This makes me real sad I'm a big fan.

4:37 PM PDT 8/23/2013 by Sophie Schillaci

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Linda Ronstadt

The 67-year-old, 11-time Grammy Award winner details her struggle with the disease in an interview with the AARP.

Grammy Award-winning artist Linda Ronstadt has revealed that a recent Parkinson's diagnosis has rendered her unable to sing.

Sub Pop Records Founder Has Parkinson's; Says He's 'Grateful to the Disease'

In an interview with the AARP, the 67-year-old says that she was officially diagnosed with the degenerative disorder eight months ago after displaying symptoms as far back as eight years ago.

"I couldn't sing," she told AARP music reporter Alanna Nash, "and I couldn't figure out why. I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but I thought it might have also had something to do with the tick disease that I had. And it didn't occur to me to go to a neurologist."

PHOTOS: Grammys 2013: The Winners

Ronstadt says that she had undergone a shoulder operation, and she believed that to be the culprit for her trembling hands.

"Parkinson's is very hard to diagnose, so when I finally went to a neurologist and he said, 'Oh, you have Parkinson's disease,' I was completely shocked," she said. "I wouldn't have suspected that in a million, billion years."

Now, Ronstadt says she "can't sing a note." Throughout her career, which began when she was just 14 years old singing with her siblings, Ronstadt accumulated eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, a Tony Award and a Golden Globe nom for her role in The Pirates of Penzance. She released her first studio album in 1969 (Hand Sown… Home Grown) and her most recent in 2006 (Adieu False Heart).

Ronstadt recently penned a memoir, Simple Dreams, out Sept. 17, though the book does not address her diagnosis or the loss of her voice.

"No one can sing with Parkinson's disease," she tells AARP. "No matter how hard you try."

The publication's full interview with Ronstadt is slated to run on AARP.org next week.

This is sad. Even sadder still is the fact she still has not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She is worthy of it and is long overdue. Here's hoping she can stay healthy enough to be inducted soon.

She was one of my favorite singers to sing along with when I was young. I'm sorry to hear her voice silenced but hope she remains as happy and healthy as she can.

purplethunder3121 said:

She was one of my favorite singers to sing along with when I was young. I'm sorry to hear her voice silenced but hope she remains as happy and healthy as she can.

POWERful, adroit vocalist. She's covered every genre since 1967 except for Disco (Thank God) and has sold MILLIONS of records. I don't understand how she has YET 2b inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame! It's absolute blasphemy! When Carly Simon, Olivia Newton-John, Helen Reddy and Anne Murray were all fallin' off, Miss Linda was STILL goin' strong! Amazing, legendary voice! I hope she'll be okay and not succumb to any long periods of depression/anxiety. Have loved her since I was a little kid.

[Edited 9/2/13 18:39pm]

How sad

There is a facebook page trying to get her in the hall of fame: https://www.facebook.com/...2328676969

Top 10 Linda Ronstadt Songs

Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images

Parkinson’s Disease has silenced Linda Ronstadt, but not before she helped reacquaint a generation of music fans in the ’70s with then-forgotten rock and R&B songs from the ’50s and ’60s, even as she introduced figures like Andrew Gold and Warren Zevon to a wider audience.

Following a musical road map already laid out by the Eagles — and scoring a huge hit with Don Henley along the way — Ronstadt would dominate the pop and the country charts for the latter part of the ’70s.

In all she scored some 38 Hot 100 singles, with 21 of them going into the Billboard Top 40 — and 10 reaching the Top 10. Most of them came from the ’70s, a period she all but defined as the first lady of pop music. So does our list …

10

'Heat Wave'

From 'Prisoner in Disguise' (1975)

Long before it became a No. 5 hit for Ronstadt, this remake of the Motown favorite 'Heat Wave' had been relegated to the B-side of the lead single from her 1975 album 'Prisoner in Disguise' -- a perfectly serviceable Neil Young song called 'Love Is a Rose.' Radio disc jockeys flipped the 45 over, however, to find this fun update of a track which originally hit for Martha and the Vandellas in 1963.

