Linda Ronstadt just turned 80 years old — and if you only know her from American radio, you only know half the story.
Linda was born in Tucson, Arizona on July 15, 1946, into a ranching family with deep Sonoran roots. Her grandfather, Federico Ronstadt, was born in Sonora and crossed north to Tucson, where he became a pioneering wagon and carriage maker. He brought something else with him too: the songs of Sonora. Those songs filled the family ranch where Linda grew up. She has said that as a child, Spanish felt like the language you sang in.
In the 1970s, she conquered American music. “You’re No Good” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In December 1977, she made history as the first female solo artist — and only the second act ever, after The Beatles — to have two songs in the Top 5 at the same time: “Blue Bayou” and “It’s So Easy.” Magazines crowned her the First Lady of Rock. She went on to win 11 Grammy Awards and enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But here’s the part the music pages rarely tell you. 👇
In 1987, still one of the biggest stars in American music, Linda did something nobody in the industry expected: she recorded an entire album of traditional Mexican songs — the same songs her grandfather carried from Sonora. She named it “Canciones de mi Padre,” after a songbook of Sonoran music published for her aunt, singer Luisa Espinel, in 1946… the very year Linda was born.
Her label thought she had lost her mind. The public knew better.
“Canciones de mi Padre” went double platinum, won the Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album, and became the best-selling non-English-language album in the history of American recorded music — a record it held for decades and, by most accounts, still holds today. It has sold roughly 10 million copies worldwide, entered the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry. A daughter of the border, singing the songs of Sonora, outsold everyone.
In 2013, Linda revealed that a degenerative neurological disease had taken her singing voice forever. But it never took her voice. In 2022 she published a memoir about her beloved homeland: “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands.” And through it all, she has never stopped proudly embracing her identity: Mexican-American.
Happy birthday, Linda. Sonora sings in everything you gave us
Source: mexicodailypost
