Linda Ronstadt

the book? Well, I made a trip with Lawrence Downs, who writes for the New York Times, and um, he was doing a travel piece on me someplace that I would like to explore, and I said, let's do it out of the Sonoran Desert because it exists on both sides of the border. We can make a trip to Mexico and go visit the little town where my grandfather was born. And he wrote a travel piece about that,

and then, um, we decided. When I was in but Im that little town in the Mexican town with my grandfather was born, I was thinking about my great grandmother and I was sitting in the plaza looking across the plaza to the church and realized that that's where she would have taken him to be baptized. And she started her married life in Bonamici. And I thought I'd like to know more about my great grandmother, and I like

to write about her. So I um, I asked Lawrence if he wanted to write about our trip too to Mexico. We made some return trips and explore Sonoran culture through the eyes of my great grandmother down through the generations to the fifth generation in Tucson. When you were growing up, did your family discuss this history or did you have to research it? No? They kept letters, so I had to find the letters. There were the Arizona Historical Society.

I was lucky that we found letters because there would be no other way to know my great grandmother. My father talked about her a little bit and said she was nice. He was certainly pretty, but um, she dried fairly young. Okay. So in the book it talks about how your family ultimately comes together. There was a relative who came from Germany and ultimately married a woman in Mexico.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that. Oh, Friedrich Aretaicas just came from Germany, who was my great grandfather, and he was he had been in the military and um Austria where he came from her to Germany, and so he became a colonel in the Mexican Army. But he was also the first mining engineer in the region, and so he was the one that ran all the mines. That's a very rich mining area, silver and gold and copper. And he was also the ran the end of Jenner Piscata,

who he was. His colonel Genner Piscada is credited with driving the French out of Sonora, the state of Sonora. So he was and he had his own ranches. He married into the Rodondo family. They were very influential down there and had a big, huge ranch thousands of acres that they stole from the Indians. And um, she married him. He was fifty years older than she was, I think, but that was normal in those days. The older men were married younger women because they they were widowers. So

she was. He was a widower and had five children, and so she started out at the age of eighteen with a bunch of kids and an older husband and traveling around to the mines. And how did your family end up in Tucson. They just migrated to son was in that was part of Mexico. He was probably working on a mine up there or something. Oh I know, my my grandfather was sent to apprentice with with an iron maker, which was a relative of his. Now, one thing in the book is you paint the picture of

the Sonoran Desert. I don't think the average American really knows anything about the Sonoran Desert. Can you tell us about it? About what I'm sorry missed the middle of button, about the Sonoran Desert and how really the landscape is the same in Tucson as it is in mass Mexico across the border, well, except that it doesn't have some worrows. Those are the cactuses with big arms, go really high, cactus treet and when you have that, you know that

you're in the Sonora Desert. You know that you're within a few hundred miles or Tucson. That's the only place on Earth where they grow. And that's the only difference. When you go south, the organ pipe cactus instead. But the region is basically the same. It's the same food, the same in music, the same intellectual culture going on. There's a lot of a lot of the Mexican Revolution was formed in Sonora. So your family ended upe owning a uh A hardware store. Can you tell us about

the evolution of that. Well, my grandfather was sent north and iron work, and he started building wagons. He built the best of wagons and carriages in the area, and uh that when naturally I do owning a Harvard story. If you wanted a good tools, or a windmill, or a good tractor for your farm, you go to my grandfather. My father worked in that store too. Now you say the store ultimately closed. Can you tell me about that

and how sad that was? Well, the big box stories like Home Depot came in and they just outcompeted in with lower prices. They also had lower quality. I'd rather go into my father's hardvarre store. I took up a whole steady block. But it wasn't I didn't have the feeling like the big box stores. It wasn't full of plastic junk. So we So when you group we're growing up, did you hang out of your father's store. Yeah, I used to hang out there a lot. I take the

bus from school and go over there. It was all smelled like these loil It was really beautiful, had great things in their fishing equipment, hunting equipment, digging equipment. So you used to play around stuff? Did you break stuff or were you a pretty good kid? Yeah? I used to I was good. You didn't break anything of my dad's or it was all made of metal. But they had a toy department for a while and that was

really cool, and at a housewards department two. So did you get a lot of toys since they were in the store more than your friends? No, I got it, Madame Alexander All usually every Christmas. That was pretty cool. Okay, so you're growing up in Tucson and the fifties, you know, is there television, how many stations radio? Does Tucsson feel part of the fabric or does it feel like its own world? Oh, we didn't have a television, and it

felt like its own world. And I got to school and found out that everybody else had green lawns and popsicles, popsicle um trees, lollipop trees that were green. We had a different kind of vegetation, were different kinds of animals. I thought everybody was like that until I went to school. But I always knew I was Mexican. If you ever found people putting you down or treating you differently because you were part of Mexican, No, they didn't, because I

