I agree that this is a letdown after Heart Like a Wheel, but I wish someone could tell me why. It's even possible to imagine her as a lady trucker going down on Dallas Alice-and to fault her for ignoring the metaphorical excesses of Anna McGarrigle's title lyric just so she can wrap her lungs around that sweet, decorous melody. As a result, she relates to these songs instead of just singing them. B-įor the first time, everybody's sexpot shows confidence in her own intelligence. We also get Jackson Browne and Livingston Taylor. With any suggestion that she can rock expunged from this compilation, we get five (out of ten) cuts by the Stone Poneys, the two good ones composed by none other than Michael Nesmith and the worst by Tim Buckley, who inspires her to imitate Joan Baez imitating (if that's necessary) a snooty spinster. You think she's gotten so used to playing the dumb chick that she's turned into one? C+ In which whatever was raunchy and country about her is laundered in David Geffen's homogenizing machine, manned this time by John David Souther, who must have told her that "Sail Away" was just another pretty song. Hardcore country songs are down to three, and here's the giveaway: four entries from the Sensitivity Squad (Jackson Browne, Livingston Taylor, and the Erics Kaz and Andersen). In which she makes a silk purse out of Silk Purse, not such a great idea-smoother, better crafted, more beautiful, and decidedly less interesting. But only occasionally-"Lovesick Blues" and "Long Long Time" are both brilliant-does she seem to find Kitty Wells's soul as well as her timbre. Country material over rock-flavored arrangements is the concept, and the honky vulgarity of Ronstadt's voice the reason. She's tough (and sexy) live, and she sure does pick good tunes-Mickey Newbury's new-Nashville "Are My Thoughts With You?," which in Newbury's 45-rpm version has gotten a lot of play on my bedroom jukebox, says a lot about love and its dislocations, but so does Mel Tillis's old-Nashville "Mental Revenge," which I'd never heard before. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris.
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