![\"Linda](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Linda-Ronstadt-1980s-Singer-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-4-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Linda Ronstadt)<\/p>\n
Mon 15 September 2025 19:00, UK <\/p>\n
For someone who had one of the biggest bands in the world at her disposal, Linda Ronstadt<\/a> never seemed to resent the Eagles for leaving her. <\/p>\n She had two of the best songwriters in country rock as sidemen for the longest time, but even if Don Henley and Glenn Frey stayed with Ronstadt, there\u2019s a good chance songs like \u2018Already Gone\u2019 or \u2018Life in the Fast Lane\u2019 would have never suited her voice. But that didn\u2019t mean that Ronstadt couldn\u2019t admire from afar whenever she saw her colleagues becoming legends.<\/p>\n In fact, Ronstadt may be one of the few artists in the world humble enough to support Henley and Frey when they went solo. Any other artist could have easily become protective and told them that their little country-rock project wasn\u2019t going to work, but aside from giving them her blessing, Ronstadt even managed to convince them to draft in Bernie Leadon, already fresh off working with The Flyin\u2019 Burrito Brothers.<\/p>\n While the band\u2019s debut was a smash hit right out of the gate, there are still some birthing pains throughout the record. Henley had only just begun writing on tunes like \u2018Witchy Woman\u2019, and the handful of songs that they didn\u2019t write themselves go back to their days performing with Ronstadt, like \u2018Nightingale\u2019. Once the record blew up when \u2018Take it Easy<\/a>\u2019 became a hit, though, things started moving really fast. <\/p>\n The band had the kind of fame that most would have killed for at their age, but after making a great debut, Desperado was a different beast. Henley and Frey wanted to go into the realm of conceptual rock, but an album dedicated to outlaws was not going to work for people who only wanted to hear their songs while driving down an open highway. The album sank like a stone, but Ronstadt wasn\u2019t about to let her new favourite band not have a hit, eventually recording her own version of \u2018Desperado\u2019.<\/p>\n It was all very friendly between both parties when the band performed as her backing group one more time during a few live performances of the tune, but Ronstadt had a different take on the tune. As much as Henley complemented her for making an incredibly poignant version of the tune, she felt that she didn\u2019t do the song justice in the way that \u2018Golden Throat\u2019 did on the original.<\/p>\n