Hear 'Heat Wave'

9

'Just One Look'

From 'Living in the U.S.A.' (1978)

Another early-'60s R&B cover, this time from Doris Troy, made for yet another approachable remake for Ronstadt -- who had the highest charting remake of this song ever at No. 42. (Graham Nash's update with the Hollies only got to No. 44.) Throw in a '70s-cool satin outfit and roller skates on the album cover image, and this is the complete package.

Hear 'Just One Look'

7

'That'll Be The Day'

From 'Hasten Down the Wind' (1976)

This song had a lengthy history in rock before Ronstadt's cover version on this 1976 Grammy-winning album -- having been a signature track for co-writer Buddy Holly, and the first song recorded by an early edition of the Beatles known as the Quarrymen. Ronstadt made it all sound brand new again on this No. 11 smash, pushing 'Hasten Down the Wind' to platinum status -- the third of what would become a ground-breaking five in a row in the '70s.

Hear 'That'll Be The Day'

7

'Ooh Baby Baby'

From 'Living in the U.S.A.' (1978)

The best-known song from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles served to extend Ronstadt's run of success with Motown cover songs. In fact, with a notable assist from alto saxist David Sanborn, she rode "Ooh Baby Baby" all the way to No. 7 on the pop charts. The multi-format smash also hit with the easy listening, country and soul crowds as well.

Hear 'Ooh Baby Baby'

6

'When Will I Be Loved'

From 'Heart Like a Wheel' (1974)

Ronstadt added just enough country-rock twang to her version of this Everly Brothers favorite to chart 'When Will I Be Loved' at No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts and all the way to the top of the country list. That was several spots higher than the original, which had the verses in a different order.

Hear 'When Will I Be Loved'

5

'It's So Easy'

From 'Simple Dreams' (1977)

Another song once associated with Buddy Holly, this growling Top 5 Ronstadt hit propelled her 1977 studio album to the top spot on Billboard for five consecutive weeks -- and memorably dislodged Elvis Presley from the top of the country charts, too.

Hear 'It's So Easy'

4

'Poor Poor Pitiful Me'

From 'Simple Dreams' (1977)

Same album, much different approach. This time, Ronstadt doesn't interpret a familiar rock or R&B track from the '50s and '60s. Instead, she covered a new composition from a then-largely unknown figure in Warren Zevon. She added a live version of 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' to the 1978 movie 'FM,' on the way to recording a number of other Zevon cuts over the years.

Hear 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me'

3

'Hurt So Bad'

From 'Mad Love' (1980)

A hit 1965 ballad for Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Little Anthony and the Imperials, this fresh take on 'Hurts So Bad' once again outperformed the original -- going to No. 8 behind a sultry vocal from Ronstadt and a sizzling solo from guitarist Danny Kortchmar.

Hear 'Hurts So Bad'

2

'Blue Bayou'

From 'Simple Dreams' (1977)

Nobody, to this point, had ever touched Roy Orbison's original -- a legendary moment of twilit loneliness that somehow only went to No. 29 back in 1963. Ronstadt, in one of the greatest displays of her powers as a interpretive genius, simply made 'Blue Bayou' her own. Ronstadt, with the Eagles' Don Henley on backup vocals, elevates to a new-found, deeply emotional place -- showing off a range that naturally covers several octaves on this platinum-selling, No. 3 track.

Hear 'Blue Bayou'

1

'You're No Good'

From ' Heart Like A Wheel' (1974)

With her pained howl of "I'm gonna say it again!," Ronstadt set a template on this No. 1 song for all of her subsequent '70s success -- even as guitarist Andrew Gold created the kind of atmospherics that made for an unforgettable moment in song. The country-rocking 'Heart Like a Wheel' would spend an amazing 51 weeks on the Billboard charts.

Hear 'You're No Good'

Souce: http://ultimateclassicroc...adt-songs/

Sad! I was listening to a lot of soft rock at the beginning of summer, and really enjoy that 1977 album my parents had.

Oh no. She had so many beautiful songs. This is so sad.

One of my favorite female singers. Man, she was a looker back in da day. Stay strong, Linda.

