LINDA RONSTADT - MAD LOVE 1980

By 1980 Linda Ronstadt was enjoying herself and had plans to expand her talent into other areas. “I’m not going to do rock and roll forever,” she said at the time. Asher was looking at other possibilities too. He was considering Broadway as well as producing a rock musical starring Linda and although she seemed interested he remarked, “It’s all vague at this point.”

What wasn’t vague, at least to Linda, was the direction her next album would take. She would see in the new decade with a new look and attitude. She was ready to move on, to break from the past and predictability and was planning a number of surprises. The first people would see of this newly found desire to expand was when she appeared in public sporting a cropped ‘punk’ hairstyle.
 
By the mid-seventies many rock stars from the previous two decades, now in their late-thirties and forties, had little to say to the new generation of teenagers, many of whom were unemployed. Likewise many of the groups around at that time, Abba, The Bee Gees and Queen did not appeal to the vast number of youngsters who were looking for something different. The punk rock movement, spearheaded by bands such as The Sex Pistols, emerged to challenge these groups and would take a stranglehold on the UK music scene.

The music, which was raw, negative and occasionally full of obscene lyrics, was often shouted over melodies that had little or no tune. It also had its own associated fashion, safety pins through the ear and nose, chains, mohican hairstyles and outrageous clothes.

However, it was a fairly short-lived movement and many of the punk groups survived into the eighties by developing a more sophisticated style, groups like The Clash, The Jam, and the Stranglers. At this time its American version, new wave, lent a respectable aim to the movement allowing it to continue.

Linda’s new album would signify America’s partial acceptance of this new music form. If any more evidence was required that the album was also a means of appealing to the UK market and new wave followers they needed to look no further than the three Elvis Costello tracks she covered.

Art Fein, who worked for a variety of record companies, including Elektra/Asylum where he worked in the publicity department, remembered seeing Linda at a Clash concert taking notes before she started work on the album. She also took time out to check what was going on in the clubs in Los Angeles and New York. She caught shows by Pat Benatar and Debbie Harry, of Blondie, and made her mind up that this was the route she should take.

To recharge her batteries there had been a break of close to fifteen months between finishing her last album and starting the new one. Sessions for the album, which took place at Record One in LA, commenced in late-October 1979 and ran through till January the following year. Among those musicians appearing on the album were many who had collaborated with Linda in the past, Dan Dugmore, Mike Auldridge, Bill Payne, Russ Kunkel and her manager, Peter Asher.

Two members of the group The Cretones, Mark Goldenberg and Peter Bernstein, also appear on the album. Goldenberg, as well as the composer of three of the tracks, shares the electric guitar duties with Dugmore, while Bernstein plays acoustic guitar. Danny Kortchmar, who would tour with Linda, also doubled up on electric guitar although, like Bernstein, does not feature on many of the tracks.

Danny Kortchmar won fame, or notoriety, playing guitar for West Coast artists like James Taylor, Carole King and, of course, Linda Ronstadt. He also co-wrote songs with Jackson Browne and branched out into record production with his first credit being on an album with Carole King’s daughter, Louise Goffin, in 1979. “The producers I had worked with as a guitarist really did a lot to prepare me,” he explained in an interview. “Especially Peter Asher, Linda Ronstadt’s producer. Peter really encouraged all the musicians he worked with to think like producers, to play parts a producer would tell you to play. After working with him for so many years, I felt I was pretty qualified to produce.” One of his favourite places to work in was Record One, owned by Los Angeles producer, Val Garay, and home to many of Ronstadt’s sessions.

Providing backing vocals on the album were, Kenny Edwards, Andrew Gold, Waddy Wachtel, Nicolette Larson and Rosemary Butler.

Peter Asher also produced the sessions but it was Mark Goldenberg who was truly at the helm. His arrangements were heavily dominated by fuzzy guitars, organ, bass and drum while this time the vocal back-up is kept to a minimum. “I’m more excited about this album than about any other one I’ve done,” she said once the recording was over.

