Linda Ronstadt confided to her longtime friend and collaborator Jeff Haskell recently that no one would turn out for her “Sunday Evening Forum” at the Fox Tucson Theatre on Sunday night.
But when the doors opened at 6 p.m., an hour before she and Haskell took their places onstage, nearly every seat on the main floor was filled, including a three-row section of $125 reserved seats.
And for nearly an hour, Ronstadt answered questions from the audience, most centered on her nearly 45-year, award-winning music career and growing up in Tucson. Ronstadt sprinkled anecdotes into many of her answers, name-dropping from the list of storied pop music icons who have been part of her journey in an enviable career that landed her in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April.
“If (Ronstadt) had believed everything everyone was telling her, her career would’ve lasted a minute and a half,” Haskell said in introducing Ronstadt as not only a brilliant musician, but also a keen businesswoman.
Ronstadt demurred at the suggestion, saying she instead “followed my bliss” in decisions that led her all over the musical map — from pop and rock to country and the Spanish folk songs of her childhood, and then a wide left turn to the Great American Songbook with Nelson Riddle. Haskell, a retired University of Arizona music professor and noted jazz pianist, worked with her on the Riddle repertoire and arranged a pair of her records.
Haskell read audience members’ questions, written on the back of cards passed out during the talk. One person asked Ronstadt if she was sad that “Blue Bayou” “didn’t get the respect it deserved.” She reminded the person that the 1977 song was her biggest hit.
“What I liked about it was it reminded me of a Mexican song,” Ronstadt said, before recalling how she had asked her record company if she could record it in Spanish. They agreed, and she called her father and asked him to translate the lyrics into Spanish. He did, and she transcribed them over the phone.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t spell, and in the end a lot was lost in translation. Apparently, listeners in Spain mocked her while American audiences mostly just hummed along.
She recounted how she made the introductions of Glenn Frey and Don Henley when both were members of her touring band. The pair, forced to share a hotel room during the tour, struck up a musical friendship and decided to form The Eagles. She told them that was all good and she would help them get a record deal, but that it would take awhile. And in the meantime, they should plan to stay on the road with her.
Of growing up in Tucson, Ronstadt said she never felt like she belonged at Catalina High School. While she attended four years, she never graduated. Instead, she got her GED before briefly attending the UA.
She called the late Tucson fashion guru and businesswoman Cele Peterson her dear friend and a champion of her talents, recalling how when she and a couple of friends had formed a little group when they were teens, Peterson let them perform at her dress shop.
“She was having a bra and girdle sale at 7 a.m., and she said we could come and sing,” Ronstadt said.
Ronstadt dipped a little into political waters — something that she has never shied from, including public rants in recent years against Tucson’s development.
What does she like about her hometown, she was asked. The mountain ranges, the champagne night skies and saguaros, “except that they are dying from car pollution,” she quipped.
The dust threatens to resurrect the Dust Bowl of generations past, she said.
“I hope (the storms) go to Phoenix. They are so much more deserving,” she said, prompting laughs from the audience.
She also criticized the federal government for not enacting immigration reform and called the fence along the Mexican border a waste of money. “They could’ve sent $1 million to every person in Mexico and told them to just stay for the money they spent on that fence,” she said .
