What was Linda Ronstadt’s First U.S. Top-40 Hit?

There was no bigger pop artist in the ‘70s than Linda Ronstadt. Possessed of a voice that was equally adept at tackling feisty rockers and heart-rending ballads, Ronstadt also thrived because of her ability to choose the best material, often from unheralded songwriters.

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But where did all the chart success begin for Ronstadt? Well, even before she truly hit upon her failsafe formula, her knack for sniffing out a wonderful song and delivering it to the hilt produced her first solo hit.

Finding Her Solo Footing

Linda Ronstadt had already established herself as a singer who could put across a hit single even before she started recording under her own name. Singing lead for the folk-rock trio The Stone Poneys, Ronstadt’s lead vocal adorned the 1967 Top 20 hit “Different Drum,” which was written by a pre-Monkees Michael Nesmith.

When Ronstadt went solo at the tail end of the ‘60s, hopes were high for her budding career. But it didn’t go quite as smoothly as many expected. Both Ronstadt and those who were helping her make the decisions on her career struggled to define what kind of artist she was cut out to be.

In the early stages of her solo career, the idea was to position her somewhere in between the worlds of rock and country. On her first solo album, Hand Sown … Home Grown, Ronstadt’s vocals were as great as you would expect. But she seemed to be trapped in a nether region without much of an identity as an artist.

A Fateful Meeting

In many ways, that conundrum also plagued her 1970 follow-up Silk Purse. But one song from that LP pointed in the direction Ronstadt would eventually follow to stardom. It came from an unknown songwriter the singer only discovered as the friend of a friend.

Ronstadt, who was usually based in California, found herself in New York City watching the performance of singer/songwriter Paul Siebel. He was backed by a guitarist named Gary White. After the show, Siebel raved to Ronstadt about the songwriting of White, so she stayed to listen to what he had.

White played Ronstadt a song called “Long Long Time,” a lament about someone enduring the pain of still loving someone long after the relationship ends. Ronstadt thought the song was brilliant. Although she later complained she didn’t get the vocal right when she recorded “Long Long Time,” audiences begged to differ.

“Long” Honeymoon

“Long Long Time” delivered Ronstadt her first ever solo Top-40 hit in the U.S., as it eked its way to No. 25 in 1970. This was right about the time Ronstadt was being backed in performances by instrumentalists who would go on to form a little country-rock outfit of their own: the Eagles.

Still, the song didn’t completely turn the tide for Ronstadt in terms of her commercial prospects. Her next two albums albums, Linda Ronstadt and Don’t Cry Now, were steps forward in an artistic sense. But zero hit singles were forthcoming. Everything changed, however, with the 1974 album Heart Like a Wheel.

That’s when producer Peter Asher and Ronstadt started including classic oldies to give audiences something familiar to grasp, which would then lead them into the rest of the singer’s brilliant interpretations. From that point forward, Ronstadt was a sure shot on the pop charts for the rest of the decade.

Photo by Gus Stewart/Redferns