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Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Javascript is not enabled in your Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. She was hungry, and maybe wanted to fortify herself against the brutally hard work of pushing out a baby, a task that lay immediately and ominously before her. It was raining hard, and the streets were badly flooded. My father, a prudent man, wanted to be sure I was born in the hospital and not in his car. He loved my mother tenderly and was unlikely to Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir her anything within Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, but he denied her this, and so I was delivered safely from the watery world of her interior to the watery exterior world of the Arizona desert in a cloudburst. In the desert, rain is always a cause for jubilation. July Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir August brought the ferocious seasonal rainstorms on which all life, including mine, depended. He had sold it off in parcels during the dunning years of the Depression and relied on the thriving hardware business he had built in downtown Tucson at the end of the nineteenth century to supply a living for my grandmother and their four sons. It bore his name proudly as the F. Ronstadt Hardware Company and took up nearly a city block. I remember it as a wonderful place of heavily timbered floors and the Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir smell of diesel oil. Inside it were tractors, bulldozers, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, windmills, bins of nails, camping supplies, high quality tools, and housewares. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir those days, the border was a friendly place, and easy to cross. My parents often drove us across the border into Nogales, which had wonderful stores where we would shop. I deeply miss those times when the border was a permeable line and the two cultures mixed in a natural and agreeable fashion. Lately, the border seems more like the Berlin Wall, and functions mainly to separate families and interfere with wildlife migration. My father, in addition to working in the hardware store and going to the University of Arizona in Tucson, helped my grandfather on the ranches he owned. My mother, who was called Ruth Mary, told us that the first time she saw my father, he was riding his horse up the stairs of her sorority house. He was pursuing someone who was not my mother, but his eye was soon drawn to her. She was passionate about math. Her father was Lloyd G. Copeman, a well-known inventor, with the electric toaster, electric stove, rubber ice cube tray, and pneumatic grease gun to his credit. He also operated an experimental dairy farm Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir the Michigan countryside and, early in the twentieth century, invented a milking machine. Thinking that the oven was too expensive to manufacture, he never patented it. He worked closely with Charles Stewart Mott, then chairman of the board of General Motors, and developed a great deal of what was then state-of-the-art equipment in the Buick factory in Flint, Michigan. Old Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. Mott was fond of my mother and came many times to visit us in the wilds Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir Tucson. We read it regularly in Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir Tucson Daily Citizen. Coming from such a background, my mother must have found my father, and the Arizona desert that had shaped him, to be richly exotic. My father, known as Gilbert, was handsome and somewhat shy. He rarely spoke unless he Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir something worthy to say. When he did speak, his words carried a quiet authority. He had a beautiful baritone singing voice that sounded like a cross between Pedro Infante, the famous Mexican matinee idol and singer, and Frank Sinatra. My mother surely thought she was marrying into a gene pool that would produce mathematicians, but my grandfather was also a musician, so musicians were what she got. He taught people how to play their instruments, conducted the band, composed and arranged, and played the flute. I have the cornet part written in his own hand from an instrumental arrangement he wrote for The Pirates of Penzance in He was a widower when he married my grandmother. A daughter from his first marriage, Luisa Espinel, was a singer, dancer, and music scholar who collected and performed traditional songs and dances from northern Mexico and many regions in Spain. In the twenties, she wrote a letter home to my grandfather from Spain, where she had been performing. In it she reported that she was hugely excited about a guitarist she had hired to be her accompanist. She said he Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir such a brilliant player that he could hold the audience when she left the stage to change costumes. She wanted to bring him to the United States because she was sure he would make a huge hit with American audiences and eventually establish his own career. When we were small children, visits from Aunt Luisa were wonderfully exciting. She taught my sister how to do the Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir and how to play the castanets, and allowed her to try on the beautiful regional Spanish costumes that she had worn as a dancer. She had lived many years in Spain and been married to a painter who was a Communist and had supported the cause to establish a republic in the Spanish Civil War. We found her deliriously glamorous. Many years later, I would take the title of a collection of Mexican folk songs and stories she published called Canciones de Mi Padre, and use it to title my own first recording of traditional Mexican songs. My mother and father married in When the war started and my father joined the army, our mother went to work at night in the control tower of Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, the base outside of Tucson. Toward the end of the war, the planes that flew out of there on their way to war were mostly brand-new Boeing B Superfortresses. After the war was over, all but a few of the Bs that could still fly came back to Davis-Monthan, part of which became a graveyard for the decommissioned planes of World War II. Their flight path took them directly over Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir house. My mother would catch the sound of their engines and run outside and wave at them frantically. We kids would wave too. She had launched them into battle from her control tower, and she must have felt some obligation and no small amount of emotion to welcome home the ones that made Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir back alive. I was