Having a Wild Weekend

Having a Wild Weekend (aka Catch Us if You Can)(John Boorman, 1965) If you're old enough to remember "The British Invasion" back in the 1960's, you might remember the name of "The Dave Clark Five", one of the British pop bands that was dominating American air-waves and record charts after the barrier had been broken by The Beatles. The Beatles caused a sensation, making their American TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show for three weeks in a row, but my memory remembers The DC5 being the group that appeared on Ed's variety show in the weeks following The Beatles' American tour...before The Animals and before The Rolling Stones.

 

They were a great group, with a tougher, fuller sound than their contemporaries, with great "hooks" that had an ability to become ear-worms instantly, even though their lyrics had little depth. But, you didn't care—they were free-wheeling, rocking musicians with throat-bleeding lead vocals by the inimitable Mike Smith.

 

And if you weren't a "rebel" group (like the Animals or the Stones), but pop, there was the standard foray into other entertainment forms, following the shimmying footsteps of Elvis—Herman's Hermits made films and Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddie and the Dreamers and Cliff Richard* and on and on. The Dave Clark Five made one, too, but it wasn't a hit, barely featured the DC5, but can boast it was the first feature directed by British director John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory).

Unlike in The Beatles films, The DC5 don't play themselves—indeed, they don't even "perform" any of their songs, but a couple of tunes are used as background for edited hi-jinks—they're stuntmen/extras who are being used in an ad campaign for a British meat-packing plant, the most prominent of the commercials and billboards featuring Dinah (Barbara Ferris) "The Butcher Girl" extolling the virtues of meat to the British public. That an ad agency would use a swinging Blond "bird" as their symbol for meat is an absurd concept (but one that isn't inconceivable in the advertising world) and Boorman has a fine time larking about London showing more and more of the incongruous campaign, which, evidently, is doing the job as the city seems festooned with billboards.

The plot starts when, on a commercial-shoot with Dinah and the boys, Steve (Dave Clark) strikes up a conversation with her and discovers that 1) she's bought her own private island in Devon and 2) she's bored and tired with her life. He could tell her that she is fundamentally well-off that she can afford to be bored and actually does have some agency and maybe she should sleep on it and give it 24 hours. Then, there wouldn't be a movie. But, no. He steals the ad agency's Jaguar and the two go off to find her island. Because that's what young, energetic, swinging 60's kids do, dad! And ad agency exec's—who are paying for studio-time—then send the police and whatever goon-squad they can find to bring them back.

Which is just what Dinah's ad-agency pygmalion, Zissell (David de Keyser) does. Hi-jinks and low social comedy ensue, cutting a swath through a limited number of 60's outliers like vagabond-Brit-hippies and upper-class eccentrics, where if a point was being made it's a bit hard to discern. The trip to the island doesn't prove pointless, but it does have a bit of a let-down in store ("It smells of dead holidays, doesn't it?"). Not the kind of "gas" they were expecting.

But, another way that Having a Wild Weekend separates itself from the usual pop-film fluff (aside from only leaving the band-mates as cyphers and concentrating on Clark's character—he was, after all, the group's manager and impresario) is decidedly down-beat ending, where all the gadabouting and free-thinking comes to naught when confronted by economic reality, power dynamics and the superficial benefits of fame. Hardly the message of peace, love, and understanding associated with the 1960's or rock n' roll. That could be why the film didn't do so well. But it did give Boorman enough attention to get his next gig directing Point Blank, a genre-piece with its own subversive take on noir, business, and corruptibility.

"Tried it once. Didn't fancy it."

 

* I remember, as a kid, having to suffer through Richard's film Summer Holiday, the first film of the double bill, at the Seattle premier of A Hard Day's Night. I have a vague memory of it as being insufferable and more amused at the Beatles-starved audience being impatient with it. Summer Holiday was directed by another up-and-coming director, Peter Yates. It was a hit in Britain, though, earning the position of the 2nd most popular film of 1963, right behind From Russia With Love.

