Songoftheday 9/5/12 - Instead of worryin' 'bout the things you said, follow your heart & forget your head...

Linda Ronstadt - "Get Closer"
from the album Get Closer (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (two weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 5

Today's Song of the Day is by Linda Ronstadt, the leading lady of rock in the 70s. Her first big break came when she joined a couple of guys in LA who formed the Stone Poneys, and hit the US top 20 with "Different Drum" back in 1967. After leaving the Poneys in 1968, she released her first solo album, Hand Sown...Home Grown a year later, and got herself a minor hit with "The Long Way Around", which also went top-20 on the adult-contemporary (soft rock) chart. Her next record, Silk Purse, scored a top-40 hit for Ronstadt in "Long, Long Time". After switching record labels from Capitol to Asylum, Linda's fourth record, Don't Cry Now, had more country influences, and she had her first country hit in 1974 with "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", which made the top-20.

But Linda still owed an album to Capitol, but instead of a throwaway effort, she closed with the biggest and best album of her career, Heart Like A Wheel. Produced by the legendary Peter Asher, the record gave her both a pop ("You're No Good") and country ("When Will I Be Loved") chart topper. Ronstadt continued to sell tons more singles, and chart throughout the 70s on the pop, country, and adult contemporary charts (her big soft-rock hit of the 70s, the #2 "Ooh Baby Baby", came in 1978).

After a short break in the beginning of the 80s to appear on Broadway in the Pirates Of Penzance, Ronstadt released her eleventh studio album, Get Closer, in 1982. The title track sounded like a oldies remake, but in fact was a new retro-sounding song written by Jon Carroll of the Starland Vocal Band (yes, the "Afternoon Delight" people), and again produced by Asher...

Even though the single was her lowest-charting lead-off track since her original Capitol days, "Get Closer" did make the newly-minted Mainstream Rock radio chart in Billboard. Meanwhile, the B-side to the 45 inch single (yes kiddies, those), "Sometimes You Just Can't Win" , made the top-30 on the country radio chart. "Get Closer" also nabbed Grammy nominations for Linda in both the pop and rock categories (sadly losing both).

Up tomorrow: Come on you little fighter!, say British weathercasters....