steeped in the sound of the Bs in my childhood and often tried to emulate it in the string arrangements in my recordings. It seems to appear in the grind between the cello and double bass, particularly in the interval of a fifth. In the treacherous currents of the Great Depression and World War II, my grandfather nearly lost his hardware business. I believe it was a decision that caused him some disappointment, but family loyalties prevailed. He and his brothers helped my grandfather with the ranch and the hardware store, finally selling off the ranch and plowing the money back into the store. They managed to survive the Depression and build the business. There was never any extra cash, but we had what we needed. My mother used to joke that when she first met my father, he had a red convertible, a horse, a ranch, and a guitar. After she married him, all he had left was the guitar. He had my mother too. They rarely quarreled, and when they did, it was well out of earshot of their children. Newcomers to the desert are shocked when I suggest to them that the most dangerous thing in it is not the poisonous Gila monster or the sidewinder rattlesnake that also makes its home there. It is water. Water is not quick to be absorbed into the hard-packed desert floor. Instead, it runs all over the surface of the ground and reflects the gray clouds that temporarily mask the pitiless heat and glare of the Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir sun. This gives the sky and ground a silvery luminosity that is particular to desert landscapes, and transforms the desert itself into something that looks like a delicate construct of shimmering Venetian glass. Sometimes water can get trapped behind brush and debris that has blocked a dry streambed or arroyo, and when the pressure becomes more Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir the brush dam can bear, a flash flood is the result. The water takes on the appearance of a twisting, angry animal. The sound alone could Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir you to death. As very young children, we were warned to head immediately for high ground if there was any sign of rain on the horizon. We knew not to linger in the usually dry rivers and washes where we would spend hours hunting for sand rubies, Indian pottery shards, or maybe even gold. It was hot work moving around in the desert. We often went barefoot, but the ground in summer would become so hot that Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir could raise a blister. The remedy for this was to wet our feet, then dip them in the dry, powdery clay dust, then a little wet mud, and then back into the dust again until we had built up layers of earth to insulate us from the heat. It was very effective. The minute we were tall enough to climb onto the back of a horse, we added yet another layer to cushion us from the punishing hot ground. The first thing I remember ever really wanting, besides the close proximity of my parents, was a horse. My desire for a horse was as fierce as hunger and thirst. I stared at pictures of them in my little books, and drew and colored them with my pencils and crayons—usually colors like pale turquoise, lavender, and rosy pink, and not the more prosaic buckskin, bay, and Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir colors that I observed on the hides of real horses. There was one little girl, two years my senior, who lived near enough to visit. One of eight Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, her name was Dana, and she was friendly, smart, and had the thing I yearned for most, which was a pony of her own. Her pony was spotted black and white, his name was Little Paint, and a saintlier beast has never been born. Shetland ponies are often mischievous and can be quite naughty, bucking and biting and refusing to budge for their tiny riders. Who can blame them after all that we make them do, encumbering them with saddles and rigid metal bits and then expecting them to haul us around in the hot Arizona sun? Little Paint, a Shetland crossbred with the more sweet-natured and slightly bigger Welsh pony, was a perfect gentleman. Since there was only one of him, Dana and I would clamber up on his round back and ride double. He was a sturdy little fellow and bore us uncomplainingly wherever we bade him. It was like having a car at age four. I began to beg my parents for a pony of my own, drooping around the house and visibly pining, hinting that without a pony I might not be expected to live. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

I just loved Linda Ronstadt's music. I lost touch of what she played after I sold my lps and never got her in cds. This book was truly wonderful especially her earlier years. I never knew she got Glenn Frey and Don Henley togother and that she knew and played with emmylou harris and dolly parton. Her ties with Neil Young and on and on her musical history goes on. Wonderful book! The first inkling that Linda Ronstadt's "Simple Dreams, a Musical Memoir" would exceed my expectations came when the book got a very positive review from Jonathon Yardley in the Washington Post. The second clue came when I heard Ronstadt speak at the D. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir - she was witty, charming, direct, candid and passionate. About her music, her life in music and the people from the industry she had met in a career spanning 50 years. She told many interesting tales, some very funny, others rather touching. I had far underestimated how intelligent she is, but it quickly became evident at BookFest Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir she Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir rather lengthy, well thought out responses to questions, and went off-script for a few minutes on U. When asked about drugs, she admitted to sampling some, but no injectibles, and she slammed the door shut on the issue with "The only thing I ever was addicted to is reading". In the book she tells how she was constantly looking to enhance her skills by watching other performers, by participating in all-night jam sessions with some of the biggest names of the era, and by constantly taking on new challenges, e. She admits to her failings and her short-comings and she reluctantly accepts that she will never perform again. There were absolutely no pretensions evident in the book nor in the interview I Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. Let me close with a very brief sample of her writing. This is from the Acknowledgments: "He also suggested Even though I felt guilty about leaving Gilliana, Mischief, Sugar Britches, Blue, Africa, and Valentine out of my story, I know that he was right about that and Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir other things. I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard