490. Linda Ronstadt, "Heart Like a Wheel"

 

What are you doing all the way down here, Heart Like a Wheel?  You can’t hear this today without thinking about how it shows up in all the Phoebe Bridgers and Lana del Reys of the world.  Linda Ronstadt has such a heartbreaking and beautiful voice.  

A couple of interesting things about this album.  As far as I can tell, every song on this album is a cover.  "You're No Good," probably the best known song on the album, was first performed by Betty Everett.  "When Will I Be Loved" is, of course, an old Everly Brothers track.  And "Willin'," a great pro-crank trucker ballad, is a Little Feat song and I hope "Waiting for Columbus," Little Feat's truly awesome live album, is somewhere on this list.  I can't imagine someone releasing an all-covers album now and it being a huge #1 hit for years.  

The second interesting thing is that this album is #34 on CMT's list of the 40 greatest country albums of all time and I didn't even register it as a country album! Now that I listen to it again I'm still not sure I hear it as a country album.  I guess I'm wrong!

SPEAKING OF WHEELS, we rode on the Golden Gate Park ferris wheel yesterday.


Definitely worth the money!  You get your own little enclosed cabin and it's a nice view (although not remarkably different from the view you get from the tower of the de Young nearby).  My only recurring thought was "GOD I HOPE THERE'S NOT AN EARTHQUAKE WHILE WE'RE ON THIS WE WILL ROLL ALL THE WAY TO THE SEA" which tell you more about me than the Golden Gate Park ferris wheel.

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