had white skin and a German surname. But my best friend got um. If she would speak Spanish on the playgrounds, she'd be just banked to be punished, and they experienced she and her sister was darker skin than she was, and they kicked her sister out of the community swimming pool because Mexicans aren't allowed to swimming it. She said, well, I'm going with her her sister. So when you were growing up, how good a student were you? And were you like, uh, popular in school? Were you more of

a loan or what were you like now? I wasn't all. I had good friends. The little girl that got kicked out of the pool is my friend. He still is mm hmm. And were you good in school? No? It was horrible at school, ized daydream it was boring. I went to Catholic school and they all they tell those stories of the saints, and I didn't learn take I was a good reader, and I've always been a reader, but I couldn't do school very well. You were mean to us. What did your parents say about you being

bad in school? I wasn't bad in school. I just didn't I just didn't like it. I mean I could do the work. I'd get the books in the beginning of the here and read them all. And they were boring, but I'd read them and then I didn't have to pay attention. So what was occupying your time growing up? Horses and put my pony? So when did you get your first horse? When I was five? When you were five,

did you already know how to ride a horse? I already knew how to ride a big horse, but but I got a pony and he lasted until I was seven, and then I got a big horse. Okay, so you have the pony. How would you go out alone? How far from home? Oh? Away, far to the base of the mountains, lived in the middle of the valley. We it was like having a car when you were five. I'm serious. I mean we just left. We leave in

the morning. We'd come back around five o'clock. If we didn't come back at dinner time, some go and look for us. But they weren't. They were negligent parents. That just was a different world, had great freedom. Did you ever have any trouble that far from home? I fell off the horse sometimes when I have to ride walk home. And did you get hurt? Broke my arm, broke your arm?

Tell me about that. Well, I fell with my sister's horse and to a hard hard dirt road where I was always bouncing off my horse, I just bounced right back on and you know I've broken bones. Did you immediately know it was broken? Well, I know it hurt. I showed it to my mother and she knew it was broken. She took me right to the doctor. And did you get a cast? And have all your friends signed their names? Yep? Did that exactly? Uh huh. Now, one other element of the book is you include recipes.

You know. One of the great things you put is you have a recipe for refried beans. And as long as I've been living in California, which is basically half a century, I did not know that. That didn't mean that they fried them twice. So tell us about refried beans. They don't fry them. Try that's a mr normal refried they're boiled and fried ones. Right, I didn't I learned

that in your book. So growing up, did you eat Mexican style food in the house or was it more angle saust Oh, we had fresh shortias and tamarindo, which if there's a recipe before in the book, it's made out of Tamaran beans. Boiled Tamaran means it's more they're squnching than iced tea. It's delicious. They as had down the refrigerator because had a pot of beans on the stove. Who made the tortillas amalia? When that worked for us?

And that's a big point in the book that that Sonoran tortillas are thinner and larger than what many people are used to. You can see through them. There's their paper thin and they're delicious. They're making with really good wheat which they grow in Mexico, which they don't they can't grow on huge amounts anymore because the Americans and undercut the wheat prices and sold genetically modified wheat, so

then they grow that for a cash crop. But if you know somebody that you can still get the good wheat, okay. And so as I say, there's a number of recipes in a book. If I took you out for your favorite meal Sonoran style, what do you like most? Oh, tortillas and beans. So you're living in Tucson and you make a big point that the whole family is singing together,

and do you remember that from a young age. But we used to have parties and music would start around ten o'clock and going to midnight usually, But everybody in my family can play or sing or do something not not professional level. My dad would girl some meat and my mother would make us big salad and there would be roasted chilis and roasted different roasted peppers, and different vegetables that were growing around. Honestly, lantro and chopped onions.

You can't learn how to cook from my book. It's just it's not really a cookbook. It's just Um included the recipes because the food is part of the culture, as part of the unusual things that you can get it in Sonora that you can't get anybody else. So how has it changed since you lived there as a kid. Oh, the developers got hold of the government and let them do completely in discriminted development. So it's causing a lot of erosion. We're getting desk clouds like the death Bowl

in Arizona. I drove to Phoenix ones and I was two hours in dust. And you say in the book you had a house up in Tucson until recently. When did you have a house in Tucson, um nineteen ninety four until a couple of years ago. I lived there for about fifteen years. And what made you decide to have a house there. I wanted to go back home. I did. I still had friends there, I'm plenty of family.