Woodstock

Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970)  

 

Interviewer: What do you think about the kids?

Police Officer: From what I've heard from the outside sources for many years I was very, very much surprised and I'm very happy to say we think the people of this country should be proud of these kids, not withstanding the way they dress or the way they wear their hair, that's their own personal business; but their, their inner workings, their inner selves, their, their self-demeanour cannot be questioned; they can't be questioned as good American citizens.

Interviewer: That's kind of surprising coming from a cop.

Police Officer: [smiling] I'm not a cop, I'm the Chief of Police.

Well, what do you say about Woodstock, the documentary film of the rock festival that made history in the short-lived Summer of Love? That was—what?—54 years ago?

Chaotic, but, as such, it was true to its subject.

As with most documentaries, "it is what it is." But—even though it is a documentary—it is, as such, subject to a narrative thrust that is imposed in the editing phase, which was daunting. Look at the statistics: There were 14 to 18 cameras filming it over three days, under strenuous conditions, night-shots, in the rain and mud, by camera-men with very little sleep, who would circle the acts like gladiators, sometimes catching each other in the frames, at angles looking up at the performers, meaning they were on their knees or hunched, trying to maintain their positions and their angles. They brought back 50 miles of film—one hundred and twenty hours of exposed film. Just to watch all of it took two weeks, even before editing started.

"Somebody was saying this is the second largest city in New York. There's been no police. There's been no trouble. If you check the statistics out, you'll find out these people at three hundred plus thousand people have lived together peacefully."

 

Then, they had to sync picture to sound, and picture to picture—opposing angles from different sources had to match frame or it would destroy the illusion of watching a performance in real-time. Then, they had to make sense of it all, not just the performances, which would be the "draw" for the audience, but also those in attendance, which was the biggest story (so many people—400,000—crammed into such a small space, experiencing—only a couple thousand could actually see the acts, most just getting the sound, usually at a distance). The crews that built the stage, lit the stage, cleaned the stage, in rain or sun. The massive undertaking to get people on the stage to entertain a small city. Interviews with townsfolk who looked at the spectacle and supposed it was a disaster or a triumph, even the local merchants, who pitched in to feed the overflow crowd. 

All were photographed dutifully, painfully. And at a Warner Brothers-stipulated running time of 3 hours, the editors had to cull the highlights, choosing to put as much footage as possible on the screen, choosing a three-screens-in-one widescreen presentation, that, in certain moments becomes phantasmagorical.*

"The forecast for this afternoon is: intermittent entertainment between intermittent showers."

 

Under Wadleigh's supervision, the editing team led by Martin Scorsese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker (with an uncredited assist from Walter Murch and a squadron of other editors) began to shape a story out of the chaos, that, in its long-form, captures a moment in a declared state of emergency where the music was really good, and the crowd was appreciative and "made do."

 

Two people died at Woodstock. Two were born. Statistically, that makes for a zero population growth, one of the many societal concerns at the time. There was also a war going on, which was ridiculed and mocked by the performers on-stage, but when the U.S. Army started supplying helicopters to transfer sick, injured and overdosed to nearby hospitals, their efforts were lauded from the stage ("Somebody may have noticed or all of you may have noticed, our familiar colored helicopter over there. The United States Army has lent us some medical teams and giving us a hand. They're with us, man! They are not against us! They're with us and they're here to give us all a hand and help us."). Survival was the order of the day. Survival with some of the best musical acts extant.

"Lotta freaks!"

Here's who appears in the film:

Richie Havens—an intense set of "Handsome Johnny" and "Freedom"/"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." Havens was the first artist to perform, even though he was scheduled to be fifth. But, the opening act was Sweetwater, was stuck in traffic—so was Havens' bass player, for that matter—and Havens reluctantly took the stage, telling promoter Michael Lang that he would owe him big-time if the crowd threw bottles at him. He needn't have worried. Havens' set went on for nearly an hour, including three encores—the third, an entirely impromptu song he made up on the spot, "Freedom." Havens would joke that he had to go see the movie to write down what it was he actually sang!

