Linda Ronstadt's Real Name: Linda Maria Ronstadt

Quick answer: Linda Ronstadt's full name is Linda Maria Ronstadt. She was born on July 15, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona. One of the most successful female singers of the 1970s, she helped establish country rock, recorded Grammy-winning Spanish-language albums, and retired after a degenerative illness took away her singing voice (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Ronstadt, Linda," with the cross-references "Ronstadt, Linda Maria" and "Ronstadt, Maria Linda." One LOC citation reads "Ronstadt, Linda; b. Linda Maria Ronstadt, 7-15-46, Tucson, Ariz." Others write it "Ronstadt, (Maria) Linda," which is why the two names sometimes appear in reverse order.

She grew up in Tucson. Her 2022 book Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands, co-written with Lawrence Downes, is a memoir of that borderland heritage; Britannica notes that it even includes recipes. Her Spanish-language album Canciones de mi padre (1987), takes its title from the phrase "my father's songs."

Career highlights

Ronstadt first drew attention in the mid-1960s with the Stone Poneys, a folk-oriented trio formed in California. She went solo in 1968. Britannica says she introduced songs by writers such as Neil Young and Jackson Browne and worked with country-oriented rock musicians who later formed the Eagles. Produced by Peter Asher, Heart Like a Wheel (1974) sold more than a million copies. It set the formula for later albums that mixed traditional folk songs, rock and roll standards, and new songs by writers such as Anna McGarrigle, Warren Zevon, and Elvis Costello.

In the 1980s and '90s she branched out. She starred on Broadway in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance (1981–82) and in its 1983 film. With arranger Nelson Riddle she recorded three albums of standards, beginning with What's New (1983). Each of her three Spanish-language collections, Canciones de mi padre, Mas canciones (1991), and Frenesí (1992), won a Grammy. Trio (1987) with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris was followed by Trio II (1999), and her children's album Dedicated to the One I Love won a Grammy in 1996.

In 2013 she revealed she had Parkinson's disease; the diagnosis was later changed to progressive supranuclear palsy. The condition ended her singing career. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and received the National Medal of Arts (2014), a lifetime achievement Grammy (2016), and a Kennedy Center Honor (2019). The documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice appeared in 2019, and she published the memoir Simple Dreams in 2013.

Name notes for searchers

Linda Ronstadt is her birth name, and Maria is her middle name. Library records sometimes put Maria first, but the LOC birth-name citation gives Linda Maria Ronstadt.