Film explores Ronstadt’s life, wide-ranging music career
NEW YORK – Between the Kennedy Center Honors and a CNN documentary about her life debuting on television New Year’s Day, Linda Ronstadt is taking a career victory lap.
Ronstadt drew attention this month for a comment at a dinner for Kennedy honorees hosted by the State Department and Secretary Mike Pompeo. Ronstadt said she hadn’t planned to mention the Trump administration but did so to show support for fellow honoree Sally Field. The actress had remarked about living in an era where the idea of truth was being challenged, Ronstadt said.
“Half the room applauded and the other half sat in silence,” Ronstadt recalled. “I just wanted to say that I was in solidarity with her. I didn’t want her to stand up there by herself.”
During his remarks, Pompeo referenced a Ronstadt hit, “When Will I Be Loved,” saying he wondered when he’d be loved. When it was Ronstadt’s turn to speak, the 73-year-old retired singer tartly answered the question and said it would be “when he stops enabling Donald Trump.”
When will Ronstadt be loved? Now seems to be the time, with the well-received documentary, “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice.” After a run in theaters, the documentary airs on CNN at 8 p.m. Wednesday with an encore showing at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Amy Entelis, who is in charge of CNN Films, hopes for a large audience on New Year’s Day, a strategically selected premiere date. On a day when people are relaxed and usually seeking an escape from news, entertainment ori en tedfilmsd owe ll for CNN.
In the movie, viewers see that Ronstadt’s career had two distinct stages.
There was the rock star, sex symbol days with hits like “You’re No Good,” “Heat Wave” and “Blue Bayou.” Part two began with her 1980 New York stage role in “The Pirates of Penzance,” ushering in adventurous projects featuring jazz standards, traditional Mexican recordings and trio discs with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. Despite the fear of record company executives, many of the projects did quite well.
She now lives a quiet life in the San Francisco area, her singing voice stilled by Parkinson’s disease. Her last album, a collaboration with Cajun singer Ann Savoy that Ronstadt considers one of her best, was released in 2006. She performed her last concert in 2009.
“I didn’t do the work for prizes. I never took that into consideration,” she said. The recent recognition is “lovely, you know. I’m glad they like it. I like some of it and don’t like most of it. The good thing is it got better. My early work makes me cringe. Later on it got better.”
Biographies have done well for CNN’s film division, most notably “RBG” about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and others are in the works on Anthony Bourdain and Julia Child.
Ronstadt hasn’t been interested in cooperating with documentaries in the past but admired a film that director Rob Epstein had made about pioneering gay politician Harvey Milk.
Her participation was minimal, aside from narrating stories about her early life, including her Mexican heritage and family’s musical background, and a key final scene. Plenty of compatriots in the 1970s Los Angeles music scene were happy to talk, most notably J.D. Souther and Harris.
Filmmakers resisted the obvious temptation to make a tear-jerker, to completely frame it around the cruelty of a peerless singer no longer able to sing.
“My book doesn’t even mention that I have Parkinson’s, so they didn’t dwell on it,” Ronstadt said, referring to her 2013 autobiography. “I don’t think it would be very interesting. A lot of people get sick.”