Canned Heat—the Director's Cut contains one song—"A Change is gonna Come" from their one hour set, although their hit "Goin' Up the Country" is played over the opening credits.

Joan Baez—although six months pregnant at the time of the concert, and with her husband in prison, Baez performs "Joe Hill" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" in the film.

The Who—in what may be the longest sequence in the film, play "We're Not Going to Take it" and "See Me, Feel Me" from the concept album/opera "Tommy" and "Summertime Blues."

Sha-Na-Na—the classic oldies rock group play "At the Hop."

Joe Cocker—in one of the more classic sequences from the film, Cocker belts his hit waltz-time man-possessed soul cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends."

Country Joe and the Fish—the first film sequence featuring the band is their song "Rock and Soul Music." 

Arlo Guthrie—Guthrie looked out at the huge crowd, noted the numbers and commented "Lotta freaks!" then launches into "Coming into Los Angeles"

Crosby, Stills, and Nash—new member Neil Young played in their electric portion, but when the harmonizing trio went acoustic he bowed out. The film features a performance of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" followed by a comment from Stills:

This is the second time we've ever played in front of people, man, we're scared shitless.

Ten Years After—Alvin Lee's blues band plays an intense version of "I'm Going Home" and the film has a three-screen presentation set mostly on Lee's face.

Jefferson Airplane—in the initial cut, the band's relegated to one song "Saturday Afternoon", but the Director's Cut includes two more, "Won't You Try" and "Uncle Sam's Blues."

John Sebastian—the front-man for The Lovin' Spoonful wasn't even scheduled, but was in the audience and coached onto the stage to fill time for the next act to arrive. He sings "Younger Generation."

Country Joe and the Fish return for "The FISH cheer" and the acerbically cheeky "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag"

Santana—Carlos Santa's jazz-rock band performs a furious version of "Soul Sacrifice" and while the film does give Santana his solo shots, the emphasis is on the band's incredible rhythm section.

Sly and the Family Stone—the eclectic generator of hits puts on a great show, encouraging the huge crowd to sing-along to "I Want to Take you Higher" after finishing off a thumping version of "Dance to the Music."

Janis Joplin—"Pearl" does an ecstatic version of "Work Me, Lord" (which was—stunningly—left off the original cut, but re-instated to the Director's Cut). Joplin did her show at 2 in the morning, but she doesn't betray any tiredness in a rangy voice that never wavers from her dancing performance, accompanied by the Kozmic Blues Band.

Jimi Hendrix—the final act, done on the last day, where half of the audience had already left, anticipating the grueling exit from Yasgur's farm through the small town of Bethel. The 1970 version leaves out his performance of "Voodoo Child" and starts with Hendrix's iconic stunning electric version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and finishes with a stormy haunting performance of "Purple Haze" to bring the curtain down...if there was a curtain.

(Jeez, I'm exhausted!)

 

Quite the presentation. But, still, even the four hour edit leaves out such bands as "The" Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Ravi Shankar, Tim Hardin, Melanie, Johnny Winter, and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. One should be grateful for what one has, and agreements had been made with some of the performers for various reasons (B,S,&T, for example, didn't like how their performance sounded). But, it's a great highlights reel, condensation, and representation, and maybe a palimpsest for another cut somewhere down the long road.

But, Woodstock did its job. The film saved the promoters of the festival from financial ruin after giving up trying to sell tickets to a crowd that just showed up.

 

In 1996, Woodstock—which won the Best Documentary Oscar in 1971—was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." All the films put in the Registry fill that bill, in one way, or another, but, with Woodstock, it feels like an understatement.

Woodstock, the festival and film, are equally and separately, something of a miracle.

The crowd: too big to fit the frame

The cutters: trying to get it down to size.

Schoonmaker, Murch, Wadleigh and Scorsese

 * The Director's Cut, released in 1994, runs 224 minutes and that's the version I watched.