What was it like going back as an adult? I mean, I'm from the East Coast, I live on the West Coast, and I think about what I but you know, when you actually do it after living in the city in California, you know it was a cognitive dissonance, or do you feel right at home now? It was just being piste off because the developers had ruined so much of the desert, and they had caused the air quality to to be very bad because there's tiny small particulate matters that floating

around this. Two sunnies, you have these sparkling clean skies. That's two times I went there, was there for ten days, and I never the dust haste never went away. It's serious when you interfere with you with the nature's vision of the desert, because there's plenty of life in the desert. As soon as you take a bulldozer too it, you make it into a waste land. And how did you

decide to ultimately sell your house and move back to California. Well, I wanted to put my kids in San Francisco schools, they were getting a lot of what church do you go to? And Oh, that's okay? They I was getting homophobic remarks and if you're not a Christian, you're going to go to Hell or mart. So I the school system is better here. The public schools are better and the private schools are better. So I brought him over here and put them in the most local school I

could find. And why San Francisco it has a better air than Los Angeles? Well, California is a big state. You know you lived in l A for a long time. What's the difference between San Francisco and l A. I don't have to live in a car culture in San Francisco. The places you can walk to as more of a sensive community, and people are doing it in l A. They're moving out to um Silver Lake. And was there easy to l A which had which were originally built

around a a culture that valued pedestrians over cars. And did you have enough friends in San Francisco or you made them when you once you got there? Oh? I had lots of friends in San Francisco. And at this stage in your life are you very social? You're more of a loner homebody. I see, I'm with my family. I have a have a daughter and a son. So how did you decide to have kids? Oh, somebody came up for adoption, and so I thought I would do it, and then I got another one because I had done

it already once before. Was it tough being a single mother? I had a lot of help, okay. And what was the most rewarding part of having kids? I don't know. Maybe watching my daughter sing really complicated musical Mexican song sort of letter perfect should I had passed on something. So you're living in Tucson in the sixties, you're singing Mexican songs. At what point do you start hearing the hit parade, whether be folk songs or popular songs. I got that from the radio. In Tucson. We had radio

stations you can get anything. You can get XRF JEL Rio Texas and the local stations played the top forty. So I heard all that stuff on the radio. And were you like addicted to the radio? Well? I played it all the time in the car at home, I played records. That was a folky for the sixties, right, Well, the folky there, you know, we even had a folky TV show Hoo Nanny, But of the uh of the acts back then, whether it be Dylan, the Kingston Trio,

Pete Seeger, Who are your favorites? CPC here Pete Seeger. So you're in Tucson, you'll leave at age eighteen? How do you decide to leave? Well? I heard one of the guys in the Stone Ponies was a friend. I was playing music within Tucson, and he moved to l A because there were more gigs, and he sent me a letter said, you come over and be my girls singer. We can form a band. I know a good guitar player, so I did when formed the Stone Ponies. The first

person I saw performing. The first people I saw performing when I went to l A, Ray Cooter and Taj Mahal, and I said, Oh, they got some really good musicians over here. I think else stay And had you planned to be a professional singer prior to going to l A from second grade? Oh? Really? Because I couldn't do arithmetic, I said, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna be a singer. I didn't think. I didn't think I was going to be a star or anything like that. I didn't think

in terms of being famous. Or wildly successful. I just thought of I wanted to sing. So you got to l A and what was it like? Was a culture shock after living in Tucson. No, it was a musical culture I already do. We had a small musical world in Tucson. But it was an attention of the same thing with the players. And you said you saw Ry Couter and taj Mahal right away. Where did you see them at the ash Grove? And then we went to the trip and heard the Birds. How about the other

acts that we're burgeoning like the birds? Were you following all those acts too? So I was a huge fan of the Birds. I knew Chris Hillman from bluegrass. I knew him as a bluegrass a mandolin player. I thought, well, Chris, Chris Hillman is playing folk rock. I guess we can too. Let's just go back to chapter. You're into folk songs. The Beatles come on the radio. Was that transformational for you know? I didn't paint that was too much into

folk music than to attention to the Beatles. I got more into the Beatles and I moved to Los Angeles. But you ultimately or a big Beatles fan or that was part of the fabric. Well, I'm a fan of good songwriting, good craft, and they have plenty of that. And how about the Rolling Stones, I like them, and the rest of the British invasion, everybody from Freddie and the Dreamers to Jerry and the Pacemakers to Herman's Hermits

like zombies, like the Zombie. Certainly good. Um. So you moved to l A And at what point do you ultimately decide and work and get a record deal. Well, we played a little clubs, little focus. There were a lot of them then in those days you could earn while you learn. And then we played an audition at the Troupadoor and we got the gig. And I thought, if I ever got to headline at the Troubador, that would be the pinnacle of success. So I um, I

got to play. I got to headline at the Troupador and found out it wasn't the pinnacle of success, but I didn't care. And did you have the straight gig? How are you keeping yourself alive at this point just by singing? Just by singing, so you never really have to, you know, be a waitress or anything like that. No, I never had any other job at singing. Wow, And so other than singing with the Stone Ponies, would you uh sing with other groups or do studio sessions or

anything like that. No, I didn't do that. I I hung out with friends and play music at the troubuta I meant John David Souther and Glenn Fry and John Henley and all these people. How did you meet those guys? He walked up to me and said he wanted to date. Wow,

