Long long time

Via Rosanne Cash’s Twitter feed yesterday I learned the sad news that Linda Ronstadt has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Rondstadt discovered that the disease accounts for the loss of her singing voice. The Telegraph reports the story here.

According to the Telegraph story Ronstadt has been experiencing the symptoms of Parkinson’s for the past eight years. We saw her perform at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis about five or six years ago, I think, and she was terrific. As it turned out, we were lucky to see her on what seems to have been something close to her last go-round. She retired from performing in 2009.

I was also lucky to see Linda perform at Dartmouth as a warmup for Poco in her first flush of fame in the early 1970’s. She looked and sounded about like she does in the video of Gary B. White’s “Long Long Time” below, i.e., great, although this 1975 Ben Fong-Torres/Rolling Stone profile captures how she was feeling inside, i.e., not so great.

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