Linda Ronstadt's voice. I was riding in my Dad's old Chevy Impala and we had just turned on to Croyland Avenue, in my hometown, and this voice came out of the car radio: "You and I travel to the beat of a different drum When the song ended the dj announced that we'd been listening to the Stone Ponys. But who was that singer? Ronstadt often writes dismissively of her singing. While it's true that, as her career progressed, the material she took on and performed so brilliantly challenged her in ways that the earlier material did not, she's always been one of the most interesting and seductive singers - Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir or female - in all of pop music. In one of her more recent recordings she even took Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir cajun music and then, part way through the album, she slips in this gorgeous, spare heartfelt version of the old Left Banke song, Just Walk Away Renee, and makes it sound completely at home with the rest of the material. Along the way she has championed some of the best songwriters of the modern era, both American and Canadian, for whom she has a particular affection. But, I digress a bit - Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir enough to do with an artist of Ronstadt's stature - because what I really want to tell you about is, of course, this new book which is, quite simply, one of the best books about music I've ever read. For example, here's Ronstadt on the pleasures and perils of making music with Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir people: "When I hire a musician to record or perform, the first thing Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir look for is a shared sensibility. Whatever the musician listened to or read or saw or where he lived growing up informs every note he plays in Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir myriad of ways. There are so many choices to make - how loud or Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir to play a note, exactly where to place it rhythmically, what kind of textural or melodic embellishment to incorporate, where to add a harmony, how to voice a chord - all done in a split second. It simply can't be done on a conscious level but becomes a matter of instinct enabled by long practice. When a compatible group of players is assembled to serve a clearly defined musical vision, the result can be pure joy. If the group lacks a shared sensibility, it is pure misery. It's wonderfully clear sighted and informative about the creative process - a challenge to write about in any discipline - with only enough personal information to give you a better picture of the person responsible for the art. Linda, I can't help it if I'm still in love with you. If you want to know about Linda Ronstadt's life, look somewhere else. There is very little personal information and no emotion surrounding it. She Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir even mention Parkinson's, which she has elsewhere said is her reason for leaving her career, which was everything to her. However, if you want to know about establishing a career in music and the love of music in general, this is the place. This quote sums up the book: Someone once asked me why people sing. I answered that they sing for many of the same reasons the birds sing. They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day. Perhaps more than the birds do, humans hold a grudge. They sing to complain of how grievously they have been wronged, and how to avoid it in the future. They sing to help themselves execute a job of work. They sing so the subsequent generations won't forget what the current generation endured or dreamed, or delighted in. Love Linda. Love her music. In fact, I'm going to buy some stuff to add to what I have. The book is pretty disjointed. Her style is oddly stilted. She describes relationships as "I was keeping company with. Suddenly she talks about her children, without any indication of how or when they entered her life. I had to search Wikipedia to learn she adopted two children. No mention of her health issues. But fun to read the stories of her life intersecting with other musical legends. Here at Walmart. Your email address will never be sold or distributed to a third party for any reason. Sorry, but we can't respond to individual Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. If you need immediate assistance, please contact Customer Care. Your feedback helps us make Walmart shopping better for millions of customers. Recent searches Clear All. Enter Location. Update location. Learn more. Report incorrect product information. Linda Ronstadt. Walmart Book Format. Select Option. Current selection is: Paperback. Free 2-day delivery. Pickup not available. Add to list. Add to registry. Includes discography page and index. In this memoir, iconic singer Linda Ronstadt weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the s and '70s. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, in this beautifully crafted memoir, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir dominated American music in the s. One of her early backup bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda went on to become the most successful female artist of the decade. About This Item. We aim to show you accurate product information. Manufacturers, suppliers and others provide what you see here, and we have not verified Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. See our disclaimer. Tracing the timeline of her remarkable life, Linda Ronstadt, whose forty-five year career has encompassed a wide array of musical styles, weaves together a Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the s and '70s. Linda Ronstadt was born into a musical family, and her childhood was filled with everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Mexican folk music to jazz and opera. Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folkrock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. In Simple DreamsRonstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success, including stories behind many of her beloved songs. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang "Heart Like a Wheel"--longing, graceful, and authentic. Specifications Language English. Write a review See all reviews Write a review. Most helpful positive review. Average Rating: 5. See more. Most helpful negative review. Average Rating: 2. I hate to say it but Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir just didn't like it. Simple Dreams : A Musical Memoir - -

