Post by joekiddlouischama on Sept 15, 2019 8:36:27 GMT
I viewed the documentary on Saturday evening and found it "very good"—Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice is fairly intense and engrossing and nicely braids archival footage and photographs with contemporary interviews. (Those interviews also serve to eliminate any need for a narrator.) The style is a little "rapid fire" at times, and while the documentary progresses chronologically for the most part, it sometimes offers a thematic focus that creates some slightly awkward jumping back and forth in time. For instance, at one point early on, the film has reached 1973, and then it features a former Apple Records producer who started working with Ronstadt around the time that The Beatles were breaking up—which would mean 1970. The movie is not making a mistake in this instance and some similar ones, but the structure is not that crisp or elegant. Also, the film ends at the start of the 1990s (which was my guess at the time and one that I have since confirmed) and then notes that Ronstadt performed her last concert in 2009—there is no discussion of the intervening two decades, although one assumes that they did not constitute a period of notable musical growth for her. Earlier, the movie touches on her liberal political outspokenness around the time of the Reagan Revolution, but it never addresses the controversy caused by her in-concert, anti-Bush advocacy circa 2004.
"Ronstadt Banned in Vegas"
So some aspects could have been handled better, and the documentary feels a little incomplete. But it does a fine job of detailing her familial roots and cultural heritage; her emergence from obscurity in Tucson; her serendipitous arrival in Los Angeles in the mid-sixties at the time when folk-rock was just starting to blossom; her initial fame with the Stone Poneys and "Different Drum"; her reluctant yet rising success in huge arenas in the years ahead; her achievement of mega-fame in the 1970s; her paradoxical combination of willful perfectionism and insecurity; the ability of her singing to cut across diverse genres; and her remarkable expansion of creative idioms in the 1980s. Also notable is the film's exploration of the uneasy gender dynamics when male musicians performed for a female singer on the road in the macho world of 1970s rock-and-roll.
The film is both entertaining and enlightening. I knew about Ronstadt's biggest hits, but I now possess a better feel for how her voice transcended genres and styles. She seemed perfectly at home in any genre, from folk-rock to harder rock, country to bluesy ballads, opera to jazz. Indeed, her most impressive singing in the film might have come in the 1980s when she paired with composer Nelson Riddle and followed in the footsteps of Ella Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, her famously searing 1970s hit "You're No Good" apparently topped the charts in not just mainstream pop (Billboard Hot 100) yet also rhythm-and-blues and country. At a time when musical genres could be quite segregated along racial and cultural lines, her singing proved so rich and immaculate that it could be claimed by the aficionados of any idiom. Indeed, based on what I viewed in the documentary, her greatest point of distinction might have been the diversity and transcendence of her singing.
I plan on seeing the film at least once more.
"Ronstadt Banned in Vegas"
So some aspects could have been handled better, and the documentary feels a little incomplete. But it does a fine job of detailing her familial roots and cultural heritage; her emergence from obscurity in Tucson; her serendipitous arrival in Los Angeles in the mid-sixties at the time when folk-rock was just starting to blossom; her initial fame with the Stone Poneys and "Different Drum"; her reluctant yet rising success in huge arenas in the years ahead; her achievement of mega-fame in the 1970s; her paradoxical combination of willful perfectionism and insecurity; the ability of her singing to cut across diverse genres; and her remarkable expansion of creative idioms in the 1980s. Also notable is the film's exploration of the uneasy gender dynamics when male musicians performed for a female singer on the road in the macho world of 1970s rock-and-roll.
The film is both entertaining and enlightening. I knew about Ronstadt's biggest hits, but I now possess a better feel for how her voice transcended genres and styles. She seemed perfectly at home in any genre, from folk-rock to harder rock, country to bluesy ballads, opera to jazz. Indeed, her most impressive singing in the film might have come in the 1980s when she paired with composer Nelson Riddle and followed in the footsteps of Ella Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, her famously searing 1970s hit "You're No Good" apparently topped the charts in not just mainstream pop (Billboard Hot 100) yet also rhythm-and-blues and country. At a time when musical genres could be quite segregated along racial and cultural lines, her singing proved so rich and immaculate that it could be claimed by the aficionados of any idiom. Indeed, based on what I viewed in the documentary, her greatest point of distinction might have been the diversity and transcendence of her singing.
I plan on seeing the film at least once more.