It was Ronstadt’s first solo album since Don’t Cry Now not produced with Peter Asher.
She elected to produce it herself along with George Massenburg. The album marked Ronstadt’s increased responsibilities and confidence behind the boards, this time achieving a multi-layered New Age-oriented sound, as in Anna McGarrigle’s ˝Hearbeats Accelerating˝ - the album’s first hit single - and Brian Wilson’s ˝Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)˝.
Other aspects of the album show Ronstadt paying tribute to great female vocalists of the 1960s with a combination of rock n roll, oldies, and rock ballads.
Linda selected classic compositions from various songwriters such as Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Jimmy Webb as well as contemporary ones such as Tish Hinojosa.
The album also showcased Ronstadt the singer-songwriter and music arranger, introducing her own ethereal composition, ˝Winter Light,˝ which was covered notably by Sarah Brightman on her 2001 album, Classics.
Considered one of Ronstadt’s most underrated and highly acclaimed recordings.
Rolling Stone magazine rated the album ’4’ (out of a possible ’5’) stars.
Ironically, it was a rare commercial failure for Ronstadt and peaked at #92 on the Billboard album chart.
The disc had disappointing sales, moving approximately 200,000 copies in the US, and as of 2008 was Linda’s only Elekra/Asylum release out of print.
(In 2009 several more classic Ronstadt albums were deleted from her catalog.)
Also included on this disc is Linda’s Spanish language folk-song Adonde Voy.
The title track, ˝Winter Light˝ was also prominently used in the Warner Bros. distributed 1993 film production The Secret Garden, which was not featured in the film’s original soundtrack.
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Linda Ronstadt - Vocals, Producer, Mixing, Engineer
George Massenburg - Producer, Engineer, Mixing
Dean Parks - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Guitar (Electric), Mandolin
Joseph Powell - Vocals (Background)
Emil Richards - Vibraphone
Doug Sax - Mastering
Kevin Scott - Assistant Engineer
Craig Silvey - Assistant Engineer