We Are the Thousand

We Are the Thousand (Anita Rivaroli, 2020) It started as a dream, really. Fabio Zafagnini had this dream of seeing the Foo Fighters, but thought they'd never show up in his little town in Cesena, Italy. So, he and a few friends came up with an idea to get noticed—create (literally) the World's Biggest Band of 1000 players to play one song for a video, hoping to get noticed. 

 

For the song, they chose something they thought would be easy to play—"Learn to Fly" Then, they formed a corporation, got a web-site, announced their intentions, and asked for auditions of people who could play...drums, bass, guitar, or vocals. They get thousands and they invite their favorites to a racetrack in Cesena for July 26th in 2015. 

 

Then they have to figure out how to make it work. One thousand players? Spread over several meters? How will they stay in sync, without sounding mushy? They come up with a lighting system that counts out the beats...make sure they have enough audio equipment, cameras, microphones, electricity, etc. The players are bringing their own instruments, so...

 

But...is it going to happen?

Sì! Certo! People from 14 to 60 years arrive, toting their gear. Everybody is checked in and assigned their spots (remember, distance is a factor in their syncing) and, after a shaky first rehearsal of drums only, the sync is established...and it's amazing. The rules are: keep the beat; no solos; no riffing during the breaks. Other than that, have fun.

Director Rivaroli is in on the process from near the beginning and her incessant camera serves as a fly-on-the-wall for meetings, discussions, doubts, and kvetching in the year-long process to set the thing up, and during the performance, it's like there are cameras everywhere, cranes, drones, hand-helds, all the while capturing the crazy joy of all walks of life being a band.

 

The tale of Zafagnini's crazy idea and how it ballooned out of a personal quest and turns into its own Next Big Thing is extremely inclusive filled with talking heads with a vast number of participants and only really drags when it concentrates on a single individual and doesn't see the whole collective as not just a means to an end, but the means have more meaning than anyone might have realized.

In a way, it reminds me of Sad Hill Unearthed, the 2017 documentary of a few movie zealots who made it their mission to recreate the iconic cemetery location in Burgos, Spain where the final act of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was filmed. The same crazy passion is in full display, but the rewards are so much richer than even when their goals are achieved, it brings a cock-eyed smile to your face.

Plus, the music is amazing.

As the line from a contestant on AGFT sang last week "Don't quit your day-dream."

The video that started it all...

Respect

re: 'Re

or

Tell You What She Means To Me...

 

There had been an Aretha Franklin bio-pic in the works for some time, and it was inevitable with the successes of Ray, Walk the Line, Get On Up, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Rocketman. Supposedly, Franklin didn't mind the project and did some work approving it before her death in 2018. It's debut last Christmas was delayed by the Corona virus pandemic and it managed to make its debut on-screens near the anniversary of her passing.

 

It is expecting too much for the resulting movie, Respect, to do her justice. Franklin was an original, one of those barrier-breakers who created a genre by doing her own thing, galvanizing the music of the past and sending it soaring into the future, doing it her way, not just as a stylist, but as a creator. An established song in Aretha's guardianship became something else entirely, almost unrecognizable from the source. She had a fierce discipline in the studio, and an evangelical core of inspiration and expression. 

And her voice was powerful, scarily rafter-shaking. When Luciano Pavarotti called in to The Emmy's one year, pleading illness, it should have come as no surprise that Franklin, as a last-minute replacement, would knock it out of the theater (and probably cure Pavarotti's cold, as well!)—one can see that performance in one of the clips provided below. She was the Queen of Soul, in a time when jazz and gospel greats were still around to say "Amen." And probably "Hallelujah!"

