I was browsing through my music collection this week, searching for ideas for stuff to post. I have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to writing this, my longest running series (running since 2015, although some of the early posts weren't Country records, just 'nice' tunes to hear of a Sunday morning): partly because I know that some of my readers are much more versed in Country music than I; that for others this series may well be their first introduction to the genre and I don't want to give them a duff steer; and also that I may rely too heavily on some of the big hitters (Cash, Haggard, Kristofferson etc.), Country giants if you will.
Was there somebody I had omitted to mention completely? Or maybe someone that I hadn't posted much of?
I alighted on Linda Ronstadt, who has only featured on these pages because of her nigh-on-perfect version of Different Drum, a song which, back in 2021 when the writer of it, Mike Nesmith (of Monkees fame) passed, I said "... if I absolutely had to name my top 5 favourite records, [Different Drum] would definitely, 100% nailed-on be in it." I stand by that. (Ronstadt does also get a mention, of course, in a post about her collaboration with two other female icons of Country music, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, to which I will probably return soon.)
Time to redress that, so I plucked her Greatest Hits album from the racks, and was surprised to note that a) the majority of songs on it are cover versions, b) that (and, given that I had been drawn to her records by her singing talents alone, I feel I can say this without fear of accusations of being a pervy old objectifying sexist: she's an absolute fox) and c) that I'd never noticed either of these facts before.
The Greatest Hits album includes covers of songs by Dusty Springfield (albeit when she was still part of The Springfields), Eagles, The Everly Brothers and two by Buddy Holly (there may be more, but those were the ones I instantly recognised as covers).
Since the anniversary of Holly's death was at the start of the month - something which I don't recall being mentioned anywhere, which, given his undoubted influence, struck me as a little surprising - I decided to plump for one of his tunes (ok, it was written by music legend and unfortunate rhyming slang Paul Anka) which surely needs no further introduction, other than to say that Ronstadt covered it on her 1977 album The Southern Belle, which I don't own, but have included the artwork here to pretend that I do:
Linda Ronstadt - It Doesn't Matter Anymore
More soon.
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