Linda Ronstadt tribute concert to feature Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood
An all-star lineup of country and rock luminaries is expected to gather in Nashville this summer to honor one of music's most boundary-breaking voices.
Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, Patti Scialfa, Rodney Crowell and James Taylor are slated to perform in a tribute concert celebrating Linda Ronstadt and the Los Angeles country-rock scene on July 22 at the CMA Theater.
The event pays homage to Ronstadt, whose soaring vocals and genre-defying catalog made her a defining figure of the 1970s country-rock movement.
'Linda Ronstadt is a big reason I wanted to be a singer,' Yearwood said in a statement. 'I'm honored to be a part of celebrating Linda and this incredible era of music that is such an important part of the history of country music.'
The evening will spotlight Ronstadt's enduring influence through performances of her songs and other country-rock classics. It also highlights her deep connections to several of the performers.
Crowell, Harris and Taylor — all award-winning artists in their own right — were key contributors to the genre's rise. Scialfa, a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen 's E Street Band, will also lend her voice to the celebration.
The concert is presented in conjunction with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's exhibition 'Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock.'
Ronstadt has not performed publicly since losing her voice to a rare neurological disorder in 2012. Still, her influence remains profound — especially for Yearwood, who commemorated her at the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors with a performance of the 1974 hit 'You're No Good' that moved her husband, Garth Brooks, to tears and earned a standing ovation from Ronstadt.
'To be a part of honoring Linda at the Kennedy Center last night was a lifelong dream fulfilled,' Yearwood later wrote on Instagram. 'Thank you, Linda for teaching me through your life and music to trust myself and follow my instincts. I love you.'
Though Ronstadt spent her early years in Tucson, Ariz. and the Rio Sonora region of Northern Mexico and rose to fame in Los Angeles, she has lived in San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood for the past three decades. To mark her 78th birthday last year, the city's Board of Supervisors officially declared a Linda Ronstadt Day in her honor.
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When I hear Jimmy Fallon do 'Wonderwall' at karaoke, I don't think, 'Wow, what tortured mind is behind this?' And also, I'll say that I like a difficult public persona very much. This is a crime. I haven't read about your Phish fandom. How deep does it run?I come on board around 1997 at age 14, 15. When I started listening to them, people at the shows told me, 'You really missed it. It's over now.' I think it was after A Live One came out, people were like, 'Well, you didn't see the early years.' How many shows have you been to?My numbers aren't high. Multiple nights at Deer Creek, Alpine Valley, things like that, and then I went two, three years ago. I'd go anytime, I just keep not being able to. Was it difficult to convince them to do the ? No, they were great. We talked about doing a variety of things on the show, but they were on tour and they had their time in Los Angeles and it was the greatest. I thought of it originally as, 'What if they did a play of Seinfeld?' I didn't know what this would be for and then I thought, 'Oh, it would be through the telescope we'd see them living as Seinfeld.' It was going to be an ad for a Broadway show of Seinfeld starring Phish. We made it more palatable, a little. So Phish is a no-brainer for you to get in?Yeah. Phish, String Cheese Incident, moe., Disco Biscuits, Leftover Salmon. On every level, this was hugely important music to us. It really kept bands alive. The idea of a band in 1999 playing fucking guitars, piano, and drums was not always easy to find. In that documentary [Between Me and My Mind about Trey Anastasio], Trey said that Tommy Lee saw them on the cover of Rolling Stone and went, 'Finally, a fucking band,' and the excitement of that. Now, on the business end, these people printed money. They are enormously successful. Most of my life being on the road, I have a real aversion to snubbing people that sell out football stadiums night after night but aren't necessarily propped up by the industry. It's not that the money's important, but whenever the music business has gone up and down and up and down, they have just consistently brought their music to fans at a huge profit. People pay and travel to see Phish at a time when it's hard to get people to click on Spotify. I wonder what it is [that didn't get them inducted]. So