So how did you get the first record deal? We played the who it Is the tributor to audition and on the way out, Herbie Cohen, who was a manager in the business, cooked the arm and took me over to Dantona's, the restaurant next door, and said, I can get your girl singer records record contract. I don't know about the band. So that was me with no no no material of my own. I just sang. I learned from Bobby Kimmel, who was the writer in our band, sang his songs, so I said no, we had to

use the band. And then the second album we had a big hit, but the Stone Point he didn't play on it, and Kenny was it that discouraged with the music and went off to India. To study something. It came back much improved. By the time he came back, I was I was established as a solars and I hired him to be in the band. He was a good friend. So, uh, you have this huge success with different drum What was that experience like? Well, I didn't like the way the record came out, so I told

him they couldn't put it out. It's a good thing they ignored me. It was because, I mean, it got me on television shows and which I hated playing because the music was also bad and they got to tell you what to wear and stuff like that. I didn't like it. What did you not like about the recording? I don't know. It was it was a good arrangement, but I didn't It didn't sound like the Stone Ponies to me. But it was my idea to do this song. I thought. I thought it was going to be a hit,

that song. And how was your experience with herb Cone? Well? I liked him very much personally and still do. He's a character. He'll bullshit you, but he won't bullshit himself. And this but he he got us wound up in jail. We wound up getting arrested for stolen airline tickets because he bought he had bought airline tickets from a a dicey agency. He didn't know they were stolen, but he knew they were. There was something wrong with them because it was a cheap and he charged Capitol Records for

the whole amount of plus flight to Hawaii. So that made me kind of unhappy. I thought that was dishonest. And also he didn't understand the nuance in music. He didn't understand I couldn't just go to a town and call the union and hire a band. How did your relationship with HERB come to a conclusion. Oh, well, during the different depositions, he said, let's go to lunch and I said okay. He said, Linda, this is going to take too much time and energy. Let's just figure out

the number and settled. He settled for eighty thousand dollars and kept eating lunch. Then we went to Africa together. He remained a friend. So how did you feel about the sexualized image that Capital employed to market your records. I figured they wanted to sell records much I could do about it, and that was fine with you. Well, it was, It wasn't unfine. It just was nothing I

had anything to do with. Well, ultimately, you have this gigantic success with the last Cappitle record in the subsequent Asylum records, and you are, in addition to your talent, you're perceived as a sex object. To what degree did that affect you? And maybe just trying to pick the best songs I could try to do the best I could in music. Well, you know, we're living in the meat Too era and people are testifying as to all the aggressive men who cross the line. Did you have

those experiences? Well? I had plenty of those experiences, but I was always protected. You know. I had Peter Asher from my manager at John Boyland for a while, and I was protected from stuff like that. I didn't have to deal with the record company. Okay, the book, the new Book Feels like Home, has a lot of recipes, goes into food. Yet there's uh a lot of stars talk about how they're pressured to be skinny. So what was that like when you were a star? I don't know.

I wait ten pounds less than I did in high school. I was thinned for a long time just naturally, and then just naturally gained weight and it just naturally lost it again when his body are made to expand and contract, and it was very contracted. How did you meet David Geffen on the Troubador and did he approach you? Well, we had a kind of brendan common. He didn't approach me. We had a friend in common that had worked with him. Um, it was his room. It was his college roommate in school.

He said, you got made. My friend, David Geffen, he's moving out to Los Angeles and he'll love you. I said, okay, I'll look for him at the Troubador. It came up and introduced him as the friend of this friend of mine, his old college roommate, and he was very charming. We got along fine. And how did you end up being

signed to Asylum Records? Well? I had offers from Colombia and Warner Brothers and what was however Grossman's label and from David and John Boyland was advising me then, and he advised me to go with David because the Eagles are already over there, and Joni Mitchell and James Um James James Taylor wasn't with the music Peter Esher, but anyway, it just seemed like a more natural context for me?

And how did j d end up producing the first record? Um, I can't remember, to tell the truth, the record wasn't coming out and I listed him to help and that record was a mess. Well, the record came out and was not financially successful. Uh commercially successful? Was that disheartening? I didn't paid head just things like that. So ultimately, how do you meet Andrew gold and what influence did

he have on your music? I met Andrew Golden was in the Stone Ponies and we had a friend who was a teacher at us sort of a Tony private school in the valley, I can remember the name of it. And we went there to visit my friend the teacher's class, Andrew Golden, Wendy Wendy Steiner she had now called Wendy Waldman. We're there in a band, and we thought they were really good. Wendy Whendy Wendy Waldman is really talented singer and absolutely first album, Love has Got Me unbelievable. I'm

friends with Wendy, I'm a big fan. I'm a huge fan too, And I heard her singing the songs from Love Has Got Me at her school, at her high school, and I thought She was really good, and I thought Andrew was good too, and they eventually formed a band together. But there they were. All was Wendy things back up on my live album that Live in Hollywood, that's Wendy and and and Kenny singing together. Wendy, Kenny and Andrew had a band. And also, um basn't remember. So how