A single was issued in January 1980, How Do I Make You backed with Rambler Gambler, and became a top ten pop single in the United States. Rambler Gambler was not included on the album and sounds like it was recorded much earlier than the rest of the material.

With its country feel, it was no surprise that Rambler Gambler appeared on the country charts, albeit only reaching #42. The sessions were still underway when this single was issued and more than likely there was no other material from the sessions available when considering what tracks to use. This may be why they went back to what appears to be a much earlier recording.

Released in March 1980 Mad Love, Ronstadt's tenth album, went platinum within a couple of months and during its 36 week residency in the album charts it would peak at #3. In the UK, where they may have expected better things from the album, it failed miserably.

The track How Do I Make You was nominated in the ‘Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female’ at the Grammy Awards but was beaten by Pat Benatar with her track Crimes Of Passion. Success also came her way when she was a joint winner in the ‘Best Recording For Children’ category for her contribution to the album In Harmony/A Sesame Street Record.
 
The album artwork was far removed from previous efforts. Gone were the sexy, provocative cover photos. This time Kosh, who had designed many of her album sleeves, went for a shocking pink and black graphic with a photo of Linda with her new cropped hair style.

Mad Love, Cost Of Love and Justine were all written by Mark Goldenberg and had all appeared on the Cretones album Thin Red Line, released at almost the same time as Mad Love. All three are well-handled by Linda and feature excellent support from the band, especially Goldenberg’s guitar playing, Bill Payne on organ and Russ Kunkel on drums.

Linda once again turns to Elvis Costello for three tracks covering Party Girl, Girls Talk and Talking In The Dark. These were good performances although she seems to struggle more with these songs than she did on the Goldenberg tracks as well as her earlier recording of Costello’s Alison, which had appeared on her 1978 album Living In The USA.

With a great drum intro How Do I Make You is without doubt one of the highlights on the album and was written by Billy Steinberg. He was one of the most successful songwriters of the eighties and nineties and, along with co-writer Tom Kelly, had written five number one singles including Madonna’s Like A Virgin and Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours. As Rolling Stone would point out in their review Ronstadt sounds like she is trying to imitate Debbie Harry from Blondie.

Two tracks date back to the mid-sixties, a soulful cover of the Little Anthony and The Imperials hit Hurt So Bad and the Hollies I Can’t Let Go. Despite being vintage tracks they both fit perfectly on the album and this is down to her ‘new wave’ interpretation.

However, the outstanding track on the album is her reworking of Neil Young’s Look Out For My Love which is as good, if not better, than his original.

Many critics compared Linda’s efforts to the new wave energy of Pat Benatar who had achieved success in the US with a succession of hit singles, including Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Love Is A Battlefield and We Belong and three top five albums, Crimes Of Passion, Precious Time and Get Nervous.

Benatar trained as an opera singer and went on to become a major hitmaker in the early eighties finding success with both mainstream rock and powerful ballads that focussed on personal relationships and sexual politics.

Linda laid herself open for a lot of criticism for going down the ‘New Wave-Punk’ road. Many reviewers picked up on the fact that maybe this was the wrong sort of material for her to record. Stephen Holden, in his review in Rolling Stone wrote “Mad Love’s theme is passion – not the reflective, yearning romanticism that’s infused most of Ronstadt’s best work, but brutal, nervous, teenage sexuality,” and went on to say “No matter how tough she acts, she can’t help sounding pretty.” He also criticised the production, feeling that it was too mechanistic and that it would be hard to imagine the songs performed live because everything is so high-tech. Summing up, he reckoned the album wasn’t a major exhibition more a fascinating failure.

Rock Critic Richard Meltzer was more scathing and savaged the album in his review calling it “even more corrupt, gawky and anachronistic than such regional stalwarts of sixties-revisionist new wave as the Naughty Sweeties”, an LA band that played many of the local punk shows. He went on to say that it was the “nadir of retrograde, psuedo-punk rock.”

