Linda Ronstadt - Mad Love

I know that if there's an artist from the 70's that has a line of demarcation between good music and who cares, a strong case can be made for Linda Ronstadt.  A lot of people would draw that line right before this album got released, too.  Not me, though.  I love this album.  Maybe it's because I was 18 when it came out and I liked the fact that Linda covered Elvis Costello and pretty much introduced the world to The Cretones (and no one noticed, but it was still a cool gesture), and as mainstream as Linda was, she was saying, "Hey! This new music the kids are into is pretty fucking great!"  So while she ends up missing some of the more visceral aspects of the music that I really go for, she hits the mark more than she misses it, and anything that has a guitar solo as good as Danny Kortchmar's solo on Hurts So Bad has got to have a lot going for it if you give it a chance.  That song wasn't Linda exactly taking chances (she pretty successfully resurrected plenty of old songs her whole career), but Hurts So Bad and Can't Let Go were the only two real "oldies" on the album.  What's great is that Linda lets her band step up and be themselves throughout the album.  I think it's Rosemary Butler with the great backing vocals on Can't Let Go, and there's just a lot of moments on this album where it's impossible not to just love the band she used.  The guys were great.

I think the Elvis Costello songs get the most shit from the cool kids, but I always appreciated the fact that Linda got a lot of my friends to listen to Elvis Costello songs, when I had tried and often failed to get them interested.  Sure, Girls Talk is pretty hostile in Elvis' hands, but Linda adds an outsider feel to it that actually makes it sad.  The other Elvis songs, Party Girl and Talking in the Dark generally work, but for completely different reasons that they work for Elvis (like Girls Talk, I suppose).  Talking in the Dark ends the record on a happy note and Party Girl takes on a whole new persona with Linda taking the role of the Party Girl.  The other songs aren't as good as these five, but they're better than a lot of other choices Linda has made on other albums.  They work for me, anyway.

I went and saw Linda on the Mad Love Tour.  I'm not sure who her band was for that, because I sat on the lawn at Blossom Music Center and it was a long time ago.  I remember I went with a friend, and he drove. He had a cool car, a 67 Fairlane, I think.  It was nice, too.  We stopped at K Mart and bought a big thermos because you could take that kind of stuff, and then we bought a real big bottle of shitty gin and some Vernor's Ginger Ale (still my favorite by a mile) and we just killed that sucker.  Now my friend that drove, he had one of those nights and he got way more of the booze than me.  So towards the end of the show, he looks at me and says, "I'm going down to the front,"  I just knew he'd never get five feet into the pavilion, so I stood there and watched him eyeing the security guys, the drooping velvet rope, and the ramp down to the front of the pavilion.  I could see he was ready to make his move, and I could see three security guards all knew he was coming.

What was great was that they kind of held back, to see what he'd do.  Well, he took off, and hit top speed quickly.  He timed his leap over the velvet rope perfectly, and it was really a thing of beauty.  For a split second, I thought he might make it.  But then his trailing foot caught the velvet rope, which was an impossibly high 18" off the ground, and my friend went face first right into the concrete ramp.  The three security guards and me immediately started laughing, and they actually just helped him up, brushed him off, and gave him back to me.  They didn't even say to keep an eye on him or anything.  Probably because they were still laughing so hard, but then again, it could have been because those guards and me, we developed a special bond at that moment.  There's more stories from the drive home, but I'll just leave you with that one.

My record is nice and flat and sounds great.  I even bought it on cd, but I don't know why.  I saw a copy of this in a used record store for two bucks, and I almost bought it because it looked completely perfect, but as I flipped through I saw another one maybe even nicer for two bucks.  So I figure mine's just fine and I'll save my two bucks, but if you ever find this shopping in a used store, I bet you can get at least the price of this record off your entire purchase if you buy a few things.  So for free, this would be one of the best albums you ever got!