Maps of Music

Hasten Down the Wind (1976)

Where the lyrics of Hasten Down the Wind take you, and where it was really made.

This was Linda Ronstadt's third straight million-selling album, and she was the first female artist to reach that mark.

Key places

Recorded at The Sound Factory in Hollywood (1976)

Recording site The Sound Factory — The album's recording studio is listed as The Sound Factory in Hollywood. The point marks that studio's location at city-center accuracy. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Hasten Down the Wind is the seventh studio album by American singer Linda Ronstadt
• Released by Asylum Records on August 9, 1976
• Her third straight million-selling album
• She was the first female artist to achieve this feat
• Spent several weeks in the top three of the Billboard album charts

Background

• A slight departure from her previous albums Heart Like a Wheel (1974) and Prisoner in Disguise (1975)
• She chose to showcase new songwriters instead of the traditional country rock sound she had been producing
• Songs by Warren Zevon and Karla Bonoff were featured; both were soon to make names for themselves as singer-songwriters
• Includes a cover of "The Tattler" by Washington Phillips, re-arranged by Ry Cooder for his 1974 album Paradise and Lunch
• Two songs co-written by Ronstadt, one of them in Spanish

Recording

• Produced by Peter Asher
• Recorded at The Sound Factory in Hollywood

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · ja.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Born July 15, 1946 in Tucson, Arizona; American singer across rock, folk, pop, country, and soul.
• In the mid-1960s joined the folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys as lead singer, releasing three albums in 1967–68.
• Solo debut Hand Sown ... Home Grown (1969), described as the first alternative country record by a female recording artist.
• Became the first female "arena class" rock star; top-grossing concert artist of the decade.
• Voted Top Female Pop Singer of the 1970s; "You're No Good" reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Worked with producer Nelson Riddle on the Great American Songbook trilogy What's New, Lush Life, and For Sentimental Reasons.
• Recorded Canciones de Mi Padre (1987), the best-selling non-English-language album in US music history.
• Retired in 2011 after losing the ability to sing; later diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014; Kennedy Center Honoree in 2019.

Formation

• At age 14 formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and sister Gretchen.
• Moved to Los Angeles in 1964 to form a band with Bobby Kimmel.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Described as a critical and commercial success
• Won her second Grammy Award for Pop Vocal Performance, Female at the 19th Grammy Awards ceremony (1977)
• Won critical acclaim as a more serious and poignant album than its predecessors

Reappraisal

• Presented as a shift from her earlier country rock records toward new songwriters, a change noted in the album's own description

Records

• Her third album to go platinum
• Spent several weeks in the top three of the Billboard album charts
• Two major hit singles: Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" (US Pop #11, Country #27) and "Crazy", a reworking of Patsy Cline's 1961 hit, which reached #6 on the US Country chart in early 1977
• Karla Bonoff's "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me" reached US #42 and Easy Listening #38
• Second of four number 1 Country albums for her

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album includes a cover of a cover: "The Tattler" by Washington Phillips, which Ry Cooder had re-arranged for his 1974 album Paradise and Lunch.
• Two songs on the album were co-written by Ronstadt, including one in Spanish, her first recorded foray into Spanish music, more than a decade before her first fully Spanish album.
• The album's two major hits were Ronstadt's covers of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" and her reworking of Patsy Cline's 1961 hit "Crazy".
• The album showcased songwriters who would soon become known in the singer-songwriter world, including Warren Zevon and Karla Bonoff.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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