Linda Ronstadt on Her New Memoir, ‘Feels Like Home,’ and Her Mexican American Heritage

Before she would record and perform traditional Mexican music, she needed to study its intricacies. Huapangos in particular were formidable, with complicated rhythms and lots of falsetto. She apprenticed with Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, a well-known group in L.A. The guys in the band were surprised Ronstadt wanted to sing mariachi songs. Nobody was doing that on the world stage, and historically mariachi music was an all-male tradition. “They could have been real defensive and real schmucky, but they were completely willing to help,” she recalls. Los Camperos played on the record, as did Mariachi Vargas de Tecatitlán, widely considered the best mariachi in the world. To the studio sessions Ronstadt wore a peach-colored rebozo given to her by the Mexican singer Lola Beltrán, a.k.a. Lola La Grande (“Lola the Great”). Ronstadt borrowed the album title, Canciones de Mi Padre, from her aunt Luisa’s 1946 songbook.

Some white critics regarded Canciones as a radical departure for Ronstadt, seemingly unable to comprehend that she had Mexican roots. “I’d say it in interviews all the time—I’m Mexican—and it was just ignored. Like: You can’t be Mexican. You have a German surname and you’re white as a lily.” Ronstadt had to explain yet again that Mexico was a melting pot. That one branch of her family tree had been in Mexico since the 1700s. That she didn’t speak Spanish because the pressure to assimilate had led her relatives to drop their native tongue. That she grew up in a place that used to be Mexico, and pretty recently too.

But never mind all that. Canciones was immediately certified double platinum. Planning the tour, Ronstadt again drew inspiration from Luisa, and structured her show as a series of vignettes representing different regions in Mexico. Costumes were designed by Manuel Cuevas, the Mexico-born “Rhinestone Rembrandt” and former lead tailor for Nudie Cohn. Cuevas had made Johnny Cash’s black suits, Elvis’s gold lamé suit, the uniforms worn by the Beatles on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Dwight Yoakam’s bedazzled bolero jacket, and a long list of other iconic looks for Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, and just about everyone in between. For Ronstadt he designed ornate cowgirl jackets, long woolen calvary twill skirts, and custom-stitched boots. Nearly everything was embroidered, using Swarovski crystals and shiny thread that, when twisted, caught the light on stage. “He has a jeweler’s eye,” Ronstadt says of Cuevas. “He just glittered like mad.”

Ticket sales were worrisome at first. “We would go to Dallas, say, and think: No one’s coming to this arena,” Ronstadt says. Then the place would be jam-packed with three generations. (The Canciones audience didn’t buy tickets in advance, it turned out.) Ronstadt was thrilled when people showed up with their grandmothers. “We went to the same venues where we played rock n’ roll and we had a completely different audience. And they knew the songs. They knew where to yell and scream, and where to stay out of your way.”

Downes gets up from a couch next to Ronstadt’s recliner and disappears into the kitchen. He returns with three glasses of homemade agua de tamarindo, one of her favorite drinks. Then we listen to some music. Or try to, at least. The bar is high when Ronstadt is in the room.

Downes puts on “Barrio Viejo,” Lalo Guerrero’s tribute to his old neighborhood in Tucson, a melancholy song about urban renewal and bulldozers and getting old. “Beautiful were the serenades at three o’clock in the morning,” Guerrero sings. Ronstadt sits quietly until it’s over. “The vocal is good but it’s overwhelmed by the band,” she says at last.

Next we listen to a 2010 recording of Ronstadt singing “A La Orilla de un Palmar” with the Chieftains. Not her favorite vocal performance, it turns out. “This is when I knew I should never go into the studio again,” she says as Downes loads the CD. It sounds great to me. “It’s out of tune,” Ronstadt says. And alone I come and go, like the waves of the sea, she sings toward the end. “Pretty song,” she says. “I didn’t sing it well.”