do you end up working with Andrew? I just hired him to go on the road. I had him to be my guitar player. Peter Asher was impressive too, and whose idea was it? To you do? You're no good? And how did that come? Fine? It was a song we added as an afterthought to the show. Because I sang bellots all the time, it got boring, so I had to learn a tempo song. So I played that for Peter and he liked it. And Peter did very good work on that production. He and Andrew did it together,

but it was Peter keeping everything straight. He did great arrangement ideas, and it was a good sounding record. I thought, well, it certainly was. So when the record was done, did you know it was a hit? I thought it was strong? And how did you find the mcgaricle's heart like a wheel? I was sitting in a taxicab with Jerry Jeff Walker about five in the morning, sun was just rising, and I said, I am looking for songs. I come to New York looking for songs. And we spent the night.

We spent the evening at Gary Gary White's house, the guy that wrote a long time, and he said, I know a song you could do. He said, there's these two girls, these two sisters. I'll see them at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, which was in a couple of weeks. And she said they wrote the song called hard Like a Wheel. And he sang me the first two lines of three lines of hard Like a Wheel, and I

just flipped out. I said, you could please tell them they have to send it and I'm going home in About two weeks later, it came this real, the real tape in the mail. It was mcgarriel's sisters. They recorded with a piano and a cello. This just gave me the idea to the string trio on it. So and how about when will I Be Loved? How did you decide to do that? I heard that from the Amally brothers, and it doesn't matter anymore. I heard diferent Buddy Holly

when I was a kid. Well, when you would go to make these albums, what was the procedure in finding songs and ultimately deciding the ten or twelve that would be on the record. Well, it was always hard to find material because I hadn't found my voice yet, and I didn't really find my voice until But I was still learning and I was doing the best I could, and I chose songs that were inappropriate for me. Often because there was a lot of singer songwriters and they

write like Brandy Newman rights for his own boys. It's hard to do his songs until you get really good at it. So the songs that I loved and wanted to sing, I wouldn't been in sing very well. So tell me about finding your voice. Well, I started singing better time in my phrasing. He had rushing the time when I got with musicians that were demanding it body Wotel mainly, and I improved my singing. And then I had always wanted to do work in a real theater,

and I left Gilbert and Sullivan. So I was taken to me Joe pap By. John Rockwell has always been a friend and the mentor to me. You know who. Jocolm. John rock fell is right wrote for the for the New York Times. He was the head head critic for years there. He and I were and I were great friends. So he took me to meet Joe pap and I said, I want to sing in the theater with the curtain because I was tired of singing and arena's and he

said he probably had it was an idiot. And a month later so one of his actors came and wanted to do Gilbert and Sullivan and he said, but I want to use a pop singer, not a classical singer. So he said, oh, I know no one lived around, said she came in. She wants to work here. So they called me up and asked me if I wanted the job. But Jerry Brown answered the phone and he remembered he remember the HMS Pentaforre because that's the Gilbert

and Sullivan show he's seeing. And I knew that the whole show of a J. M. S. Pinafore because my sister sung it in junior high school and I had memorized the whole thing. I said, I I'd love to do a Pinafore and they said, no, it's Pirates depens Dance. I didn't know that one, so I had to learn it and ultimately let me put a song from part from Pinafore in there. Anyway, I'm sorry my voice is going out well. Ultimately you've got great reviews. But how

anxious were you about opening that show? I was wildly keen to do it. It had a great cast, it was a real ensemble addiction, and the music is great. I got to use my high voice, and when I put in my high voice really well, it integrated it into the rest of my voice and I could do the standards. And after I sang with Nelson Riddle, I felt like I knew how to sing. So let's go back to some of these earlier records. You do Love as a Rose by Neil Young before he records it,

so how to second gave it to me? He gave it to you, saying what on a demo? He said, this is perfect for you. No, he said, he's just my new demo. He was on his way. He had a place in Zooma Beach, which was a little bit farther northern my place in Malibu. I used to drop by on his way up there, and my day he had a bunch of new demos. I said, let let me listen to them. And Nicola Larson was living with me then, and I said, this will be so perfect for you, Nikki, and it was hit for her. So

we both recorded Neil Young songs now. Also, you did Roll Them Easy by Lowell George. How did you meet Lowell George? I'm in the mid Atlanta. He was playing with it with little feet and I flipped over him. I thought he was one of the best singers I've ever heard, and did a great guitar player. So he was playing that song and I said I wanted to learn it, taking over and talk to me, but he didn't need tuning, I think, or I didn't need to me. I had a change his tuning for my key and

I learned it on the guitar in my living room. Okay, and then, uh, you end up doing the Tattler, which is originally on Paradise and Lunch, the Rye Couterer album. How did you end up doing the Tattler? I can't remember. We needed an extra song. It's hard to find twelve songs in a year. Hard of found twelve songs in ten years, And at this point in time him with this level of success where people constantly pitching you songs, I'm not really I mean people. J D. South suggested

I recorded Blue Bay that Journe to be Fortunate. And we were just hanging out of my house one night and we were playing songs and Jackson played um for Pitiful Me that he was he was in the studio working with whoever perpetual Me, Warren's even and it would be like Jackson de pitches pitches friends song over his own. He's really generous that way. It was a great admirer Warre.

