Talent Undisguised

FOR YEARS, Linda Ronstadt was an artist of largely unfulfilled potential, who, despite spending a good deal of time on the concert tour and making half a dozen albums, remained relatively obscure. Each of her records was a frustrating mixture of some very good and some very bad work. No one questioned the range and vitality of her powerful, expressive voice, but hers was a raw, undisciplined talent that produced some clumsy and overstated recordings.

All this was there on her first solo album, Silk Purse, which included her single release, the extraordinarily sensitive and painful "Long, Long Time," which even now remains as good as anything she has done. But much of the album was barely mediocre, and succeeding efforts suffered from the same uneven quality. Ronstadt finally managed to realize the potential her admirers perceived in last spring's Heart Like a Wheel, a thoroughly professional performance--handled by her new producer, Peter Asher--that made her a major star in no time.

She has followed it only a few months later with another album, which, not surprisingly, closely resembles its predecessor. The basic pattern of Ronstadt's records, in fact, has changed little since Silk Purse, running from bluesy rock to straight and progressive country to gentle folk ballads. There is nothing very daring on Prisoner in Disguise, but if Ronstadt appears to be getting complacent, she has also developed a new self-assurance and poise.

Ronstadt has few equals at blue-eyed soul; she has a more melodic voice than Joplin and a richer, stronger one than Bonnie Raitt, and she is as gritty and vital as ever. As in her last album, her efforts at it are limited to two, but both are up to her best. She screams and stomps her way through the old Martha and the Vandellas standard "Heat Wave," unleashing a wanton vitality that comes close to out-muscling the original version--no easy achievement. The same approach characterizes her earthy rendition of "Roll um Easy."

Ronstadt has always been at least as much of a country singer as a rock one, and she devotes almost half of this album to songs with a definite country flavor. The best is her current single, Neil Young's "Love Is a Rose," a twangy, driving number that gives her plenty of room to cut loose, almost as much as "Heat Wave." The point is simple but well-put:

Love is a rose but you better not pick it It only grows when it's on the vine A handful of thorns and you'll know you missed it You lose your love when you say the word "mine".

Ronstadt is one of the most innovative and sophisticated country singers around. If anything can save country music from the mindless banality of the Conway Twittys and Bill Andersons who now dominate the industry, it is Ronstadt and other "progressive" country singers like Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. Teaming up with Harris, Ronstadt is by now so self-assured that she can lay back and let her partner carry half the load on "The Sweetest Gift," a touchingly simple balled about a mother who visits her son in jail, with an uncontemporary message:

She did not bring him a parole or pardon She brought no silver, no pomp or style It was a halo sent down from heaven's light The sweetest gift, a mother's smile.

Ronstadt has sharpened her insight and precision to the point that she can take a rather ordinary, straightforward number like Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and make it into a serious love song. Her sensitive, full-bodied rendition is a sterling display of her emotional depth and complexity.

Ronstadt also skillfully handles songs that are more challenging to interpret. An excellent arrangement and some strong vocal accompaniment by Andrew Gold and Kenny Edwards supplement Ronstadt's wide ranging but perfectly controlled performance on "Many Rivers to Cross," a rather clumsily-worded song that could easily be a bore. Ronstadt has never been more relaxed and poised than in "Tracks of My Tears," an unremarkable retread recorded by performers ranging from Smokey Robinson to Aretha Franklin to Johnny Rivers. Her subtle interpretation infuses it with a genuine but understated pathos. The song is striking proof of Ronstadt's artistic maturity: two or three years ago she probably would have let her voice get away from her and sung it to death. Now she lets the song flow on its own course, giving the impression that she is almost coasting.

The best cut on the record is James Taylor's "Hey Mister, That's Me Up on the Jukebox," a performance that makes the original look pallid by comparison. She delivers a polished rendition that gives full play to her great range, belting the song out one minute, falling back to a croon the next. A disillusioned account of the life of a music star, the song seethes with bitter irony:

Southern California, that's as blue as a girl can be Blue as the deep blue sea, won't you listen to me I need your golden-gated cities like a hole in the head, Just like a hole in my head. I'm free. Hey mister, that's me up on the jukebox I'm the one who's singing this sad song And I cry every time that you slip in one more dime And play me singing the sad one one more time.

The only failures on Prisoner in Disguise are two tedious songs by John David Souther, who apparently thinks that if you make a song long, slow, and wordy, people will think it's profound or at least sensitive. But these two--"Silver Blue" and the title song--are simply boring: in singing them, Ronstadt almost defies the listener to pay attention.

Prisoner in Disguise, more skillful and refined than even Heart Like A Wheel, is Ronstadt's best production. The unrestrained, often sloppy amateur of only a couple of years ago has become a disciplined artist with one of the most forceful, versatile voices in rock, folk, or country music. She isn't doing as much experimenting as she used to, and maybe that means she is resting on her laurels. More likely it means she finds it more useful to continue developing and polishing the styles with which she has been most successful. That has been a continuing challenge to Ronstadt, and doubtless will continue to be, but the years of apprenticeship have yielded some awfully good music.