The first scene sets the stage. The Rev C.L.Franklin (Forest Whittaker) wakes up a 10 year old Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) to tell her she's supposed to sing for his party guests. As she makes her way to the living room, she waves to her Dad's acquaintances, "Hi, Mr. Tatum!" "Hi, Uncle Duke!" "Hi, Aunt Ella!" "Hi, Uncle Sam!" Hey, no pressure, kid. But, she manages to belt out her song impressing the luminaries. Aretha and her sisters live with their father and grandmother in Detroit, while their Mother (Audra McDonald) lives apart. Aretha lives for those visits with her mother, who counsels her to never let any man control her, that she never has to sing if she doesn't want to, or speak if she doesn't want to.

Whether her mother ever spoke those words is a matter of conjecture, but they might be a dramatic contrivance as Aretha, once her Mother has passed, stops speaking, stops singing (until counseled by Rev. James Cleveland—played by Tituss Burgess—that "music will save your life!"), and is victimized by a pedophile-friend of her father's, resulting in her first pregnancy at the age of 12. Then, her father starts using her in his services and she begins to sing during events for the Rev. King. At this point, we have a confused young woman torn between her gifts and others' desires to control them, which frustrates her and makes her succumb to "her demons." Such as taking up with bad-boys, like her first husband and eventual manager Ted White (Marlon Wayans), much against her father's wishes. It will be a contentious marriage with physical abuse and a wrestling match over crowing rights when she becomes a success.

But, that success doesn't come quickly enough for Aretha, who is grateful to be signed with Columbia Record (Tate Donovan plays producer John Hammond, and rather unctuously), but spins out four records of standards without a hit—the frustration is palpable as she is separated in her vocal booth from a studio full of white orchestra men. A dust-up at a club performance by a hacked-off Dinah Washington (Mary J. Blige in full dudgeonous diva mode), who suspects Franklin of riding her coat-tails and wasting her own talent, has her making a move (through the machinations of White) to Atlantic Records and producer Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron—priceless), who is willing to give her just enough leverage for her to sign.

But, rather than record in New York, as she's used to, Wexler takes her to Muscles Shoals, Alabama, with a motley crew of white musicians with attitude, where tensions run a little high, but Franklin starts getting the sound she wants. She starts to chart and as her star rises, so does White's desire to be seen as the genius behind the sound.

There have been enough of these "rock-star biographies" that one could walk in with a list of check-boxes and start marking them off—professional jealousy, bad partner, shady managers, unfulfilling success, going off the rails, substance abuse (with stage fall), and revelation followed by redemption. One wishes that the scripts emphasis on Aretha seeking love and approval might make it unique, but that's about every music-biography through-line (whether "based on a true story" or fictional) that's ever been done. I told a friend that I'd seen Respect and the reply was "Isn't that the Tina Turner story?" and after a beat, said "Well, actually, yes...yes it is!"

 

The only difference is we're talking about Aretha flippin' Franklin, and the talent that can't be denied, and however familiar the trail, that is still one mountainous talent that one has to try and duplicate.

It's got to be a daunting task to play Aretha Franklin, but Jennifer Hudson is up to it. You can quibble with the sound (maybe, but, jeez' she's as close as you can come), and she's got Franklin's speaking voice and demeanor down. It's like director John Milius said about casting Arnold Schwarzenegger for Conan the Barbarian: "If we didn't use him, we'd have to BUILD one!" That's how tough it is. Franklin's in our shared musical DNA—one of the voices in our collective heads. Doing an imitation will get you through a song, but not a full-length movie, and Hudson barrels her way through it and does the hardest work with her eyes. Look, if Rami Malik can win an Oscar for Freddie Mercury, Hudson should be a sure thing for this performance, both acting AND singing an indomitable role. Let's just give it to her NOW.

And now, Aretha Franklin...

The Wrecking Crew! (2008)

Written at the time of the film's fund-raising campaign at select theaters. After a Kickstarter campaign, the film was released nationally in 2015. 

And now, look at that...you can watch it on YouTube for free. 

Amazing

Unsung Artists of Note
or
Who the Hell Played It

They're the recording artists you don't know. The hit-makers. The band-members who never got credit. The recording artists who never got royalties. The ones who didn't tour (although some did). The ones who made The Sound.  