And I moved into Warren's apartment when I was living in Hollywood after he lived in it, and I knew him slightly, but I loved his songs well as good as his version of poor Poor Pitiful Me is on his first album forst Asylum album, Your version is the definitive version. How did you end up coming recording poor

Pitiful Me? Jackson Brown's just suggested it. Read that place Meliba I used to live, were playing songs and J D. South there was there and suggested Blue Bay You and Jackson was there and he said, you can you could think more Pitiful Me? So I learned it. I taped it with him singing it. I learned. I still have the tape. And Uh, how did you because you know and hastened down the wind. You do multiple Carla Bonoff records songs. How did you meet and find those songs

from Carla Bonoff? Oh? Carlo was Kenny Edwards girlfriend. He lived together and Kenny was in my band. So I met Carla and you mentioned Jerry Brown earlier. How did you end up meeting and getting involved with Jerry Brown? I Madam and Lucy's lab cafe where everybody went to eat Mexican food, and ultimately they had his picture in the front window. What was appealing about Jerry? I'm not sure.

He's honest. He's a real he's honest with himself. He has an amazing sense of humor that nobody knows about. But and it was cute. And at the time, although we was known as Governor Moonbeam, he was governor of California. He ended up running for president. Uh. The Eagles and other acts did fundraisers. You had a front row seat for that. What was that like? I don't know. We didn't go out in public munch, So what do you think about the political situation today. I think it's I'm

terrified by it. It seems like there's fascist governments all over the world that are taking over. I think it'll lead the chaos and famine and war and all the kinds of things that we can think of. And this Elon Musk character is there's nothing but a chaos creator. People think. People think that people can people can run a business, which he was not a great businessman, nor

was Trump. But they get rich and they think they know how to run the country and they don't, and they have government sized budgets to accomplish what evil they want to accomplish, Like like Ta Tongue decided the huge plat part of China ship be planeted to wheat, and it was the areas that we didn't grow very well in and it caused a family that starts millions of people. That's what happens if you get to just be a dictator and say what what's going on? That's what Elon

Musk wants. So it sounds like you follow the news pretty closely. Oh I do, so how do you how do you get your information? Finally from the New Yorker, the New York Times, But I also like um public television is Judith Judith list your name would drift, Judy would drift. And do you think there's any place well, let's talk about the evolution. I mean, musical acts were raising money for politicians back in the seventies. Is there any place for music to change the landscape politically today?

I don't have any idea what we'll go on in the future of music. It could be anything. People in my age always think music is in decline, and I think that to a degree. I'm not very interested in music that is happening today. There's a couple of good people, there's some really good singers, but the talent doesn't leave the gene pool just gets shaped in drastically different forms by the culture. And I think our culture is failing. What in what way is just the culture failing? What's

getting less? To my democratic truth doesn't matter? And in journalism, mean where don't nobody cares whether he tells the truth? And I just tell bald face line. People believe you. They're stupid enough, And that's really concerning to me. And hatred is getting fashionable, and uh, you know Trump got elected in sixteen. Did you find out some of your close friends were Trumpers or no, no, no friends of mine voted for him. It wouldn't be friends if they did.

And you know we're lucky we live in California, we have newsom Do you think that Biden should run for another term? I don't know, let to ask him. I think he did a really good job. He's gotten legislation through that Republican roadblock that nobody else has been able to do. Well. What I don't like is that the his own team doesn't give him any credit. They're not running on his success. They're just reacting to the Republican attacks. Makes me crazy. Well, he's going to go down in history,

is a real important president, I think. But you know he's trying. It's the age is um. So do you believe since he's doing a good job if he continues to do this job, although if the Republicans take over the House, which is what it looks like is going to happen, um, do you think that he should serve another term? I don't know. I mean, I don't understand how the nuances of the presidency were. I'm sure it's a lot of people making deals. Do something makes more

moral to I think his moral person. I think he's very smart. I think he's very experienced. But he's a gazer like me, but he's smarter gazer than I am. And do you do you know Newsom? Gavin Newsom? Oh, he's very charming and very smart. I think he'd be probably a good president, being aggressive, which I certainly like. And how do you feel about Ron de santasist success?

I think he's a creep. Well, you know, there's a lot of analysis that says, irrelevant of his political positions, that he's a very cold guy and people can't warm up to him. And you you're saying he's a creep. Do you think people can overlook that and you think it's going to ultimately hurt him? I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised anything. When Trump announced he was going to run, I was sure he was going to win.

