- Willin’ Linda Ronstadt 3:02
Linda Ronstadt had such a lovely voice and very sadly she lost her ability to sing after she contracted Parkinson’s. A movie titled “Linda Ronstadt – The Sound of My Voice” chronicles her career.
Linda sang all sorts of music during her career, starting with “Different Drummer” with the Stone Ponies. “Willin'”, written by Lowell George. was one of the first times I heard her sing a country song and it knocked my socks off. I loved the names of all the small towns out west truckers regularly drive through; “I’ve been from Tuscon to Tucumcari, Tehachapi, to Tomapah…”
And for years and years I wondered what the first few words or the chorus was. ??”And if you give me weak white thin wine…?????? With the advent of Google that gave me access to every lyric ever written, I finally learned the correct line is “And if you give me weed, whites, and wine“, and it changed the whole nature of the song for me when I realized that some (many?) truck drivers stay awake with the help of all three. Duh on me.
And, as an added bonus, I’ve added a video of a very neat Father/Daughter band called, cleverly enough, “Foxes and Fossils” and they do AMAZING covers of old songs. Here they are on a recently released video playing and singing, “Willin”.