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir — Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, twelve Grammy Awards later, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey. Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folk-rock Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. After the dissolution of her first band, the Stone Poneys, Linda went out on her own and quickly found success. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the s. One of her early back-up bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda would become the most successful female artist of the decade. She has sold more than million records, won numerous awards, and toured all over the world. By Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir time she retired inRonstadt had spent four decades as one of the most popular singers in the world, becoming the first female artist in popular music to release four consecutive platinum albums. In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. More Details Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Simple Dreamsplease sign up. I read this book a few years back. Is there a way to find my review from then? See 2 questions about Simple Dreams…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. May 20, Jeanette Again rated it it was amazing Shelves: americacelebritiesbiography-memoirnonfictionedelfive-star-nonfiction. This book Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir now available, September After reading this memoir, I've fallen in love with Linda as a person. What a gracious, level-headed, gentle, modest lady she is. And if she didn't already have enough talents, we can now add writing Psst And if she didn't already have enough talents, we can now add writing to her list of creative abilities. The entire book has a mellow vibe. Even the unpleasant events are related with equanimity and with generosity toward those who wronged her. This is not an autobiography in the traditional sense of the word. After Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir opening chapters about her upbringing in Arizona, the rest of her story stays focused on the evolution of her musical career. Linda doesn't dish a lot about the people who have shared her life. There are only two brief mentions of Jerry Brown, with whom she had a highly publicized relationship. Likewise, there are only a few sentences about her children, and she never uses their names. Everything else is about the music, but there are plenty Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir entertaining and unsettling stories to keep things lively. The seeds of Linda's musical versatility are rooted in her childhood, where the various generations of her family enjoyed everything from classical to mariachi music. Her huge success came from a combination of talent, flexibility, and being in all the right places in an era when country, rock, and folk music were merging and evolving into something new. She always returned to her roots when deciding on a new musical Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. Highly recommended for her fans, as well as anyone interested in the American music scene from the '60s and '70s all the way up until she retired in View all 15 comments. Sep 24, Karen Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir rated it it was ok. It pains me to write this. I have Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir for this book since I learned of its inception. I own her albums, I've gone to many a Ronstadt concert. If you've been a fan of Ronstadt over the years - as I have, most assuredly - you will know pretty much all of what she has to offer here. Over the years, she had admitted to and discussed Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir various boyfriends, both long-term and short term in articles and interviews It pains me to write this. Over the years, she had admitted to and discussed her various boyfriends, both long-term and short term in articles and interviews. It's kind of incongruous to now refer to these relationships as "sweethearts" and "keeping company" Jerry Brown. It's almost too Victorian and almost feministically backward for a woman her age and with her long career highlights. Although she says the book is not about her personal life but about the music, she was at one time engaged Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir a music producer while working on her Cajun music projects no mention of him and before that, was involved with other musicians Lowell George of Little Feat, for one. She recorded her music for a period of time while involved with George Lucas as Skywalker Ranch. He wanted to marry her. This sudden demureness doesn't make sense and sounds phony. Her children appear from almost out of nowhere, and I'm sure her readers would like to know more about them, not intimate details I understand Ronstadt's need for family privacybut how she came to be a mother. This topic is skipped over almost to the point of being insulting to her son and daughter. She talks more about her childhood pony. Another reviewer said " And I would've liked to understand how or why she came to be such a notoriously fan-unfriendly entertainer. She seems the loyal, gregarious sort, yet not at all toward the people who are largely responsible for her commercial success. It made me think of something I heard her say just recently. Ronstadt said, in an interview just last week to promote this new memoir, that she's strapped for cash. A friend and I wondered how that could be, especially after all these years and all her successes? She complained that "song writers make all the money", and she made her money Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir with touring after recording and releasing her albums, which she can no longer do. Did she agree to this book, a very slight volume, to make a few bucks? I feel somewhat duped :- I really do wish Ronstadt well, and I do hope she follows up this Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir tenuous volume with her life after a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease. There is more to tell, and her fans are interested. View all 9 comments. Feb 03, Janet rated it really liked it. I have been listening to a lot of Linda Ronstadt's music again lately. It was the soundtrack of my late teens and twenties and I've never tired of her musical sensibilities. I could listen to anything she sang, even la Boheme. Some reviewer complain there was no personal dirt, no real mention of lovers, etc. I shrug my shoulders. Linda was always about the music. It's what I love about her. No one I have been listening to a lot of Linda Ronstadt's music again lately. No one will ever sing like her. She was simply the best. View all 3 comments. Loved this simply, beautifully written memoir by Linda Ronstadt. It only covers a musical history with tiny bits of non-musical personal history but every bit of information about her childhood was really special. It was clear to see how very much her early years informed her musical choices later in life.