Producer: Peter Asher
Track listing: You’re No Good / It Doesn’t Matter Anymore / Faithless Love / Dark End of the Street / Heart Like a Wheel / When Will I Be Loved / Willin’ / I Can’t Help It if I’m Still in Love with You / Keep Me from Blowing Away / You Can Close Your Eyes
February 15, 1975
1 week
By 1974, Linda Ronstadt had a respectable following for her mix of country and rock. But it wasn’t until Heart Like a Wheel that she found a producer who shared her creative vision.
Ronstadt, who grew up singing traditional Mexican songs with her family, graduated to the local clubs in Tucson before hooking up with Bob Kimmel and Kenny Edwards to form the Stone Poneys in 1965. The trio’s performances at the Troubadour in Los Angeles led to a contract with Capitol. After three albums and one hit — a cover of “Different Drum,” written by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees — Ronstadt went off on her own.
Linda Ronstadt, the singer’s third solo album, featured a backing band of future Eagles Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner.
However, it wasn’t until 1973’s Don’t Cry Now that Ronstadt began to reach a larger audience. That album peaked at number 45, but stayed on the chart for 56 weeks, eventually selling more than half a million copies and earning Ronstadt her first gold record.
On the verge of her commercial breakthrough, Ronstadt ran into problems as she prepared to record her final album for Capitol Records. She had become smitten with “Heart Like a Wheel,” a song written by Canadian folksinger Anna McGarrigle. “[Texas folksinger] Jerry Jeff Walker had sung it for me in a taxicab at dawn in New York, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard,” Ronstadt says. “But I took it around to a lot of producers and they thought it was corny.”
Finally, Ronstadt turned to her manager Peter Asher, once half of the British pop duo Peter & Gordon. Asher had taken over as Ronstadt’s manager in 1973, and had helped salvage Don’t Cry Now after a year of costly sessions. “I played it for Peter and he loved it. He thought it was beautiful. I was so glad we worked on the record together,” Ronstadt says. Under Asher’s guidance, Ronstadt began a tradition of covering a mix of proven classics and contemporary songs, enhanced by Asher’s studio wizardry.
The two biggest hits from Heart Like a Wheel were staples of Ronstadt’s live set. “You’re No Good,” originally recorded by Betty Everett, became Ronstadt’s first Number One single. Studio musician Andrew Gold and Ronstadt’s former Stone Poneys partner Kenny Edwards played most of the instruments on the track. Edwards’s involvement was most appropriate, since the Stone Poneys performed the song in their live sets. Says Ronstadt, “We never had a song to close with because we were an acoustic band and played all these ballads.” When the Stone Poneys plugged in, Edwards suggested the R&B nugget “You’re No Good.”
Heart Like a Wheel also included Ronstadt’s version of the Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved,” which climbed to number two. “That was an afterthought,” she says. “That was something we had in our set and we needed one more up-tempo song.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of February 15, 1975
1. Heart Like a Wheel, Linda Ronstadt
2. Average White Band, Average White Band
3. Miles of Aisles, Joni Mitchell
4. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
5. Dark Horse, George Harrison