The focus of this film is the singing career of Linda Ronstadt. She was brought up outside of Tucson Arizona with a European and Mexican heritage. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue her singing career. She definitely knew the feeling of being a woman in a profession dominated by men. This fact changed the dynamic, the environment and impacted the face of rock music relating to women. The reason for this situation is that there were just not very many woman backup musicians. Consequently, this job was left to the men. Linda was told many times to remain in her rock music genre because trying another genre would ruin her career? She did exactly the opposite of this advice and she had critical acclaim and popular appeal in other genres. She recorded light operetta such as Gilbert and Sullivan, pop standards, country collaborations and traditional Spanish-language Mexican folk songs.
Linda was not a song writer but she owned whatever song she decided to sing. She reduced her singing in 2000 because she felt her singing voice deteriorating. Her last full-length album was released in 2004 and her last live concert was in 2009. She announced her retirement in 2011. She continued to make public appearances on public speaking tours in the 2010’s. She published an autobiography, Simple dreams: A musical Memoir in September 2013. This film states that she retired because of Parkinson’s disease. Wikipedia says that progressive supra nuclear palsy (PSP) is a degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific volumes of the brain. It leads to loss of balance, slowing of movement, difficulty moving the eyes and dementia. It may be mistaken for other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimers. I thought this film was very interesting and there is a lot of information I didn’t know about Linda and her family!! 5* (I really liked this movie)
95 min, Doc directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman with Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Maria Muldaur, Don Henley, David Geffen, Cameron Crowe, Aaron Nevill, Peter Asher.
Note: Imdb 8* out of 10* with 1,279 reviews, Amazon 4.8* out of 5* with 1,828 reviews, Metacritic 77 out of 100 with 17 critic reviews (14 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative), 7.8 out of 10 with 10 ratings (9 positive, 0 mixed, 1 negative), Roger Ebert 3* Nell Minow, RollingStone 4* out of 5* David Browne, Google users 90%, Washington Post 3* out of 4* Michael O’Sullivan, Letterboxd 3.7 out of 5*.
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