Like a Wheel, but Turning Slower

Linda Ronstadt Discusses Her Memoir and Parkinson’s

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Linda Ronstadt More Photos »

By SAM TANENHAUS

Published: August 28, 2013

She wore a pink hoodie and jeans, her short dark hair framing the oval face that ornamented album and magazine covers throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, when Ms. Ronstadt was rock ‘n’ roll’s biggest and most alluring female star, with albums like “Heart Like a Wheel” and “Living in the U.S.A.” that helped define the polished music of her era.

In the living room, near the Yamaha baby grand, Ms. Ronstadt settled into a chair, rested her white high-top sneakers on an ottoman and discussed her new book, “Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir,” which is being published this month.

In recent years, Ms. Ronstadt has drawn more attention for her outspoken politics, decidedly liberal, than for her music. Full of opinions — don’t get her started on current immigration law — she pours them forth in a fluent, hyper-articulate rush.

But for many, she remains her generation’s premier female pop vocalist, and they wonder why she hasn’t released an album since 2006 or appeared in concert since her mariachi show in 2009. For a trouper like Ms. Ronstadt, a steady presence for 40 years, silence so prolonged must have a reason. True, she is 67, but age hasn’t stopped contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Emmylou Harris.

“I can’t do it, because of my health,” Ms. Ronstadt said. “I have Parkinson’s.” (The news was first reported in the AARP Magazine online on Aug. 23.) She held out a slightly trembling hand. Her vocal cords are also affected. “I can’t sing at all,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I’m truly not able. I can’t sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ really.”

She had been aware for more than a decade that something was wrong, but those closest to her suspected it might be just another instance of the performance anxiety for which she is well known. “You can sing,” her former manager and longtime producer, Peter Asher, remembered telling her. “You’re crazy. Don’t be insecure.” But, as usual, he added, “Linda was right.” She got the news in June. Fearful of doctors, she had put off going to a neurologist until a guitarist friend, observing the unsteady hands, said she must go. “I never in a million years thought I had Parkinson’s, not in a million years,” she said. “Now I don’t know what to do. I have to find a support group. I have to call Michael Pollan. He’s responsible for all this.” (Mr. Pollan, the brother-in-law of Michael J. Fox, who also has Parkinson’s, said Ms. Ronstadt has not discussed her illness with him.)

By “all this” she meant not her health, but the book, which was completed before doctors confirmed that she has Parkinson’s. “I never wanted to write a book,” she said. “I never wanted anyone else to write a book. I thought, ‘Let it end when it ends.’ ” She also wasn’t sure she was up to the task. A voracious reader who can quote Henry James verbatim, Ms. Ronstadt has, if anything, too much respect for the written word. But at dinner one night, Mr. Pollan, the journalist and author, urged her to reconsider. She told him: “I don’t have any craft. I don’t have any skill. And he said everybody has at least one good story in them that they can pull out.”

There was another fact to weigh, her dwindling savings. Ms. Ronstadt released many albums but wrote very few songs, so her royalty checks are small. “Writers make all the money,” she said. Her most memorable hits — “You’re No Good,” “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Blue Bayou” — were written by others. “I was making good money when I was touring,” she said. But now “I just can’t do it.”

“I can’t make one note,” she said. “I have a hard time calling the cab at night.”

And so a book, and the advance it would bring, began to make sense. Ms. Ronstadt read Plácido Domingo’s memoir and Rosanne Cash’s, and liked both. She also liked Keith Richards’s “Life” (she’s in it) and was impressed by how well his co-writer, James Fox, captured his voice. But her own meeting with a prospective collaborator didn’t work: “I knew I would never give him any information. I’m too good at dodging questions.”

Instead, she wrote the book herself. She expected Jonathan Karp, her editor at Simon & Schuster, to demand to see pages and chapters along the way. She was wrong. “He said, ‘Let me know when you have a manuscript.’ I said, ‘What?’ ” Ms. Ronstadt recalled, howling with laughter. “A manuscript! I was shocked.”

But now it’s done, and instead of a concert tour, she’ll sign books in cities where she once filled arenas: Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore. In New York, she’ll be interviewed at the 92nd Street Y by her good friend John Rockwell, the former music critic and editor for The New York Times, who was among the first to recognize that Ms. Ronstadt was an artist of rare intelligence, taste and discipline whose meticulous phrasings uncovered psychological depth in even the sparest country ballads.

