Linda Ronstadt Album: “Heart Like a Wheel”

A classic singer's album, "Heart Like a Wheel" bears up under repeated listenings 27 years after its issue. The album's tasteful arrangements fit around Linda's flawless vocals so securely that the time spent to listen to the album flows by as if it weren't there.

The session began with a hit, "You're No Good," but the real strength of "Heart Like a Wheel" lies in its sorrowful ballads: "Faithless Love," "Dark End of the Street," "Keep Me from Blowin' Away," and the title cut, to which Maria Muldaur adds an aching harmony. Albums previous to this one had shown the power of Ronstadt's voice, but here the arrangements and the poignancy of the lyrics allowed the beauty of her voice to shine through fully.

Another great programming move was the segue between the rock-out version of the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved" and Lowell George's "Willin'." The former shows that two minutes is plenty for a great rock performance if you've got the vocal chops of Ronstadt. As it ends with a nice patch of vocal harmony, a guitar slips in and a harmonica sighs and Linda's vocal wraps around the first lines of "Willin'," a wistful but gritty tale. It's a fine moment and one that never wears out for this listener.

Many of us grew up with Linda Ronstadt, and she has had an incredibly varied career. That's a great thing for an artist, but one hopes that this entry to her discography will not be forgotten. An underrated gem.

The pinnacle of both Ronstadt's country-music phase and of her career as a whole, "Heart Like a Wheel" is one of those albums that does everything right to an almost uncanny degree. Sure, it contains some of her finest vocals, and yes, Peter Asher's production is as supple and modest as his work for James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" was five years earlier. (After "Heart," Asher would adopt an ever-more rigid, formulaic approach to Ronstadt's releases that seemed to put her on a pedestal, or in a cage.) And it's inarguable that the material Ronstadt and Asher selected for "Heart" is uniformly strong. But there's something else at work here, something greater than the sum of the record's many impressive parts. If I knew what it was, I'd be in the music business; since I don't, I'll settle for calling it "kismet," or simply magic. This stellar album deserves better than the cut-rate, noise-ridden mastering of the original CD release that's still on the market. In the remastering era, it's as overdue for a sonic upgrade as any album in print.

She had had scattered successes in the first eight years of her illustrious career, but Tucson, Arizona native Linda Ronstadt finally broke through big time at the end of 1974 with the landmark country-rock album HEART LIKE A WHEEL. This is one of those albums whose formula has been endlessly copied by Nashville since the late 1980s, but few have even come close to equaling it, and nobody has surpassed it in terms of quality. Linda is THAT good a singer.

Much gets made about how diverse Linda's music-making has been, but HEART LIKE A WHEEL really demonstrates her appreciation for American music. Her highly-charged version of Betty Everett's 1963 soul standard "You're No Good" struck #1 on the pop charts; and its B-side, the Hank Williams classic "I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You" (with the harmony vocal provided by partner-in-crime Emmylou Harris), hit #2 on the country chart and earned Linda the 1975 Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal. A rockabilly-fueled remake of the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved" hit #2 pop and #1 country in June 1975. There are also superb versions of "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" (Buddy Holly's final hit) and "The Dark End Of The Street," to cite just a few more examples.

HEART LIKE A WHEEL is an album that artists like Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, and Martina McBride all have a deep and admiring passion for, one that Faith Hill and Shania Twain could only dream about approaching in terms of quality, and one that Taylor Swift ought to study if she expects to have a career anywhere near as long as Linda's. Without any question, this is the album that crowned Linda the Queen of Country-Rock.

I have vivid memories of sitting in a friend's living room in December of 1974 when someone put "Heart Like a Wheel" on the turntable. I recognized the voice immediately. By the second or third track I was mesmerized. I also remember someone saying -- as Ronstadt and Emmylou took on Hank Williams -- "I didn't know you like country and western music" and I heard myself say, "I didn't either!"

As one of the other reviewers said, 27-plus years later this recording more than holds up. I have yet to hear any Nashville-based project that even approaches this level of excellence: choice material by then-unknown songwriters: JD Souther and the McGarrigle sisters along with Lowell George, James Taylor, Dan Penn and others; duets with Emmylou, Souther and Maria Muldaur; sparkling production; the cream of the 70's Los Angeles musicians crop and, that voice.

This recording (along with the Emmylou collaboration "Western Wall") remains my favorite. Ronstadt's contributions to popular music are almost unparalleled and in my mind, it all began with this particular recording.

For those of us old enough to be aware of Linda Ronstadt in her Aaron Neville-dueting, spanish-singing, (yes, I must say it) Adult Contemporary (shudder, gasp) incarnation, but young enough to have to unearth her older albums from our parents' mostly uncool record collections, this album is a real revelation. I find that there is often a fine line between the beautifully pitch-perfect and the hopelessly square, which long prejudiced me against Ms. Ronstadt -- lumping her with your Anne Murrays and your Helen Reddys of the AM dial. Somehow her voice seemed almost TOO pure, TOO crystalline, TOO pretty to convey the kinds of rasps and catches that denote real emotion in singing. Well, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. From the full sass-assault of "You're No Good," to the plaintive depth of feeling in the title track, suddenly I'm mesmerized. A 10-track hypnosis of the soul.

Probably, if you're reading this, I'm preaching to the choir, but if not, stop waffling and just buy this album, play it on a nice sunny Sunday morning, and all will seem right in the world.