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<\/a><\/p>\nThis is a wonderful book full of the beauty ands wonder of the region where Linda Ronstadt grew up\u2014 from Tucson south into the Sonoran desert region in Mexico. The pictures in this book are beautiful, and the recipes are wonderful, but more than anything else it is a personal reflection on the area that Linda feels at home in, and calls home, though today she lives in San Francisco.\u00a0 This is not at all the biography chronicling Linda the rock star of the 70s and 80s, but rather is an homage to her younger years growing up as a Mexican and German America in the southwest.\u00a0 Were I to title this book I would call it\u2014 The Longing for Home,\u00a0 but Fred Buechner already gave us a wonderful reflection under that title, and I would say it makes a beautiful companion to this book by Linda and her friends.\u00a0 \u00a0Nothing at all is said about Linda\u2019s rock n roll career that put her in the Rock Hall of Fame in Cleveland. And that is fine. Yes, her friend Jackson Browne makes a cameo appearance in the book sharing a sojourn with others down into the Sonoran region.\u00a0 Nothing is said about her many wonderful rock concerts, for instance the one Rick Sanders and I saw in the mid-70s at the Kennedy Center with Linda opening for Neil Young.\u00a0 And that is just fine, because this story needs to be told.\u00a0 It is a story about prejudice against immigrants, EVEN THOUGH all of us are immigrants in America except the native American Indians.\u00a0 \u00a0It is a story about how music, in this case Mexican music sung in Spanish provides a link with the past, and a strong sense of ongoing community.\u00a0 It was something that united Linda\u2019s own family.\u00a0 And yet it is strange that Linda barely mentions her own children, both adopted one in 1990 and the other in 1994.\u00a0 But in part this is because Linda never married, though at one point she came close to marrying Jerry Brown then a candidate for President in 1976, and later she dated George Lucas for some time, he of Star Wars etc. fame.\u00a0 None of this resulted in marriage.\u00a0 This helps explain the obvious deliberate omissions in the book, and it is fine.\u00a0 None of those men had anything to do with Linda\u2019s heritage, and this book is about that.\u00a0 \u00a0Linda not surprisingly has some strong opinions about the racism that is going on now against Hispanics, and this is not really because she is some woke liberal. It\u2019s because her ancestry and heritage are indeed a vital part of our American heritage, and it needs to be celebrated not eviscerated.\u00a0 \u00a0For the record, and I do mean the vinyl, she was one of the most remarkable singers in the whole rock era, including her forays with Nelson Riddle into \u2018the Great American Songbook\u2019 and songs from musicals, and her wonderful Hispanic music lps which by the way were also best sellers, despite her handlers predicting they would bomb.\u00a0 My only wish is that she had done an lp of Gospel classics.\u00a0 She could sing anything.<\/p>\n
Linda\u2019s winsome personality shines through in this book, and explains why Willie Nelson apparently once said\u2014 \u2018there are only two kinds of men in America. Those who are in love with Linda Ronstadt and those who have never heard of her.\u2019\u00a0 I once had a close friend at UNC who was in the former category.\u00a0 Me\u2026. I just loved her singing, in all its iterations.\u00a0 If you want to hear her at her rock n roll peak, listen to the\u00a0 Live at Hollywood\u00a0 CD.\u00a0 Amazing.\u00a0 \u00a0I highly recommend this book, which is beautifully written.\u00a0 Thank you Linda for everything.\u00a0 \u00a0You have been a blessing to many of us for many years.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a wonderful book full of the beauty ands wonder of the region where Linda Ronstadt grew up\u2014 from Tucson south into the Sonoran desert region in Mexico. The pictures in this book are beautiful, and the recipes are wonderful, but more than anything else it is a personal reflection on the area that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":69884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15320],"class_list":["post-69881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lovely-linda"],"yoast_head":"\n
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