Producer Peter Asher pointed out, as printed in Goldmine magazine in 2003, that “it’s just that she likes good music and recognized how good punk was, and that isn’t the same thing as trying to jump on a bandwagon. I think it’s a genuine question of her excellent musical taste.”

Stereo Review, while echoing many of the comments in Rolling Stone, thought that, while sincere, Ronstadt probably wasn’t taking it that seriously although they felt it was “a well intended, spirited almost plucky little album.” Understanding that music styles come and go and new wave would soon be superseded for the next craze, along with Linda’s ability to turn her hand to many different styles, they ended their review with the comment, “Linda Ronstadt can go back to being Linda Ronstadt any time she wants to, and the rest of the new wave can’t.” How true that statement would become.
 
In March and April, to promote the album, Linda undertook a lengthy US Mad Love tour with Danny Kortchmar as special guest.

Backing her on the tour were, Kenny Edwards (guitar, banjo and backing vocals), Dan Dugmore (guitar and pedal steel guitar), Danny Kortchmar (guitar), Bob Glaub (bass), Bill Payne (keyboards), Russ Kunkel (drums), Peter Asher (percussion and backing vocals) and Wendy Waldman (backing vocals).

Opening on 22 March with a show at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland the tour would find her playing concerts across America including dates in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lexington, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Detroit, Michigan and St Paul, Minnesota.

There were sell-out shows in Pittsburgh, Detroit and St Paul with crowds of between 12-16,000. These and other concert dates on the tour made regular placings in Billboard’s ‘Boxscore’ chart that detailed top grossing shows. During the tour live promotional videos were filmed for both ‘How Do I Make You’ and ‘Hurt So Bad’.

In his review of her 3 April performance at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Walter Carter, in the Tennessean, wrote: “Just the presence of Linda Ronstadt on the Municipal Auditorium stage Thursday night was enough to charm a sold-out audience into extended applause, and her singing through the 95-minute performance only heightened the sensation.” He had nothing but praise for the band, who had no trouble in switching between her new hard-edged material and her old country songs of the past few years. He recalled that people were throwing bouquets of flowers on stage, prompting Linda to laugh and comment “Does this mean I’m going to be a bride... I doubt it.” There were probably many disappointed males in the audience!

She was also taking time out to support presidential campaigns, not least that of her then current boyfriend Jerry Brown. In December 1979 she had played two benefit concerts, along with The Eagles and Chicago, in San Diego, to raise money for Brown.

During her Mad Love Tour, on 21 April, she played a show at the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids, Idaho, in support of Gary Hart’s senatorial bid in Colorado. Reviewing that particular show The Cedar Rapids Gazette wrote, “Linda Ronstadt appears to be the new record holder for the most standing ovations given a performer in one 90 minute concert at the Five Seasons Center. She received too many to count.” 
 

 
Following the Harrisburg Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1979, in which a faulty cooling system caused radioactive gases to be released into the air, she had taken part in a benefit on the steps of the State Capitol building in Pennsylvania on 29 March 1980.

On 24 April, at the Television Center Studios in Hollywood, the show was filmed for a special to be broadcast by Home Box Office (HBO), the American subscription TV service.

The special was considered by many fans to be a high point in her career and the electrifying performances of many of her current and past hits captured America's most popular female rock singer at the peak of her career.

Meanwhile, further singles were issued following the tour. Hurt So Bad reached #8 while I Can’t Let Go just failed to hit the top thirty. By mid-1980, Linda had racked up enough hits to release a second volume of hits which included two tracks from Mad Love.

Over the years the HBO Special has been made available, albeit unofficially, on various video, DVD and CD releases.

The first official release of any tracks from the show was in 2017 when the 40th Anniversary edition of her 1977 album Simple Dreams featured three bonus tracks, live recordings of It's So Easy, Blue Bayou and Poor Poor Pitiful Me.