“Simple Dreams” is less an autobiography than an artist’s bildungsroman. She recalls her musical journey phase by phase, beginning with her childhood in the Sonora desert. She grew up with three siblings on a ranch outside Tucson, where her father owned a hardware store and the Ronstadts, a musical family of mixed Anglo-Mexican heritage, were socially prominent. Ms. Ronstadt was a debutante, a “junior patroness” of the Tucson symphony.

But the desert air was saturated with other sounds pouring out of the radio and coffeehouse microphones. At 18, with $30 from her father, she went to Los Angeles and two years later recorded her first hit, the anti-torch song “Different Drum,” with its teasing harpsichord and undertow of “longing and yearning,” in Ms. Ronstadt’s description, in conversation, of the theme that would inform so much of her work in the decades to come. “I’m not ready for any person, place or thing/to try and pull the reins in on me,” Ms. Ronstadt tartly admonishes the besotted “boy who wants to love only me.”

She had already outgrown her first band, the Stone Poneys, and in the next years flitted from one persona to the next — country singer, folk hippie, soft-rock crooner — diligently refining her voice, with its huge dynamics and complex tonalities. So subtle an instrument did it become that the audio innovator George Massenburg would sometimes ask Ms. Ronstadt to sing a few notes, which he then used to evaluate the latest magnetic tapes. But for Ms. Ronstadt it all began with the song, with “the narrative,” and the search for fresh material that would break through the clichés of lost love. In the memoir, she recalls sharing a cab with the singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker after a night of music in Greenwich Village. Mr. Walker, his face “scarcely visible,” sang the first verse of “Heart Like a Wheel,” a ballad he’d heard the Canadian sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle sing at a folk festival. The lyric began with raw emotions but seasoned them with metaphor — the wheel that when it bends can’t be mended — and a plaintive question, “What I can’t understand/Oh please God hold my hand/ Why it had to happen to me?”

Here was a story that could be sung but also interpreted. “I felt like a bomb had exploded in my head,” Ms. Ronstadt writes.

Other songwriters were emerging too — Karla Bonoff, Jackson Browne, J. D. Souther, Warren Zevon — many of them living in Southern California. Gram Parsons, a prodigy from the Deep South by way of Harvard, was on the scene as well. A new country-inflected sound, sentimental but sophisticated, was taking shape, its refined instrumentation honed in clubs like the Ash Grove and the Troubadour and then burnished in the studio.

Ms. Ronstadt was its muse and signature performer, especially after the drummer Russ Kunkel taught her how to sing behind the beat. But even as Ms. Ronstadt and her posse were extending the innovations of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the studio, figures like Mr. Dylan and Mr. Young mounted a counter-revolt, stripping down their effects. A new epithet, “overproduced,” entered the debate and then dominated it, with the advent of punk. Ms. Ronstadt made no apologies. “I loved high-fidelity sound,” she said. “I chased it all my life.” And followed it wherever it led — to Broadway (“The Pirates of Penzance”), to the American standards she revisited with Nelson Riddle, to the keening Appalachian harmonies on her “Trio” recordings with Ms. Harris and Dolly Parton, to the Mexican songs that carried her back to her Sonoran roots.

Most of those records sold well and brought Ms. Ronstadt fresh accolades (and Grammys), but they also implied she had eased into the upholstered wastes of “adult contemporary.” Even hits she recorded with Aaron Neville seemed studies in mellifluousness, without sharp edges. She seemed in self-exile from the action.

Her memoir is a reminder of how close to the epicenter she once had been. She opened for the Doors (and was unimpressed with Jim Morrison) and toured with Mr. Young, whom she reveres. A highlight of the book is her account of an all-night jam with Mr. Parsons and Mr. Richards, Mr. Parsons disappearing at intervals to ingest more drugs. At one point, Mr. Richards played “Wild Horses,” a new song he had written with Mick Jagger for the next Stones album. Mr. Parsons begged to record it ahead of them. To her astonishment, Mr. Richards complied.

