Linda Ronstadt: Feels Like Home - A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The legendary Linda Ronstadt has a new book out. Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands — a historical, musical, edible memoir that spans the story of five generations of Linda’s Mexican American German family, from the Sonoran desert in Mexico to the Ronstadt family hardware store in Tucson to the road that led Linda to LA and musical stardom. Intimate and epic, "this is little Linda, Mexican Linda, cowgirl Linda, desert Linda."

The book, written in collaboration with New York Times writer Lawrence Downes, is a road trip through the Sonoran Borderlands, from Tucson to Banámichi, Mexico — the path Linda’s immigrant grandfather took at a time when the border was not a place of peril but of possibility.

We went to see Linda at home to ask her about the journey.

This story was produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) and Evan Jacoby in collaboration with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee

Thanks to Lawrence Downes, John Boylan, Bill Steen, Janet Stark and The PRX Podcast Garage. And to the team at Heyday Books: Steve Wasserman, Kalie Caetano & Megan Beatie and to Putamayo Music who just released Feels Like Home: Songs From The Sonoran Borderlands, Linda Ronstadt’s Musical Odyssey.

Special thanks to Linda Ronstadt for opening her home and her vault to this story.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Radio-topia. Welcome to the Kitchen Sisters present. We're the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson, and Nikki Silva.
0:09.0	Hi there, this is Nikki of the Kitchen Sisters. We're in our last stretch here of reaching our goal of 2,024 donors before the end of the year. We're almost there, and with your help, we can put it
0:22.2	over the top. The money that we raise during this fundraiser is crucial to keeping Radiotopia
0:28.1	and The Kitchen Sisters present going throughout the rest of the year. We have some beautiful
0:32.8	stories we're working on for next year about visionaries and doers, people with a mission to help us
0:38.3	understand our world and move into a wiser, healthier, more meaningful future.
0:43.8	Radiotopia is the place that makes these stories possible. Not just our stories, but all of
0:48.7	the incredible stories that you can find at Radiotopia.fm. We are all independent producers. We've come together as a
0:55.9	collective. We've formed this group with PRX, which is a non-profit, which we completely believe in.
1:01.5	This is the perfect time to be supporting the things you believe in, the things you love,
1:05.8	the things that bring you hope and information and truth. Whatever you want to give will make a difference. It also just
1:14.2	encourages us. As a small token, thanks when you donate, you'll receive a curated list of
1:19.5	Radiotopia producers' favorite things. There's some doozies. Head to Radiotopia.fm
1:25.6	and donate today. Thanks so much.
1:31.1	Linda Ronstadt is arguably the most successful female pop singer of all time.
1:36.2	1983. Now, some might say she's also the most controversial, but putting that aside for a moment,
1:42.2	there's hardly an area of music that hasn't been explored and conquered by this queen of pop.
1:46.0	Even Gilbert and Sullivan recently succumbed to the Ronstat magic when she received raves for her performance in the Pirates of Penzance.
1:53.0	Her latest effort is a highly acclaimed big-selling album, What's New?
1:58.0	Arranged by Nelson Riddle, who created all those velvety sounds for Frank Sinatra 25
2:03.6	or 30 years ago.
2:04.6	What's new?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.