AARP has released its exclusive interview with Tucson native and pop/country music legend Linda Ronstadt, who tells music writer Alanna Nash that she has Parkinson's disease.
Ronstadt, who has fiercely guarded her privacy since she hit it big in the 1960s with the Stone Poneys, opens up about Parkinson's.
The interview was supposed to be about Ronstadt's new memoir, "Simple Dreams," which Simon & Schuster is publishing Sept. 17. But the interview took a turn into Parkinson's, which the singer did not reveal in the book.
Ronstadt, 67, tells Nash that she believes her Parkinson's is related to tick bites she sustained in the 1980s. The disease has left her unable to sing.
" I couldn’t sing for the last five or six years I appeared on stage, but I kept trying," Ronstadt said. "I kept thinking, “What if I tried singing upside down? Or standing on my head? Or while juggling? Maybe I’d be able to sing better then.”
Click here for the full interview.
