She is a music legend and we all sang her songs
This music legend recently spoke about her life, her greatest achievements, and how she learned to live with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), which was previously thought to be Parkinson’s disease and was the cause of her retirement in 2009. She also discussed how she learned to live with PSP.
PSP is a rare form of brain disease that has major effects on balance, walking, and eye movements. Perhaps the most noticeable effect is on the patient’s voice. Sadly, Ronstadt had personal experience with this. Because of her condition, she was unable to sing.
Despite the fact that she hasn’t been able to sing freely for more than 10 years and sincerely misses being able to, she has found a new method to sing—albeit with her head as opposed to her voice.
In the conversation, Linda also discussed her decision to forgo marriage and the success of her albums, which have sold more than 100 million copies.
Linda literally lived on the road for the majority of her career, but these days her world is a little bit smaller as she resides in a house in a quiet neighborhood of San Francisco. She reveals to Tracy Smith what now keeps her busy.
At the United Artists Theater in Los Angeles, California, Linda was interviewed live to kick off the conversation. She told the audience her personal experiences and said it was enjoyable to speak in front of such a large audience once more.
But she makes light of the fact that she was relieved “they didn’t boo or start chanting for ‘Heatwave,’” Linda’s song that peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100.
When Linda was just 14 years old, her career officially began. She first began playing as the “Union City Ramblers,” “The Three Ronstadts,” and “The New Union Ramblers” with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen.
The siblings entertained the world with Mexican, folk, country, and bluegrass music. She didn’t begin pursuing a career in music in LA until she was 18 years old. She and guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards started Stone Poneys there.
They released three albums through Capitol Records in under 15 months. Different Drum, their popular song, peaked at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The second album, titled Silk Purse, was released the following year. For “Long, Long Time,” Linda was nominated for her first Grammy Award in 1971 for Best Female Contemporary Vocal Performance.
President Barack Obama gave her the National Medal of Arts in 2013 “for her one-of-a-kind voice and decades of great music.”
In 2009, some years after she experienced the first signs of the illness that would define the following years, Linda performed her farewell concert. The “first authentic woman rock ‘n’ roll celebrity” recently began making appearances at public speaking occasions.
