Linda Ronstadt says Parkinson’s stole her voice

NEW YORK CITY, USA – Iconic US singer Linda Ronstadt “can’t sing a note” anymore, she said, after Parkinson’s disease stole her voice.

Although she was diagnosed just 8 months ago, the 67-year-old singer, who’s behind the 1970s hit remakes of “Blue Bayou” and “That’ll Be the Day,” said in a recent interview that the symptoms first started appearing as far back as 8 years.

“No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease, no matter how hard you try,” Ronstadt said in that interview with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), an advocacy group for senior citizens.

Ronstadt explained her realization that “there was something wrong” with her voice.

“I couldn’t sing, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but I thought it might have also had something to do with the tick disease that I had.

“And it didn’t occur to me to go to a neurologist.

“I think I’ve had it for 7 or 8 years already, because of the symptoms that I’ve had.

“Then I had a shoulder operation, so I thought that’s why my hands were trembling.”

When she finally went to a neurologist and was told their diagnosis, Ronstadt said she was “completely shocked. I wouldn’t have suspected that in a million, billion years.”

According to the AARP, the singer sometimes relies on a cane to walk and uses a wheelchair while traveling.

Parkinson’s is a degenerative nerve disease that causes tremors, stiffness, and slowed movement.

Rock balladeer

Ronstadt hit it big in the 1970s, becoming one of the best-paid singers in country and rock ‘n’ roll.

The 11-time Grammy winner who also holds two Country Music Awards is still widely celebrated as one of the leading rock balladeers in American music.

She produced more than 40 albums and collaborated with other stars, including Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Neil Young, and Elvis Costello.

After her rock stardom in the Seventies, Ronstadt turned the opposite direction in the Eighties, releasing a series of albums that celebrated the standards of an earlier era: the Great American Songbook of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and other classic songwriters.

Her orchestrator was Frank Sinatra’s conductor-arranger, Nelson Riddle.

Despite going against the pop materialism of that decade, this chapter in Ronstadt’s music still accorded with the music video trend at the time and garnered considerable commercial success.

Ronstadt would also branch out to Latin music, upholding her Hispanic roots in her home state of Arizona.

Here’s her performance of the Latin standard, ‘Frenesi’:

But Ronstadt would reassert her rock balladry from time to time, singing duets with the likes of New Orleans singer Aaron Neville. 

She was also in triumphant form when she revisited her rock ‘n’ roll beginnings, as in her guest appearance at Chuck Berry’s celebrated 1987 retrospective concert. – with reports from Agence France-Presse/Rappler.com

Here’s Linda Ronstadt with Chuck Berry and Keith Richards singing ‘Back in the USA’: