LR

I did not listen to rock music when I was a kid.  It was something I had on my clock radio to make sure I got out of bed.   But one day, I was forced by circumstances to listen to a rock station.  Most of the songs were insipid and irritating,  but eventually a song came on that I had never heard before.  It was melodious and gentle and the singer had a softly sensual voice.  I was completely won over.  When it ended, the DJ said, "that was Linda Ronstadt with 'It Don't Matter Anymore.'"

I had heard of this person before and was even aware that she was from my hometown of Tucson, but I had never actually heard anything she had sung.  At the time, I filed the experience in the "well, that's odd" file.  Six months later, though, I was again forced to listen to a musical genre that I cared for even less than rock music...country/western.  I was cringing with the all the nasal twanging and all the steel guitaring.   But then a song came on that, while still very much Grand Old Oprey tradition, was so interesting and musical that for the first time in my life I could actually "hear" country music.  Then the twangy DJ told me that I had just listened to Linda Ronstadt sing "Silver Threads and Golden Needles."

I was stunned.  The only two songs I had heard from this artist had completely opened my ears to the musical genres they represented.  I had to hear more.  I bought my first rock and roll album of "Linda Ronstadt's Greatest hits." I bought it at the beginning of summer break and proceeded to play it nearly non-stop until school started in the fall.  I played that flimsy vinyl disk so much that I nearly wore it out and Linda began to sound more like Zasu Pitts.

During that summer, Linda Ronstadt became much more than my favorite vocalist.  She became my mentor, my hero, and my idol.  My conversion to Wicca was complete as she became the image of my higher power.  Curiously though, she did not become a love interest.  I may have considered her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and the walls of my room may have been covered with her likeness, but I never held up her poster with one hand. To even contemplate having sexual fantasies about  my beloved "LR" would have felt like sacrilege.   

I was utterly smitten.  I know that in those days I irritated friends by talking about her non-stop.  I wore every Linda Ronstadt T-shirt I could get my hands on.  And in my secret and fumbling first attempts at self-feminization, I tried desperately to paint my face to look as much like my ideal as I could.  (To this day, the makeup style for which I am often praised, is based on my attempts to copy her look.)

Eventually I did manage to go beyond platonic hero worship to more a more erotic interest in her.   I was once driving my old non-refrigerated honda though an intense Tucson June. When Ronstadt's cover of  "Ooh Baby Baby" came over my radio, the hot wind hitting my sweaty face and hearing her breathless near-begging-for-release singing made me feel like I was in the middle of an intense love-making session with her.  I actually had to pull over for a bit to calm down.  Because of that memory, that song is my favorite Ronstadt tune to this day.        

Because I was a so severely closeted double perv (both trans AND gay,) I couldn't figure out which I wanted more: to HAVE Linda Ronstadt or to BE Linda Ronstadt.  A friend recently told me that I probably wanted both.  I think she may have been right about that.

My obsession for my ideal abated a bit with time, but over the near forty years that I have adored her, Linda continued to act as my musical guru.  Her experiments with different genres opened my eyes to worlds of music I had never experienced.  I was introduced to the world of Gilbert & Sullivan (and ultimately to the glories of opera in general) because Linda appeared in "Pirates of Penzance."  I even wound up writing my own G&S based operetta because of her tutelage.    She showed me the wonders of 40's music when she recorded standards with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.  And my passion for Cubano music was first inflamed by her recording of "Frenesi."  (which is still my favorite Ronstadt album.)

My world is so much bigger and richer because of my love for Linda Ronstadt and her music.  She has been an integral part of my life and will always be an essential part of me.