Linda Ronstadt Jardin Azul Las Canciones Favoritas (cd, Comp)

This set combines five of Linda Ronstadt's albums for Asylum Records released between 1975 and 1980 and all produced by Peter Asher, 1975's Prisoner in Disguise, 1976's Hasten Down the Wind, 1977's Simple Dreams, 1978's Living in the U.S.A., and 1980's Mad Love, which means one gets Ronstadt's fine versions of Neil Young's "Love Is a Rose," Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day," Roy Orbison's "Blue Bayou," and many other covers done while she was at the peak of her radio success…

Winter Light could arguably be classified as Linda Ronstadt's best pop album of the 1990s. She followed up 1989's hugely successful Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind with two Spanish language albums (Mas Canciones and Frenesi), then returned with the beautiful light-pop collection that is Winter Light. This set finds Ronstadt interpreting such classics as the Bacharach/David compositions "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" with enough torchy bravado to make them her own. Her cover of the Beach Boys' "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" is an ethereal, gorgeous, and breathy interpretation, and other covers, such as "Oh No, Not My Baby" and "It's Too Soon to Know" shine just as brightly. In fact, there is not a single dud on this impeccably produced album, which, in fact, gets better and better with each listening.

Linda Ronstadt has been an icon for more than 50 years. Her extraordinary vocal range and ambition created unforgettable songs across rock, pop, country, folk ballads, American standards, classic Mexican music and soul…

If Rhino had merely combined Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 and volume two, they would have a compilation that captured her at her peak. They didn't do that for 2002's The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt, but they did follow that basic blueprint very closely, with 16 of the 21 songs culled from her '70s heyday, with the remaining five drawing from her late-'80s/early-'90s adult contemporary comeback, including "Don't' Know Much" and "Somewhere out There." That these songs don't quite fit musically with the laid-back Californian soft rock of the '70s doesn't matter, nor does it matter that her excursions into other genres – her traditional pop albums with Nelson Riddle, her Mexican records, her country albums with Trio – are missing ("Different Drum" with the Stone Poneys is here), because this collection expertly delivers her biggest hits in an enjoyable fashion with very little fat. Those original hits records remain first-rate, but it's nicer to get all of these on one disc instead of two.