many people like Phish; I'm sure so many people on the committee like Phish. I bet it's oversight more than snobbery. The music they introduced my generation to as well was hugely important. I learned to be eclectic from them. They were always getting compared to the Grateful Dead, but they had this whole world of influences that was really fun to pick up on and cross-check … Getting back into the Talking Heads. Getting into Zappa. That was all them. They also made you want to go to concerts. They're just good for music and they have been for decades. People that keep it at arm's length and didn't want to get into it because they thought it was their friend with the hemp choker in high school or whatever, we're not dumb. They fucking rock. It's not all Gamehendge [the fictional setting for numerous Phish songs], if that bothers you. I love it, but if that bothers you, it's not all Gamehendge. It's not all mythology and everyone in the crowd knows when to yell. The songs are great, we're not stupid people. Do you have a preference between Joy Division and New Order?Both are extremely personal to me. During my worst drug times, I remember very bad moments and there's two lines in 'Disorder' [that go] 'Lights are flashing, cars are crashing, getting frequent now.' I remember just thinking about those lines when it was at its worst. That song, when I listened to it, I'm like, 'This is what it feels like when something you might've set in motion is accelerating out of your control.' So that's a little dark tangent. But then 'Atmosphere.' What's funny about 'Atmosphere' when I listen to that is, I was born right as this was coming out, and I always wondered if I was ever an infant in a taxi cab in Chicago when 'Atmosphere' was released. 'Leave Me Alone' is my favorite New Order song and that song, 'Ceremony,' and the rest are just songs I've listened to for 20, 30 years all the time. And I think about [my wife] Olivia with that line in 'Temptation,' 'Oh, you've got blue eyes / Oh, you've got grey eyes / Oh, you've got green eyes' because Olivia has really beautiful eyes. I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. Are you being diplomatic? No. I genuinely have no opinion. Do you remember when their big album came out or this was not in your wheelhouse at all?What's fun about music is you can be obsessed with a genre and not know a band at all. My blind spots are significant. That's fair. Maybe we just keep the one line, 'I have no opinion,' and that's it.I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that's the pull quote, we've got a viral story. 'I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that's the pull quote, we've got a viral story.' So Fred [Armisen] is a big Billy Idol fan and I've been trying to get more into it. I know 'White Wedding,' and he has real significance for me as this sort of MTV thing, but I'm ignorant of the rest of him. I think he means a lot to a lot of people. I think a big [thing] is some of the Hall is [about] teaching the audience and some of it is honoring the audience. But it should never be honoring the nominating committee. I am ignorant of them. Well, those are all the snubs. We haven't gone through the biggest snub. Who's that?The standing snub. The standing snub?Sonic Youth. Once again, It's been a pleasure to talk about all these inductees and nominees. Once again, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has completely disappointed the universe and all music fans by not inducting Sonic Youth. I think Smashing Pumpkins not being in is also a crime. Actually, you did mention that in 2018. You said the Hall had an 'anti-Chicago bias.'[Laughs hysterically.] Did I? with the headline, 'Is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Anti-Chicago?' and subhead, 'John Mulaney thinks so, but in reality, we may just punch below our weight as a rock town.''But in reality.' A lot of things I said in 2018 could be buffeted with, 'But in reality.' 'But in reality, John's a little off.' They said, 'Is it possible there's some truth to Mulaney's charge?'I like that they don't say, 'Well, John's just misguided and might be on speed.' They're like, 'Is there some truth? We won't say no,' but there's a ton of Chicago bands that have been inducted. A great way to clear this up would be to give the Musical Excellence Award to Steve Albini. Let's just give that to him next year. I actually think that would be a great decision all around. I doubt they really have an anti-Chicago bias. They're very blues-friendly. And white people loving the blues is, I think, the mission statement of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and that's most of Chicago. I think we've gone through do it next year. This will be called our annual Billie Eilish conversation. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