And I said, this is the Weimar Republican, It's Germany in the thirties and hump Trump is Hitler and the Jews of the new the Mexicans ader the new Jews. What I mean that mark about Mexicans being rapists. It's clear where he was going with that. People demonized groups of people to cover up their own political inadequacies are not new to this the history of this country. But he's a he's a champion. And if I snapped my fingers and you were control of immigration, what policy would

you want to enact? I wouldn't take it on with a ten foot poll. It's so complicated. It's the third rail of politics. I've got to is something that there's a lot of suffering down there. I've been to the border a lot. Well, you know the fact that they don't have the the uh you know, we have a brain drain with technology forget people immigrating. People you know from India and other countries come to study here. They used to stay working technology companies, but now they leave

because of the visa situation. It's insane. I got about a quarter of that. I really am hard of hearing, you know. Oh okay, um, well tell me when did you tell me the status of your hearing? I think I've lost about fifty hearing? So you did you lose it? From major from loud music? Who knows? Could be anything, could be genetics, it could be I'm sure I lost some hearing. I lost some top and from standing in front of rock and roll bands, but not to the I don't know, not in your doctor. And when did

you notice and start wearing the hearing aids? About a year ago? Two years ago, my hearing was a lot better than hearing aids suck. I'm sure somebody can invent a better hearing aid. So do you wear them all the time? I wear the moree I'm gonna talk to somebody like you. So you know you've gone through these health issues over the last decade or so. What's the status of your health today? Well? I have Parkinson's disease, and well that's a progressive disease. So how are you doing? Well,

I'm progressing. So what's it like now? What's the like is like having parkinson disease? Well, I mean, to what degree is your function You know you said you can't sing, But to what degree is your functionality impaired? I don't go out a lot, but I've I've always been a homebody. I don't like groups of more than ten people. So when you're at home, do you watch streaming television? Sometimes? Yeah?

Any of your favorite shows you can talk about? Um, I like the Korean show which one it's called The and the Impressive or the some super relative lawyer. Wou extraordinary attorney, woo extraordinary Jerney Will Yeah, that's good. Any other ones? Let's see what else if I liked? Mm hm, can't remember? And are you a reader rather than the news? Oh? Yeah, I'm a book I'm a reader the book. The last book I read was see what it is it called? I read three books at once, so one was about

called Vagina Obscure, which I recommend everybody. One was a history that of Fabric, which is really a good book. It's called Fabric. The woman is a very good writer. She's also written a book about jewels and another book about color, The History of Color. It's fascinating. It's a great way to learn history. And then I read I read a book I think everybody should read. It's called Salite Though, and it's about a kid that immigrated from

El Salvador to Los Angeles. Is a nine year old all by himself to find his parents, and it's written from the point of view of a of a nine year old child, completely all the way through the book. It's completely fascinating. Guy's a brilliant writer. And how did you find these books? And reviews? John Rockoll I read a review of it in The New York Times, and then John Rockoll sent me email saying I had to read it. I went and about it and I read the whole thing through to at a sitting. It was

really good. Recommend that to everybody. The Vagina Book. I recommend to everybody too, men and women. It's really well written, and there's there says so many obscure details that you never knew. I could have been all these studies on penises but not on vaginas. Wow, what do you think about the state of sexuality in America today? Well, if everything goes, I think there anything goes. I think that's probably natural. Well, you know, we live in a relatively

puritanical society compared to Europe sexually. Oh yeah, it's ridiculous. And grow What was it like growing up for you? He is a Catholic girl. Well, it's about normal. I mean, did you were you reluctant to have intercourse? Did you think you know you're going to go to hell? That's not a question I'm gonna talk about on the radio. I didn't think I was gonna go to hell. I was an atheists from third grade. And uh, what about birth? Control and abortion. I had them both. How many abortions

have you had? Isn't none of your business? Uh? You know, um people say it's very difficult to uh have an abortion emotionally after the fact, was that of your experience feeling of relief? Great relief? And do you ever did you ever subsequent to the abortion think, well, might have made a mistake, I should have the kid or never? Never? It was the right thing to do. And so you came of age. Was the pill around at that point? Yes?

It was okay? Thank God? So what do you think about you know, there's a fight over trans and other identities. Are you fall down on the side whatever you want to do or what do you think about the other side's opinion? Oh, let let them be, Let them do whatever they want to do. I know that if you're born with a different gender assignment, there's nothing you do about it. I have to learn how to work with it. I should be left alone. You know you've had children.

What about all this, you know with critical race theory and what is taught in the school. Do you think that just all bs or do you think God, we have to protect children to some degree. I think they should take critical race theory. I think everybody from the first grade you'd learned what the history of black people were in this in this country and and get a servant, uncut, undiluded.