You could call them The Beach Boys or The Monkees, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, The Markettes, The T-Bones, The Byrds, The Tijuana Brass, Buffalo Springfield, The Association, The Mamas and the Papas, because they were playing the instruments for the recordings for all those groups.

They're the session musicians who walked in, got the sheet-music and made them sing through their playing, their economy, their versatility, and their incredible talent. Then, they got paid, walked out, and went to their next gig at another studio.

But, they provided the tightness of the arrangements of "Good Vibrations," the thumping bass of "The Beat Goes On" and "These Boots Are Made for Walkin,'" the sass in the sax for "The Pink Panther Theme," the bristling guitars of the "Bonanza" Theme, "Batman," the "Mission: Impossible" Theme, and so many more, their style and fingering are etched in those sounds that are the authentic vibes that echo in our memories as "authentic." And in so many cases, their sounds are irreplaceable, unmatchable, unique. Their breath and their fingerprints are all over the music of the songs of the '50's and the '60's.

And nobody knows their names. Hal Blaine. Karen Caye. Plas Nelson. Tommy Tedesco. Just a handful of the corps of L.A. session musicians who made the hits and backed the famous and their inimitable recordings. The name that was tossed around in the industry for them was The Wrecking Crew!

And the ultimate irony is that their presence in so much music is so pervasive, ever-present, and so essential to the telling of their story that it may make it impossible to see this movie celebrating them. It's a labor of love for the director and instigator, Tedesco's son, Denny, and so it has to be done right, and thus the music has to be there—it (and the interviews that make up the core of the film) cannot be told without it. But each one of those songs costs money to use in the film, and though the piper has been paid, the rights-holders to those songs must be satisfied. And there is so much music, integral to the telling of the tale, to lose anything would be to compromise...and that doesn't seem right for these artists. 

The cost is prohibitive, and so Tedesco is raising money through small screenings—one of which I attended the other night—to raise funds to pay off the reproduction, mechanical and distribution rights for the soundtrack to put the show on the road and get it seen...and especially heard. One screening at a time, one of those songs is cemented into the movie and its future, like the parts of an orchestra, the colors, creating a unified whole, the complete story in song.

It is so much fun to watch this movie—I had a big smile on my face throughout—that is a privilege to beat a tambourine in its praise. It is the best outcome—in every aspect—if you get a chance to see this marvelous film.

It Might Get Loud

It Might Get Loud (Davis Guggenheim, 2009) Between making An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman', (and the occasional tv work like the pilots for "The Defenders," filmmaker Davis Guggenheim did one for fun: It Might Get Loud, a summit, if you will, of three electric guitar aficionados, Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White.  The axe-men were brought together to talk, but as Page wryly notes "there will be guitars there, so who knows?" 

What's interesting about the documentary and hearing them three men talk is their completely different approaches to using the electric guitar: for Page, it's technique; for The Edge, it's technology; for White, it's breaking it down to the bare essentials. All three do things nobody else does with the electric guitar, approaching the instrument with a completely different mind-set, as writers approach a piece of paper.

It reduces them to human beings, all capable of greatness, but not fathoming where each gets it ("I can't tell you what a 'process' is" says Page at one point): to see the unbridled love in the eyes of The Edge and White as they watch Page play the opening to "Whole Lotta Love," how Edge intensely scrutinizes White's fingering during a jam session, all three's tales of creative crises—Page's dissatisfaction with studio sessions, Edge's dealing with writing the "War" album, White, how to create a blues aesthetic in a world of "packaged" music and bands.

And it is fun to watch them eye each other and tell tales and compare notes, artisans and students all.  My favorite moments are with White, whose work I know the least and who always veers precipitously close to the edge of pretension: the first opens the film as he builds a guitar out of scrap wood and a pick-up; the second, is in the extras, and has Page and Edge ask about a particular riff that White wrote for "Seven Nation Army" and White tells the tale of how he socked it away "if I was going to write a James Bond theme song or something." But Edge wants to know how he did it, and when White tells them, the others' eyes go wide with the simplicity of it, and both have to try it. Then, they all riff, finding possibilities. "That'll be five dollars," White cracks.

