Tag Archives: Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice

Selena Gomez Starring as Linda Ronstadt in Biopic Based on the Singer’s “Simple Dreams” Memoir

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Selena Gomez is heading to the Blue Bayou…

The 31-year-old Mexican American actress/singer will portray Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic based on the superstar singer’s 2013 memoir Simple Dreams.

Selena GomezGomez, who stars in and executive produces Hulu’s The Only Murders In The Building, gave credence to the months-old internet rumors about the project by posting a photo of the memoir as an Instagram Story. Rolling Stone later confirmed the casting.

In pre-production, the film is being co-produced by James Keach and Ronstadt’s longtime manager John Boylan.

Additional casting and release date have not been announced.

An unconfirmed report of Gomez’s involvement in the biopic surfaced last July, but the IG Story today moved the possibility into the definite.

Keach directed the 2020 film Linda and the Mockingbirds, a documentary chronicling a road trip undertaken by Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and a group of younger musicians to the Mexican town of Banámichi in the state of Sonora, the birthplace of Ronstadt’s grandfather.

Linda Ronstadt Heart Like a WheelLike Gomez, who has had a successful music and acting career, Ronstadt is of Mexican descent. Ronstadt wrote at length about her heritage in the 2013 memoir. The singer returned to the subject in the 2022 book Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands.

Despite her 2012 retirement following a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease – the diagnosis was revised seven years later to progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease similar to Parkinson’s that has left Ronstadt unable to sing – Ronstadt and her music have returned to the spotlight in recent months. Last year her 1970 recording of “Long Long Time” was featured prominently in an episode of The Last of Us, and trailers for Ryan Murphy’s upcoming FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans make heavy use of Ronstadt’s smash 1974 hit “You’re No Good.”

The 2019 documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, offered an in-depth retrospective of her life and career, featuring on-screen appearances by and interviews with Ronstadt and her many musical friends and colleagues, including Browne, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Kevin Kline, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt and J.D. Souther.

If even a fraction of the many rockers and celebrities who’ve crossed paths with Ronstadt over the years make it into the biopic as characters, Hollywood will be very busy in coming months with actors vying for plum roles.

CNN to Air Acclaimed Linda Ronstadt Documentary on New Year’s Day

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Linda Ronstadt’s inspiring story is headed to the screen…

CNN Films has acquired the documentary feature about the 73-year-old Mexican American singer, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, and it has set the film’s television premiere for New Year’s Day on CNN.

Linda Ronstadt

Ronstadt was 21 when she first hit the national charts with the Stone Poneys’ “Different Drum,” and her plaintive vocal leapt off the radio from the opening line. By the mid-’70s, she was cranking out smash singles and multiplatinum albums as fast as the public could consume them. Three of her LPs hit No. 1 en route to her becoming the most successful female singer of the decade. 

Ronstadt is a 10-time Grammy winner, and has earned a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by The Latin Recording Academy and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by The Recording Academy. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Famein 2014.

Two-time Oscar winner Rob Epstein and Oscar nominee Jeffrey Friedman directed the documentray from Greenwich Entertainment, 1091and CNN Films. 

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice premieres at 9:00 pm on Wednesday, January 1.

First Trailer Released for Linda Ronstadt Documentary “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice”

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Linda Ronstadt’s life in music is headed to the big screen…

The official trailer has been released for the documentary about the legendary 73-year-old half-Mexican American singer, “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice.”

Linda Ronstadt

The feature documentary takes an insider’s look at one of the most successful recording acts of the 20th century.

“Linda cold literally sing anything,” longtime friend and occasional collaborator Dolly Parton says in the trailer. And how. Along with a long string of pop hits, the singer from Tucson, Arizona, has recorded and toured with such disparate styles as opera, jazz, and Mexican folk.

Ronstadt was 21 when she first hit the national charts with the Stone Poneys’ “Different Drum,” a song penned by Monkees’ Michael Nesmith. Her plaintive vocal leapt off the radio from the opening line, and the track just missed the BillboardTop 10. By the early ’70s, her backing band included Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisnerand Bernie Leadon, who would go on be Eagles.

By the mid-’70s, Ronstadt was cranking out smash singles and multiplatinum albums as fast as the public could consume them. Three of her LPs hit No. 1 en route to her becoming the most successful female singer of the decade, selling out stadiums around the world.

Ronstadt, who also is part of the Kennedy Center Honors Class of 2019, also been an outspoken political advocate for causes like same-sex marriage and the inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants, never shying away from fighting for what she believes both on and off the stage. She retired several years ago when Parkinson’s disease left her unable to sing.

Two-time Oscar winner Rob Epstein and Oscar nominee Jeffrey Friedman directed the doc from Greenwich Entertainment, 1091 and CNN Films.

Greenwich opens the doc on September 6.