Right!
Perfect for me
Well alright then!
I've been on what for me is a film binge lately, but all music related. A couple of weeks ago I saw Linda Ronstadt, The Sound of My Voice, a documentary on her life and extraordinary career. The film made the point, rather well I think, that she is often under-rated and overlooked as the first major female rock and roll star, and with an extraordinary voice.
The film touched me deeply for several reasons, mostly in admiration of her career and courage and independent, pioneering personality over the years. She has Parkinson's now, can't sing, hasn't for a number of years now, heartbreaking. There is a clip of her trying to sing with her family, many of whom are musical, and it is deeply moving. Again, she has so much courage!
But what really got me was that as I watched, I realized I have seen her live in every stage of her long career and live singing every form of music she explored. I saw her with the Stone Poneys at the Bitter End in NYC maybe 1969 or 70?, at the Lenox Music Festival in Massachusetts a year or so later... doing her country rock and rock stuff, introducing Karla Bonoff, the McGarrigle Sisters, promoting Emmy Lou Harris and others... singing live on Broadway doing Pirates of Penzance (first at Joseph Papp's NY Shakespeare Theater), singing with an orchestra doing her Nelson Riddle songs, doing her Mexican stuff, you name it I saw it. I hadn't realized this so clearly, and I was flooded with wonderful memories of all those really great concerts all over the place! What an important and loved part of my musical experiences she has been!
I went into my storage locker and went digging, and found some prints of photos I took of her way way back when, from August of 1972 in Lenox, MA (I was so young then, but already shooting 35mm film at concerts and developing and printing my own shots in my little darkroom). Geez!
Here are some of them, just for fun. Sorry about the quality, these are scans of some very old prints, I took them on August 12, 1972.
Anyway, enjoy.
Reports on the other two films to come.
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