He sounded like a cross between Pedro Infante

and Frank Sinatra.

Always if there was a dinner party or something he'd get the

guitar out and he'd just sing and I always would fall asleep

in somebody's lap listening to my dad sing some beautiful song.

We always as a family, we always sang in Spanish.

Even though I didn't understand much of what I was singing,

it was something that I learned to do.

It's kind of like lip reading, you know.

I used to kind of chameleon in harmony along with my father.

To learn to sing that style as a grown-up professional singer,

that took some doing.

I always forget the beginning where I go through the ending

and it makes it so hard.

Oh yeah. What was it, this way?

Is that how you do it? The Latin way.

Okay, I got it.

Okay, I'm learning all these new things.

My dad invited me to go to the Tucson Mariachi Conference

and that way I got to meet the Mariachi Vargas.

Those good bands like the Cobre or the Camperos

or the Mariachi Vargas, you're going to go to a symphony

and you're not going to find better musicians.

They're all virtuoso players.

I picked a couple of songs.

The band said these songs are very traditional

and they're very difficult to do.

I said well, they're the only songs I know

so we better learn them.

I went to the president of my record company,

who's a man who genuinely likes music, and I said look,

I made all these records for you, they saw this.

I'm going to do this just for me

and this might be self-indulgent.

If it sells two copies I don't care

but if I can't record this music I'm going to die.

I don't understand any Spanish.

I didn't understand how popular those songs were

but this is a lady who wanted to do it her way

and who was going to say no?

Canciones de mi Padre, it's the largest selling

Spanish language album in the history of the industry.

That's the whole Linda Ronstadt story right there in a nutshell.

Linda deciding she wants to do something,

the record company telling her she can't.

She goes ahead and does it anyway

and they jump on board as the thing starts to take off.

Toda la Familia would come and they loved it

because they were here from Mexico.

Even though their kids had grown up here

and become American citizens,

who is this girl singing songs so beautifully.

The fact that she went on and did that

and did it in such a big way.

It was a brave thing to do.

Many people would have been terrified

I'll mess up my career.

But obviously she had purpose, personal decision.

It's good.

To have that traditionalism going along on the bus with me

from town to town where I'd only sung pop music,

to take that part of the dirt with me, you know,

the part of the soil of the land where I came from to Cleveland

and Cincinnati and New York, that was a thrill.

You should have seen Central Park with, you know,

close to a million people in it when the mariachi

got up on stage with their big hats, the place fell out.

They went nuts. There was such a thing of pride

that went from the stage to the audience.

It was just great.

This song was written by me and my father

and it's called Lo Siento Mi Vida.

My dad died when he was 84.

There was a kind of a peace that happened when he died.

In the three of four days before he died he was reading to us

passages from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book

Love in the Time of Cholera and it was just a great sharing.

It was a different experience being with my father

when he died than it was with my mother.

I knew I was going to miss him but I accepted it better.

He had what I would describe as a beautiful death.

I'd seen her on TV and I thought she was great

but when she came to New Orleans she was just

so down to earth and girl next door thing.

And just humble.

She was just a sweet, humble person.

I'd been in New Orleans for the World's Fair

and somebody said well the Neville Brothers are playing

at some club down in the Quarter. We should go.

We going to get serious, serious right now.

I'm going to turn you on to our brother Aaron Neville.

Aaron Neville was on stage singing

this beautiful song Arianne.

~ Arianne is April morning ~

~ That comes rippling Through my window ~

~ She's the smell of coffee brewing ~

~ On a quiet, rainy Sunday ~

Somebody told me she was in the audience

so I called her up on stage.

Sing some doo wop.

Usually I'll never do anything like that

because I like to rehearse everything first.

But I wasn't going to say no to Aaron Neville.

After that I asked for an autograph.

She said To Aaron, Love, I'll sing with you anytime,

any place, anywhere in any key.

~ Look at this face ~

The next morning I woke up

and my first thought was boy I like singing

with Aaron Neville. That sounded pretty good.

And then I thought, you idiot, everybody sounds good

when they sing with Aaron Neville.

I said we got to make a record together and he was up for it.

~ I don't know much ~

~ But I know I love you ~

~ And that may be All I need to know ~

There were all kind of rumors going on...

They say oh Linda and Aaron got married or whatever.

Just crazy stuff.

~ Look at these dreams ~

~ So beaten And so battered ~

~ I don't know much ~

The producer told us if you don't make it look real

ain't no sense doing it. So we had to make it look real.

~ That may be All there is ~

~ To know ~

At the studio I said I'll see you at the Grammys.

I had a speech but

Too nervous. I just want to say thank you to Linda first.

And my wife Joelle.

Aaron and I won two Grammys for that record.

But as time went on there was something really wrong

with my voice.

I just lost a lot of different colors in my voice.

There's a lot of things you do in singing.

You turn your voice to different planes to make different sounds

and I couldn't do any of that.

Turned out I had Parkinson's disease.

Singing is really complex

and I was made most aware of it by having it vanish.

I can still sing in my mind but I can't do it physically.

I sang my last concert on November 7th, 2009.

It was a Mexican show.

Must have been quite a reckoning

to have this marvelous instrument

that could always hold the notes, hit the notes

and shape the notes,

could no longer hold the notes without quiver.

But there's a lot of good records with

her magnificent voice on them

and I hear her laughing in my head all the time.

I hear that cackle all the time.

I'm sort of never without her.

I could imagine not being able to sing for Linda is awful.

But I also know nobody who could handle that kind of change

or adjustment in a more logical and thoughtful

and intelligent way than Linda.

I don't think she misses going on the road.

I don't think she misses making records.

I think she misses singing with her friends

and singing in the living room with her family.

There's just no one on the planet

that ever had or ever will have a voice like Linda's.

You know, I'm grateful for the time I had.

I got to live a lot of my dreams and I feel lucky about it.

Another person with Parkinson's said that life after death

isn't the question.

It's life before death.

So how are you going to do it?

How are you going to live?

Couldn't find a part there.

Start right there.

I don't even have that note in my speaking range anymore.

Before you said you couldn't sing anymore.

This isn't really singing.

Believe me, it's a few notes.

- But it's not really singing. - Are you enjoying it?

Well, I would enjoy it much more if I could sing

but I can't let them sing this without me.

It's a family thing.

Shall we? You guys ready?

- Do we get to eat? - Yes.

Good.

~ I've been cheated ~

~ Been mistreated ~

~ When will I love be loved? ~

~ I've been put down ~

~ I've been pushed around ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ When I find a new man ~

~ That I want for mine ~

~ Always breaks My heart in two ~

~ It happens every time ~

~ I've been made blue ~

~ I've been lied to ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ When I find a new man ~

~ That I want for mine ~

~ He always breaks My heart in two ~

~ It happens every time ~

~ I've been cheated ~

~ Been mistreated ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ When will I be loved? ~

~ Tell me ~

~ When will I ~

~ Be ~

~ Loved? ~

~ Where have you gone? ~

~ My darling one ~

~ Are you on your own? ~

~ Are you having fun? ~

~ Is there someone to hold ~

~ When you need it bad? ~

~ Is it controlled? ~

~ Like the love we had? ~

~ Does the day go by ~

~ Like a memory? ~

~ Do you ever try ~

~ To remember me? ~

~ In an automobile ~

~ Or a crowded bar ~

~ Well I hope You're all right ~

~ Wherever you are ~

~ If you're still within The sound of my voice ~

~ Over some radio ~

~ I just want you to know ~

~ You were always My only choice ~

~ And wherever you go ~

~ That I still love you so ~

~ If you're still within The sound of my voice ~