I'm not a musician, but I appreciate musicianship*, and I have no particular interest in electric guitars, but I like good stories told by good people.  And It Might Get Loud sure is fun.

* My favorite comment on that subject came from a rap-artist I was recording—on the subject of Jimi Hendrix—and someone said something about a certain recorded performance being lack-luster, and the guy paused, considered what to say, and said "Ya know...as many grains of sand there are on the beach...THAT's how many times Carlos Santana has played "Black Magic Woman." Wisdom, there. It's not just about innovation...it's about discipline, too.

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

The Last Man Standing
or
"No, I Didn't Re-Invent Myself. I Never Invented Myself to Begin With."

"There Are a Lot of Good Female Singers Around. How Could I Be the Best? Ronstadt's Still Alive"

Pat Benatar

There's this thing that happens to me. I've worked with Sound for a number of years, so I notice it. I notice my reactions to it. One of those things is when a vocal artist goes from a resting volume to full-throated in a split-second. My heart gives an involuntary jump and tears can come to my eyes.  Now, I know you're expecting me to talk about Linda Ronstadt (because that's her on the left), but it's also happened with the late announcer of the Seattle Mariners, Dave Niehaus, who would lull you with talking about how green the grass is in the outfield and the count is 1-2 and SWUNG ON AND BELTED DEEP TO RIGHT FIELD! AND THAT BALL IS GONNA FLY, FLY AWAY....

Instant heart-bump. I remember I heard a call like that while I was listening to highlights of a Mariners season for a potential broadcast introduction, potential because there was discussion that the team was going to move, and I heard one of those "0 to 60" calls Niehaus could do and, realizing I might never hear that again and get that amazing heart-bump again, I started to cry. Silly. But it happened.

So...Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt does that to me, too. She does that on "You're No Good," starting sultry, then on the third verse ("I learned my lesson, it left a scar...") amping it up so you hear the power in the voice and then going full-bore on the chorus. Heart-bump. 

Linda Ronstadt at 16...barefoot.

I didn't really appreciate what Ronstadt could do until later in her career when she stopped focusing on charting pop songs (actually, that was producer Peter Asher of "Peter and Gordon" fame) and started exploring what she could do with her voice...doing "Pirates of Penzance" for Joe Papp on stage and in a movie version, then doing three albums of American standards with Nelson Riddle doing the arrangements—that's when I noticed what she was doing. Those albums became favorites of mine because Ronstadt played those songs superbly and Riddle's orchestrations always amaze me.

Then, she went on to do music from Mexico because she grew up on it, living near the Mexican border in Arizona, and because she respected it enough to "do it right". There were also collaborations with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, when they formed a mutual admiration society and did a series of albums together. Ronstadt started doing more collaborations with singers she admired because as she says in her new biographical film Linda Ronstadt—The Sound of My Voice: "I was a harmony singer without any material." Plus, she's sold enough records for her backers that they couldn't deny her.

But, how she got there...now that's the story.

It started out with her singing at a very young age in a house that seemed filled with music and the family constantly singing to amuse themselves and because it seemed so natural. Her father had a background of Mexican music and her mother a love for classical. They constantly played standards of the 40's and 50's. Ronstadt was steeped in it and she and her brother and sister started a little singing group that played local clubs, Ronstadt usually appearing on-stage bare-foot. The siblings dropped out, found lives. She stayed and found other collaborators, which became "The Stone Poneys." That lead to a manager who took on the Poneys even though he wanted to fire the guys because he only wanted "the girl singer." Ronstadt wouldn't hear of it, and they had a hit record with Ronstadt's turning of Mike Nesmith's "kiss-off" song "Different Drummer" into a woman's rejection rather than a man's. In the studio, the arrangement was less the Poneys' arrangement and lighter—more feminine, along the lines of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" which Ronstadt objected to. It became a hit, which Ronstadt ruefully admits "It's a good thing they didn't listen to me."

