Linda Ronstadt in Hollywood

Linda Ronstadt released more than two dozen studio albums during a stellar career that has spanned more than five decades. Surprisingly, during all that time, the legendary singer never released a live album. Recorded on April 24, 1980 at Television Center Studios in Hollywood, Live In Hollywood captures Ronstadt at the peak of her reign as America’s most popular female rock singer. In concert, she was joined by an outstanding band that included guitarists Kenny Edwards and Danny Kortchmar, drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Bob Glaub, keyboardist Billy Payne (of Little Feat fame), pedal steel guitarist Dan Dugmore, backing vocalist Wendy Waldman and percussionist Peter Asher – Ronstadt’s producer and the concert’s executive producer. On stage, Ronstadt held the packed audience spellbound with powerful renditions of her biggest hits – “Blue Bayou,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and “It’s So Easy” – plus an incredible, previously unreleased six-minute jam of her #1 smash, “You’re No Good.”

Ronstadt, one of the most iconic voices in music history, is set to re-release her live album, Live in Hollywood, through Rhino.com on October 25, 2024. This digital remaster will feature all 20 songs from the original 1980 concert, marking the first time the complete performance has been available to fans. Starting today, music fans can view the “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” .

LIVE IN HOLLYWOOD features amazing performances from a concert that Ronstadt recorded in 1980 for her acclaimed HBO television special. Recorded on April 24, 1980 at Television Center Studios in Hollywood, and produced by John Boylan, the concert captures Ronstadt at the peak of her reign as America’s most popular female rock singer. For LIVE IN HOLLYWOOD, Ronstadt selected 12 of her favorite performances from the original concert.

"Live In Hollywood" features amazing performances from a concert that Ronstadt recorded in 1980 for her acclaimed HBO television special. Recorded on April 24, 1980 at Television Center Studios in Hollywood, and produced by John Boylan, the concert captures Ronstadt at the peak of her reign as America’s most popular female rock singer. For "Live In Hollywood", Ronstadt selected 12 of her favorite performances from the original concert.

Unlike other labels subjected to exhaustive multi-disc retrospectives like this whopping ten-disc Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records – The First Fifty Years, Warner Brothers never embodied a scene or sound: they've always embodied what a major label should be – a dominant force that chronicles and dictates the sound of the mainstream. Coming out at the tail-end of 2008, when the influence of major labels is on a slow steady decline, Revolutions in Sound can be seen as a portrait of a time that's beginning to recede into the past: a time when there was such a thing as mass entertainment, when the pop audience all shared a common bond of hit records they either loved or rallied against. Perhaps the greatest things about this monumental box set is that it captures that colossus while also illustrating that for a while, majors did take risks. Of course, Warner was the riskiest of all the majors, never held back by an anti-rock & roll sourpuss like Mitch Miller, who struggled to keep CBS out of the tumult of the '60s (this with no less than Bob Dylan as the label's flagship rock artist). Instead, Warner embraced the underground, recording some of the strangest to shake out of the '60s, and that adventure fits a label that turned to rock & roll to help establish themselves as a real player at the turn of the '60s.