Posts
No doubt in my mind that Linda Ronstadt was the greatest female singer of the twentieth century. The only competition was Cher with the greatest pop song ever, Bang Bang, and perhaps Felicia Collins the featured vocalist in the house band for the Late show with David Letterman.
I first discovered Linda by accident when I heard her version of Silver Threads and Golden Needles and in my youthful enthusiasms decided I could copy Gib Guilbeaus violin solo on my guitar.
Well anybody can get a reasonable approximation if they stick at it long enough. The melody line is different from the solo so one has to be careful or get messed up in the head as the line lines diverge and come together again. Now where have I heard that before.
After that I became entranced with all her backings and arrangements, especially the pedal steel backings. At one time I spent days trying to get them down on my accoustic. Weel the lord loves a tryer.
I must say I was nearly defeated with the bass line on You're No Good, but afriend o f mine who is a bass player showed me how to do it and the everything became clear and resulted in hours of fun as we played off against each other in this truly wonderful arrangement. The rest of that album, "Heart Like A Wheel" is filled with gems with some complex progressions and other relatively simple ones like "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "I Cant Help It If I'm Still In Love with You" being standouts.
On these tracks you can play the bass lines, melody lines or just invent your own solos ad infinitum all the while as Linda casts her spell.
In New Zealand there is a brotherhood of Linda Fans. It was underground for a while but you get to know them after a while.
I first discovered Linda by accident when I heard her version of Silver Threads and Golden Needles and in my youthful enthusiasms decided I could copy Gib Guilbeaus violin solo on my guitar.
Well anybody can get a reasonable approximation if they stick at it long enough. The melody line is different from the solo so one has to be careful or get messed up in the head as the line lines diverge and come together again. Now where have I heard that before.
After that I became entranced with all her backings and arrangements, especially the pedal steel backings. At one time I spent days trying to get them down on my accoustic. Weel the lord loves a tryer.
I must say I was nearly defeated with the bass line on You're No Good, but afriend o f mine who is a bass player showed me how to do it and the everything became clear and resulted in hours of fun as we played off against each other in this truly wonderful arrangement. The rest of that album, "Heart Like A Wheel" is filled with gems with some complex progressions and other relatively simple ones like "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" and "I Cant Help It If I'm Still In Love with You" being standouts.
On these tracks you can play the bass lines, melody lines or just invent your own solos ad infinitum all the while as Linda casts her spell.
In New Zealand there is a brotherhood of Linda Fans. It was underground for a while but you get to know them after a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment