Linda Ronstadt first came to note on the music scene as the lead singer of The Stone Poneys in 1967 with their hit “Different Drum” which was originally written by Mike Nesmith of The Monkees. Re-issues of that song usually include Linda’s name.

In 1969 Linda started her career as a single artist. Her first two albums sold well but didn’t have highly charting singles. She had been singing “You’re No Good” in concerts as early as 1973. That song had been a minor hit for other groups in the early 1960s. Linda sang the song on an episode of The Midnight Special, broadcast December 21, 1973. After recording the song it climbed to the top of both the Billboard and Cash Box charts for the week of Feb. 9  – 15, 1975. Even though she would have a lot of other hit songs in the 1970s, this would be her only #1.

Linda was said to be the “highest-paid woman in rock” in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s she did a stint as the lead of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. She retired in 2011 and in 2013 she revealed she had Parkinson’s disease and could “no longer sing a note.”