More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt
- An original Asylum pressing with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
- Linda’s best sounding recording and a proud member of our Top 100 – this is the album that showed us she could do it all
- Val Garay does it again, filling the grooves with his trademark super-punchy, jump-out-the-speakers, rich and smooth ANALOG sound
- 4 1/2 stars: “…reconfirms [Rondstadt’s] substantial talents as an interpretive singer…and [her] powerful performance makes the record rival Heart Like a Wheel in sheer overall quality.”
- If you’re a Linda Ronstadt fan, this undeniable classic from 1977 is surely a Must Own
- Simple Dreams is our pick for Linda’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here.
This is clearly one of Linda’s best albums and I would have to say, based on my fairly extensive experience with her recorded output, that it is in fact the best sounding record she ever made. I love Heart Like a Wheel, but it sure doesn’t sound like this, not even on the Triple Plus copies that win our shootouts. (It is her best album, though.)
I confess to having never taken the album seriously, dismissing it as a commercial collection of pop hits with about as much depth as the L.A. River — but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
This is a great sounding album on the right pressing, not the compressed piece of grainy cardboard we’ve all been playing for years, unaware of the tremendous sound quality lurking in the grooves of other copies; the ones that were blessed with the right stampers, the right vinyl and a healthy amount of fairy dust wafting over the press that day.
That’s what Hot Stamper shootouts are all about — finding those copies, the ones no one knows exist. (No one but us it seems; who else would think to put this album in their Top 100?)
This Is a Real Band
Until a Hot Stamper found its way onto our turntable, we had absolutely no idea the album could sound like this, or that the music was so good.
The first thing that came to mind when I looked inside the fold open cover and saw all the guys who back Linda up on the album is that this is a real rock band. These are not a bunch of studio cats punching a time card. These guys know how to rock; just listen to the way they come blasting out of the gate on “It’s So Easy.” Linda is with them all the way, giving one of the best performances of her career.
Song after song, this super-tight band with the hot female lead (!) show that they can rock with the best of them. And do beautiful ballads (“Blue Bayou”) too.
Folks, I hereby testify that a Hot Stamper copy of this very album gave me a newfound respect for Linda beyond her work on Heart Like a Wheel. This is the album that shows she can do it all, as the All Music Guide points out, and I’m a believer.
This vintage Asylum pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What The Best Sides Of Simple Dreams Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes even as late as 1977
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For On Simple Dreams
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
A Top 100 Title
Kudos once again must go to Val Garay, the man behind so many of our favorite recordings: James Taylor’s JT (another Top 100 title), Andrew Gold, Prisoner In Disguise, etc.
I don’t think Mr. Garay gets anything like his due with audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them. It’s a shame. The guy makes Top Quality Pop Records about as good as they can be made, and if you have the kind of Big System that can really rock out, you owe it to yourself to get to know his work.
This is truly a knockout Demo Disc if you have the equipment for it. We do, and it’s records like this that make us proud to be Americans with Big Speakers!
Oh Dolly!
By the way, those lovely harmony vocals come from none other than Dolly Parton. Emmylou did the harmony work on Heart Like a Wheel, and between the three of them they would somehow manage to come together, at least for a time, on Trio.
Side One
It’s So Easy
Carmelita
Simple Man, Simple Dream
Sorrow Lives Here
I Never Will Marry
Side Two
Blue Bayou
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Maybe I’m Right
Tumbling Dice
Old Paint
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
Featuring a broader array of styles than any previous Linda Ronstadt record, Simple Dreams reconfirms her substantial talents as an interpretive singer. Ronstadt sings Dolly Parton (“I Never Will Marry”) with the same conviction as the Rolling Stones (“Tumbling Dice”), and she manages to update Roy Orbison (“Blue Bayou”) and direct attention to the caustic, fledgling singer/songwriter Warren Zevon (“Poor Poor Pitiful Me” and “Carmelita”).
The consistently adventurous material and Ronstadt’s powerful performance makes the record rival Heart Like a Wheel in sheer overall quality.