![]() ![]() Ronstadt was so taken with it that she not only recorded Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, but also Zevon’s Carmelita and Hasten Down The Wind from the album. It was back during his days touring and working with the Everly Brothers in the early 1970s that Zevon had begun to work on the material which would eventually comprise that ground-breaking album. Warren Zevon had included Poor, Poor Pitiful Me on his excellent WARREN ZEVON album released by Asylum in 1976 and named one of the ten best rock albums of the 1970s by Time magazine. This is most apparent on Poor, Poor Pitiful Me her voice is clean and feminine in the best sense of the word and so full-throated its tremulousness can be deceptive. For one thing, she had never had greater control: on SIMPLE DREAMS Ronstadt guides even the slightest, most subtle nuance of phrasing to perfect resolution as she touches upon the attendant effects of emotional ups and downs. It’s a relief.”īy the time that Ronstadt recorded her SIMPLE DREAMS album in 1977, she was highlighting her big voice and broken heart with such diverse material as Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, The Rolling Stones’ Tumbling Dice, the traditional I Never Will Marry and Eric Kaz’s Sorrow Lives Here, and was addressing with wary tenderness and a stern, hard-won strength her earlier persona. People have this misconception that singing something close to you is a burden. “If not it’s impossible for me to do it well. ![]() “For myself, a song has to be personal,” Ronstadt says. As the definitive song-interpreter she has had to grope blindly, letting her heart lead the way. Ronstadt was one of the first of an outstanding school of female country/blues/rock singers to break through big in the mid-1970s, performing what would now be called ‘country-rock.’ She also made a name for herself by introducing songwriters such as Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and Paul Siebel to the record-buying public. Back then it showcased Ronstadt’s powerful, wailing voice with its compassionate high reaches and, more importantly, her gift for interpreting other people’s lyrics, which remain to date her most outstanding trait.Īlong with the songs of her former back-up band, The Eagles, Ronstadt’s country-flavoured hits from the 1970s are a creative touchstone for many of today’s country stars. Warren Zevon’s sardonic Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, recently revived by Canadian-born, but Nashville-based Terri Clark, was originally made into a pop and country hit by Linda Ronstadt in the summer of 1978. First Published in Country Music International, December 1996 ![]()
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