![]() Sometimes, she offers despair when the right tone for a song is melancholy, subtle differences that Mexicans raised on mariachi noted then and now.īut 30 years later, “Canciones” remains a classic. In “La Charreada,” you can tell Ronstadt’s primary language isn’t Spanish because she pronounces words too exactly and doesn’t elide like a native speaker. Now came Ronstadt, deep into her career, with a bold announcement: I’m Mexican, and what of it? Previous generations of American entertainment giants downplayed their ethnic heritage to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. But with “Canciones” she did something revolutionary. She had used Español before in her career: a Latin American version of “Blue Bayou,” her own composition, on the 1976 LP “Hasten Down the Wind,” and a duet with salsa legend Rubén Blades in 1985. Ronstadt was the biggest deal of them all. “Previous generations of American entertainment giants downplayed their ethnic heritage to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. (My dad bought our cassette from a street vendor in front of a King Taco.) The Los Lobos-fronted soundtrack to the former had played across the Southland that summer. “La Bamba” and “Born in East L.A.” told stories of the Los Angeles Chicano experience on the big screen. “Canciones” was the coda to a banner year for Mexicans in popular entertainment. Any time you hear one of us say “Doyers,” or wear a splendid guayabera, it’s because of her. Seeing Ronstadt sing in Spanish on national television, her album cover published in newspapers, taught us that it was OK to be unapologetically Mexican, no matter how assimilated we may be. Our generation would become the first group of Mexican Americans to grow up comfortable with both sides of that term. Its national success - it sold over 2.5 million units, the biggest-selling foreign-language album ever in the United States - was a crucial moment to my peers and me. A rush of brash mariachi strings, and male yelps that mimic the excitement of a Mexican-style rodeo, followed by Ronstadt’s mighty voice that holds a note for seconds before she launches into rapid-fire verses - and it all comes to me again. That’s when my mom bought Ronstadt’s latest release: “Canciones de mi Padre” (“Songs of My Father”), a Spanish-language cover album that remains a milestone of American music and Mexican American history. Whenever I hear the opening of Linda Ronstadt’s “La Charreada” I think back to the winter of 1987, when I was 8 years old. Linda Ronstadt with Jesus "Chuy" Guzman, left, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa on Dec. Op-Ed Linda Ronstadt's 'Canciones de mi Padre' changed my life, and my culture I have just the home for this article: /thread/4570/cultural-influence-linda-ronstadt?page=1&scrollTo=43212 ![]()
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