The group did break up, however, although one of the band-members stayed with Ronstadt as she was finding her way. You can usually tell Ronstadt from this period because she's wearing one of only three striped dresses she used for gigs. She wasn't interested in being a star, she just wanted to sing. The manipulation to achieve that would come later and from outside parties.

What she found was The Troubadour, which was the place to hang-out if you were interested in the L.A. music scene. It was where Ronstadt hooked up with J.D. Souther, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley, who became band members and then went and formed a little group called "The Eagles." Their first album didn't do very well, but Ronstadt recorded a song from it—"Desperado"—and raised their profile.

Ronstadt on "The Johnny Cash" show with one of those three dresses.

What Ronstadt was doing wasn't completely definable, although there were many opinions of what kind of singer she was—folk, folk-rock, pop, in an introduction to her appearance of "The Midnight Special," José Feliciano says she's a country singer. The first words of the movie are Johnny Cash's introducing Ronstadt on his show: "Right now, I'd like you to meet a young lady who has what it takes to be around for a long time." But, Ronstadt sang what she wanted to sing, going with what moved her—"Every song has a face I sing to" she would say.

It didn't hurt that she was cute as a button (still is, by the way), but that had a tendency to make folks overlook the voice and what she was doing with it. The face got her noticed, but as Henley notes in the movie, she gave you the impression that she was "feminine and vulnerable—but when she opened her mouth everything was different." Plus, her eclecticism in material made her tough to pigeon-hole and promote, even as she was also introducing record-buyers to new song-writers and old classics.

But, the formula started paying off with the album "Heart Like a Wheel," which began her collaboration with Asher, the first producer with whom she had no romantic entanglements, and it began a string of best-selling albums that propelled her to the top of the charts and made her a top-draw at stadium-sized concerts.

That success allowed her to move beyond pop, rock, and country into her childhood loves of operetta, the American songbook, jazz, and canciones. Her label executives resisted the efforts, but could not say no and were amazed to find that not only did Ronstadt's fans follow her, but new record-buyers picked up the albums opening up new revenue and new accolades. Ronstadt's instincts for projects broke barriers and disproved naysayers, making her a force to be reckoned with.

Ronstadt's last concert was October 25, 2009. She'd been noticing that she was having trouble singing, achieving the notes and effects that she'd been able to negotiate throughout her career. She announced her retirement in 2011 in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, and in 2013, announced in AARP magazine that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. "No one can sing with Parkinson's," she said "No matter how hard you try." 

The documentary, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, was resisted by Ronstadt for years as potentially exploitative and "self-involved," and those instincts aren't there. For those interested in her private life, well, there's some mention of Jerry Brown and J.D. Souther, but that's it. One of The Eagles mentions that he "didn't have a chance," which says more about him and the male-dominated environment Ronstadt was working in, rather than her. There's a lot of archival footage and plenty of heads talking, most importantly Parton and Harris and Karla Bonoff. She blazed a trail, sidestepping relationships, survived what she called "the great culling" of her contemporaries to drugs—her drug of choice was diet pills because...expectations—and instead concentrating on her art and career, and pursuing her muse and her quest for harmony, which led her to championing a lot of songstresses and fellow artists. Blazing a trail? She took a machete to it. And rock...and pop...and country...have gained a lot more soul because of it. And her.

The title is curious, sounding exactly the "self-involved" title that Ronstadt was trying to avoid. But it refers to a Jimmy Webb song Ronstadt covered that plays the end-credits: "Still Within the Sound of My Voice." That might have been a more appropriate title, but a less positive one, evoking the thought that that once powerful voice is "stilled"—Ronstadt confesses she still can hear it in her head, but loss of muscle control makes it impossible to replicate. And although she insists in the documentary that it isn't "singing," she accompanies her nephew on a Spanish song because "it's family."

Heart-bump. Tears.

Linda Ronstadt...now.