The subtitle “Musical Memoir” signals what Ms. Ronstadt’s book is about, but also what it’s not about — the hedonistic excesses of the pop star’s life. She sidesteps the rampant drug use, though in conversation she acknowledged, “I tried everything,” including cocaine, which she did to such excess that she needed to have her nose cauterized, twice. For Ms. Ronstadt, who was often the only woman on the bus and in the hotel, those were not always happy times. “All the men chased girls,” she said. “They were good guys,” she reflected. “Well, no they weren’t. They were cowboys. They were gunslingers.”

But many remain good friends, as do most of the celebrated boyfriends, like Jerry Brown, with whom she was so close, during his first time as governor, that she was sometimes called “the first lady of California.” And yet, keeping the vow of “I Never Will Marry” (a duet she recorded with Ms. Parton), Ms. Ronstadt is single, though she has two children, ages 22 and 19, who share her three-story home. “They can’t believe I had a life before them,” Ms. Ronstadt said, almost shrieking with laughter. “I live a very quiet life here, nothing like I did.”

Later, she perched on her front stoop, awaiting the taxi she had summoned via an iPhone app for a quick tour of her neighborhood and her favorite spots on the Presidio, where she still walks, though her limit is now 30 minutes. She suddenly remembered that Ms. Harris was coming to town and had invited her to join her on at least one song. Ms. Ronstadt had to say no, because of the Parkinson’s.

“Every time Emmy comes to town, I wish I could get up on stage with her,” Ms. Ronstadt said. “I know I’d be allowed to, but I can’t do it.” Instead she will sit in the audience “and think the notes I’d be singing” in earlier times.

“I have no choice,” she added, withheld passion at last surging to the surface, just as it does in the songs she made her own. “If there was something I could work on, I’d work on it till I could get it back. If there was a drug I could take to get it back, I would take the drug. I’d take napalm. But I’m never going to sing again.”

One of the greatest singers that ever did it imho... Parkinson's ain't a joke!

So very very sad. Thoughts and prayers for Linda

Plus she should absolutely be in the RR Hall of Fame

Timmy84 said:

One of the greatest singers that ever did it imho... Parkinson's ain't a joke!

Sad, indeed--one of my favorite singers of all time, who sang in a key I could sing in back when I still had a decent voice... BTW nice to see you back, Timmy...

I'm going to keep Linda in my Prayers. God gave her a gift. He doesnt give us more than we can handle. Her Gift is still inside of her she has to continue figuring out a way to free it up.

always a fan of Ms. Ronstadt...I didn't know she was dealing with parkinson's

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...



...Different Drum


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

theAudience said:

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...



...Different Drum

Damn I never realized that was her voice on that hit!

theAudience said:

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...

Cinny said:

Damn I never realized that was her voice on that hit!

Old age has its benefits.

Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

theAudience said:

Cinny said:

Damn I never realized that was her voice on that hit!

Old age has its benefits.

Yes, it does!

theAudience said:

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...



...Different Drum


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

Wait, what?! I must have heard this song 100 plus times and it never occurred to me ask who was the female vocalist.

Identity said:

theAudience said:

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...



...Different Drum


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

Wait, what?! I must have heard this song 100 plus times and it never occurred to me ask who was the female vocalist.

I am not alone.

It's unfortunate because now she's getting the R&R Hall of Fame sympathy vote when she should've gotten in there LONG TIME AGO. But now she's got Parkinson, now there's a hint she could get a nod/possible induction.

That is exactly what is going to happen and I hope she flips then off, although she is too nice and will accept. I bet the eagles will induct her.

JoeBala said:

That is exactly what is going to happen and I hope she flips then off, although she is too nice and will accept. I bet the eagles will induct her.

And yeah I think the Eagles will induct her definitely.

Yeah, do it now and not wait until she passes... Like ----

Fascinating to hear that it's the writers who got all those revenues!

She had such a clear voice - I loved 'Heartbeats Accellerating' from her 'Winter Light' album..such great production. Hopefully she still has many more productive years ahead of her.

theAudience said:

I remember her all the way back to her days with The Stone Poneys.

Their big "hit" was written by Michael Nesmith...



...Different Drum


Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

This made my top ten songs of the 60s list for Moonbeam's unfinished 60s orger music poll.

Listen to her range, just amazing. One my favs:

[Edited 9/10/13 7:11am]