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“Nelson was at the top of his talent when he wrote my charts. The album was arranged by Nelson Riddle, the genius who had worked with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland and Nat King Cole. In 1986 she recorded the gorgeous album For Sentimental Reasons, which featured songs from The Great American Songbook, along with guest musicians of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Louie Bellson and bass player Ray Brown. She played the lead in the Broadway Shakespeare Festival production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance, and then began to extend her recorded repertoire, adding show tunes to the growing list of best Linda Ronstadt songs. In the 80s, Ronstadt showed how adventurous she was when it came to experimenting with her range. Newman in turn said her voice was so powerful that he affectionately nicknamed her “Mighty Mouse”. “Randy’s stuff is really hard to sing because it has so many layers, and his writing is doing the commenting, is doing the 19 layers that’s making a fool of the primary voice,” Ronstadt said.
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Ronstadt often sang backing vocals on Newman’s albums – and she returned to work with him on his 1995 album, Randy Newman’s Faust. The track featured the brilliant drummer Russ Kunkel and Steely Dan guitarist Larry Eugene Carlton. Her splendid version of Newman’s masterpiece, Sail Away, a withering satirical song about the slave trade, was on her 1973 album, Don’t Cry Now. She also recorded a moving rendition of Newman’s haunting love song Feels Like Home. “You have to mark me down as a drooling, slobbering Randy Newman fan,” said Linda Ronstadt, who first cut one of the great songwriter’s compositions when she was just 22, when she covered Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad in 1969. Listen to the best of Linda Ronstadt here, and check out our best Linda Ronstadt songs, below. At her peak, Ronstadt left an indelible mark on the classic-rock era with hits such as That’ll Be The Day and It’s So Easy. In her late career, before Parkinson’s disease rendered her unable to sing, Ronstadt triumphed with albums of Mexican music and, later, records that honoured The Great American Songbook. She recorded brilliant interpretations of songs by Warren Zevon, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, James Taylor and Jimmy Webb, among many others. Though Ronstadt, who was born in Tucson, Arizona, on 15 July 1946, was never a songwriter, she was one of the most astute artists ever when it came to picking the right songs to cover. Her four-decade career produced sales of more than 50 million albums and earned her ten Grammy Awards, the National Medal Of Arts and membership in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Linda Ronstadt is one of the most versatile vocalists of all time the best Linda Ronstadt songs prove that she excelled at singing country, rock’n’roll, big band, jazz, opera, Broadway standards and Mexican tunes.