When the Stone Poneys broke up in 1968, Linda Ronstadt decided to go solo instead of finding another band. Giving up music entirely was most likely out of the question, but Ronstadt had never been a solo artist before. Luckily, Capital Records, which the Stone Poneys had recorded under, was interested in backing Ronstadt’s solo career.
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Her debut album, Hand Sown…Home Grown, released in March 1969. It was a selection of country-rock and folk covers from artists like Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, and Chip Douglas. She also covered a song written by her former Stone Poneys bandmate, Ken Edwards, as the band members remained friends after dissolving the group.
What’s interesting about Hand Sown is that, at the time, Linda Ronstadt was one of the first female artists to experiment with blending country and rock. Country radio stations felt she sounded too rock, and rock stations felt she was too country. So Ronstadt took both genres and purposefully sought artists who were already making music like that. In the 1960s, however, those artists were all men. Ronstadt was dealing with a boys club, but she could hold her own. She had two perfect weapons in her arsenal: great taste in music and strong vocals that could fill a room.
The standout track of Linda Ronstadt’s Hand Sown…Home Grown is “Silver Thread and Golden Needles,” written by Dick Reynolds and Jack Rhodes. This track leans more country in its arrangement, but Ronstadt’s vocals have been and always will be purely rock. That’s where her music gets fascinating; Ronstadt seemingly separates the genres—country for the melodies and rock for the vocals—at the same time that she blends them.
[RELATED: Linda Ronstadt Regrets Not Covering This 1978 Melancholy Classic About Lost Love]
Linda Ronstadt Made an Exceptional Debut with Hand Sown…Home Grown, Proving She Could Make It as a Solo Artist
Those two major genres play across all 11 tracks of Hand Sown, chasing each other through the halls of the house Linda Ronstadt built around them. What really struck me on my first listen of Ronstadt’s debut was her incredible vocal power and control. She can go from hollering a solid vocal to gently hushing a soft melody, like with the track “A Number and a Name.” She’s able to alternate between strong, sustained notes and loping, slurry phrases on “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” and can belt while also retaining the clear emotion in her voice.
The only song that stuck out for me was “We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock and Roll).” This song didn’t seem to fit with the rest of Ronstadt’s choices. All the other tracks have emotional anchors that Ronstadt leans into completely. “We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus” feels out of place, especially since Linda Ronstadt was, essentially, also making rock and roll. Albeit, her rock and roll was feminine and laced through with country influences, but she was still laying the groundwork for her rock icon status.
Hand Sown ends with “The Dolphins,” a palate cleanser following “We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus.” Here, Ronstadt takes on a soft innocence in her vocals while still remaining strong and unwavering. “I’ve been searching for the dolphins in the sea / Sometimes I wonder do you ever think of me,” she sings, voice confident but youthful, strong but a little bit unsure. As the closing track, the music fades out into nothingness with Linda Ronstadt’s vocals trailing behind it, full of a sweet hopefulness that returns a few seconds later when the album is inevitably put on repeat.
Featured Image by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
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