Howard's Inn has a really good history for for children that um tells the truth but makes it, doesn't sugarcoat it, but puts it in a rational context that is not damaging, but it is enlightening. I'm a great fan of Howard's In going back to l A, sounds like you knew everybody from Jackson Brown to Lowell George. Uh is that true? Or though you just hung with the people, you hung with? Well? I met Jackson when he was seventeen and I was sixteen, and no one had ever heard of either one of us.

And I just thought it was a good songwriter, as saman was j D. I met him at the Troupador and we went to my house and he played songs. I thought he was a good songwriter. And when you use the Eagles, what became the Eagles as your background band? Did you realize they were going to go on to all that success themselves? Oh? I was sure they would be sure they would make kids okay, And what are your kids up to today. My one daughter is a visual artist and my other son is a tech guy.

And what does he do in tech? He's you know, when you have a corporation and then they have all their tech stuff. He runs it. He's in charge. He's the person you go to your laptop doesn't work or whatever.

Very smart. Do you ever listen to your own records if I need to check something like I'm trying to figure out how to make my hearing aid work my headphones as I listened to through several of itent I listened to Paul Simon's record Graceland, and listen to some records that I've produced mine to see what I can. Because I know what those records sounded like when they were made. I can tell what's missing, and there's a lot missing. So other than when you're you know, adjusting

your hearing aids. Uh, do you listen to music much in the home? Not much? And if you had to look back at your career, what two albums are you most proud of? I think the second Mexican record of Mosconciones and the last record I made that it was called that was in the last record I made, it's called Winter light. And you know, you encountered a lot in your career people saying no, and you ended up.

You know, how to tell me how those battles went down with the record company, Well, they thought it was a mistake career was to do them. And I said, I'm doing them in any way. And because I couldn't hear them, I could just hear the music. And to their credit, people like Joe Smith are really old fashioned record man and they knew how to sell records and they stepped up and promoted it. And the same way with Peter Asher. He couldn't have cared less about Mexic music.

You never heard it. I said, I just have to do this, and he put his head to the to the he put his shoulder in the wheel and did it. He did a really good job. He didn't try to get in my way. And you talk about Peter Asher, you've worked with multiple producers. What's the key to a good producer? I think they work in so many different ways. Sometimes the producer controls the material and the way it's approached. Sometimes the artist does, and sometimes the backing band does.

And it's a lot of subtle nuance of trade offs. I think the producer is someone who listens and makes carefully considered suggestions. Now the rage today is people selling their publishing. Uh, you only wrote a handful of songs, you know, right, A lot of the money is in publishing. So how you know? Were the record companies honest with you and paying you royalties back in the day, I don't know. Let me put it differently, how are you

doing financially? Well, that's a pretty fucking personal question. But I'm doing fine. I sold my catalog. You you sold the catalog. I was doing fine before that. I had a good business manager and I didn't spend a lot of money. So you sold your royalties and all your records. Yeah, how long would you do that? Oh? I don't know. A year ago. Maybe it's based on twenty years of earnings. He'll he'll recoup his investment in twenty years. I won't be here in twenty years, so I don't care. It's

gonna have money. Now. Did you buy or do anything uh that you now that you have this money? Or did you just bank it? Well? I was going to buy a house, but I saw what the prices are up here, and I nearly fainted. I'm still on the floor, okay, And what do you want people to get out of

this book? Feels like home. There's just another side to Mexico, to that part of Mexico, and that party has been a cohesive, singular piece of real estate since before um Arizona was before Mexico is Arizona, and that they should recognize what what similarities there between themselves and the people's houves of the border. And you had brothers and sisters, unfortunately two were no longer with us. Was their pressure when you have this huge success to take care of

the rest of your family financially? Well, it changed it. I didn't care my family financially. They were all gamefully employed. Well, I mean it's tough that you were so successful. Did your siblings revel in your success? Were they jealous? Well, they didn't want to be professional singers that went on the road. My brother was the chief of police of Tucson, like his job just fine. My sister strad five kids. I wanted to be a housewife. And did you help

support them? Not really, okay, because a lot of people become successful and their family starts asking them for money. That wasn't your experience? Well, not particularly if I want to go for good Mexican food in l A. Where should I go? I don't know. I haven't lived in l A for twenty years. Well, you know, can you mention any Mexican restaurants or do we really have to go to Tucson to get the kind of food that

you like if you want good Mexican food. Way of January, Lucy's Ill Adobe is reopening with the original owner and the original recipes. It's going to be a great place to eat. It's like it wasn't the seventies. What did you use to order at Lucy's Green enchiladas? Really? And are you a meat eater or not? I meet if I have to? Okay, Linda, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me

in my audience. Once again. Linda Ronstad has a new book, Feels Like Home, a Song for the Sonoran Borderlands, and so thanks again, Linda, thank you so much. Hi until next time. This is Bob left Steps