It would be a further two years before Linda Ronstadt's first official live album would be released. Live In Hollywood, released by Rhino Records, was released in February 2019 and featured the following songs... I Can't Let Go, Willin', Just One Look, Faithless Love, Hurt So Bad, You're No Good, How Do I Make You, Back In The USA and Desperado along with the three tracks, previously available on the aforementioned Simple Dreams release, It's So Easy, Blue Bayou and Poor Poor Pitiful Me.

There were many great performances on the album with a six-minute version of You're No Good being one of the highlights. The song, written by Clint Ballard Jr., had been recorded by Linda back in 1974 for her album Heart Like A Wheel and was a song she had been closing her shows with back in 1973. It was band member Kenny Edwards who suggested she record it.

There were three tracks from the Mad Love album, I Can't Let Go, Hurt So Bad and How Do I Make You and the remaining tracks were from earlier in her career and some of her best known songs. From her 1973 Don't Cry Now album came Desperado, both Willin' and Faithless Love were originally released on Heart Like A Wheel in 1974 while Just One Look and Back In The USA were from 1979's Living In The USA album.

 

Reviews were positive with Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writing, "These 12 tracks casually illustrate her facility with both soft rock and old-time rock & roll, and if the set list leans heavily on oldies, the combination of guts and polish makes her renditions memorable.

Hal Horowitz of American Songwriter praised her vocal delivery saying, "She's in terrific voice throughout with a few standout performances like the closing Desperado - a knockout, dramatic vocal accompanied only by Payne's piano - and a powerful take on Roy Orbison's Blue Bayou, has anyone done that song better?" 

Also concentrating on her vocals was Jim Harrington of Mercury News, "Her vocals are strong, clear and convincing as she moves through such winners as It's So Easy, Just One Look, and Poor Poor Pitiful Me. And the stunning version of Blue Bayou... wow. That's one for the time capsule."

There were many more great reviews but in his On The Records review Phil Bausch captured it perfectly in just a few words, "It's important that recordings like Live In Hollywood exist to remind the world Linda Ronstadt once possessed one of the greatest rock and pop voices of all time."

The physical CD, Live In Hollywood, was a welcome release for fans but only featured twelve of the twenty tracks performed during the HBO Special and it would be another five years before the whole concert would find a release, albeit in digital format only.

 
Released in October 2024, Live In Hollywood Deluxe, was only available as a digital download and marked the first time the complete performance had been available. It is unknown if there are any plans to release the whole concert on CD in the future but a physical copy would be welcome.

It has been reported that following the TV taping in 1980 plans were made to release her first live album but for years the master tapes were unavailable or lost. It was only a chance conversation between John Boylan, producer of the album, and an audio engineer from Warner Brothers Records that would result in the tapes being located.

The audio was specifically mastered for streaming and downloading to ensure the best possible quality for the listener. The whole album sounds excellent with Linda's powerful vocals to the fore while every instrument and backing vocal is clear and perfectly balanced. 

The eight previously unreleased songs included, four from the Mad Love album, Party Girl, Look Out For My Love, Mad Love and Cost Of Love along with Hank Williams classic, I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You), the Holland-Dozier-Holland composition Heat Wave, a 1963 hit for Martha and The Vandellas, which Linda recorded for her 1975 album Prisoner In Disguise and Silver Threads And Golden Needles, a song she had recorded twice previously, firstly for her 1969 solo debut Hand Sown... Home Grown and again in 1973 for Don't Cry Now. One song performed at the show and finally released was Lies, originally released in 1965 by The Knickerbockers, it was a song Linda had already recorded in the studio but would not release until 1982 on her Get Closer album.

Mad Love was a complete departure for Linda Ronstadt and while she would return to her county, country-rock and rock roots in the future she would also venture into new genres. Over the next few years her career would find her working with Nelson Riddle on a trio of albums featuring classic standards from the 1940s and 1950s and returning to her Mexican roots with albums of Mariachi and Spanish music.