Years before Linda Ronstadt released her 1969 debut, Hand Sown … Home Grown, and toured with the Doors, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne, she was performing with her brother Peter and Gretchen (Suzy) as The New Union Ramblers, then joined the Stone Poneys in 1965, releasing three albums as part of the trio.
During her years with the New Union Ramblers, Ronstadt wrote “Mary Ann,” featured in her 2019 documentary The Sound of My Voice, named after Glen Campbell‘s 1987 hit “Still Within the Sound of My Voice,” which she later covered on her 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind.
By 1977, Ronstadt released her seventh solo album, Hasten Down the Wind, named after a song from Warren Zevon‘s 1976 eponymous debut, and won her a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. On the album, Ronstadt covers the Willie Nelson-penned Patsy Cline classic, “Crazy,” and Buddy Holly‘s “That’ll Be the Day,” along with an apologetic Spanish ballad, “Lo Siento Mi Vida” (“I’m Sorry My Love”), which she wrote with her father Gilbert.
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That same year, Ronstadt also co-wrote “Try Me Again” with Andrew Gold for her album, Hasten Down the Wind, and in 1989, she co-penned “I Want a Horse” with Wendy Waldman—whose father, Fred Steiner, composed the theme music for Perry Mason and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The song was first released on the In Harmony: A Sesame Street Record and later on Ronstadt’s 1997 compilation Her Greatest Hits And Finest Performances.
Though Ronstadt wrote a handful of songs throughout her career, she never considered herself a songwriter. “People that write songs, they write songs,” said Ronstadt. “They wake up early in the morning and know an idea and they write it down. I don’t work that way. I’ve written songs. Anybody can write a song, but it’s really hard to write a good song, and it’s almost impossible to write a great song. And I had people who were writing great songs around me.”
In 1993, Ronstadt explored a more new age sound on her album, Winter Light, and wrote another dreamier ballad.
[RELATED: 5 Songs Linda Ronstadt Wrote Since Her New Union Ramblers Days]
“Winter Light”
Marking the first album Ronstadt produced, along with George Massenburg, who worked with James Taylor, Toto, Billy Joel, Journey, The Chicks, and more, Winter Light was partially recorded at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. Its closing title track, co-written by Ronstadt, Eric Kaz, and Polish composer Zbigniew Antoni Preisner, offered another specimen of her new sound.
Hearts call
Hearts fall
Swallowed in the rain
Who knows
Life grows
Hollow and serene
Wandering in the winter light
The wind can act the same
They’re witness to salvation
And life starts over again
Now the clear sky is all around you
All-Around
Love’s shadow will surround you
All through the night
‘The Secret Garden’
“Winter Light” was later played during the closing credits of the 1993 fantasy drama The Secret Garden. “A friend of mine, Fred Fuchs, who was working on a movie called ‘The Secret Garden’ directed by Agnieszka Holland, who I love, called me up,” recalled Ronstadt. “He said they hadn’t been able to find a title song that everybody liked, and I said, ‘Send me the soundtrack and the movie and let me hear what it sounds like.’”
She added, “I liked the soundtrack, so I got my friend Eric Kaz and we put two pieces from it together and made a verse and a chorus, and a bridge. Then I wrote some lyrics, and Eric wrote some lyrics, and we put it all together. And the composer really liked it, and Agnieszka Holland really liked it.”
In 1996, Ronstadt also featured “Winter Light” on her children’s album, Dedicated To The One I Love, which won a Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children a year later.
“I put that on my baby record so that I could get my children to go to sleep,” said Ronstadt, “and it worked like a charm.”
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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