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Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Web Rock Radio News Dept

Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z

Feature Photo: Larry Bessel, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Linda Ronstadt’s musical roots run deep in the Arizona desert, where she was raised in Tucson in a family steeped in tradition and cultural heritage. The Mexican-American influence of her upbringing would later resurface in some of her most personal work, but her initial foray into music began when she moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. Teaming up with Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards, she formed the Stone Poneys, a folk-rock trio that found success with the 1967 single “Different Drum.” Though the group disbanded shortly after, Ronstadt’s powerful, emotive voice had already begun turning heads in the music industry.

Her solo career took flight in the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, as she toured extensively and released a series of albums that revealed her commitment to blending country, rock, and pop styles. Her 1974 breakthrough album Heart Like a Wheel reached No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Country Albums chart. It produced the chart-topping single “You’re No Good,” as well as “When Will I Be Loved,” which peaked at No. 2. The album’s success solidified Ronstadt’s place in the growing field of country-rock, a genre she helped to define and popularize.

The mid to late 1970s marked a period of enormous commercial success for Ronstadt. She followed Heart Like a Wheel with a string of platinum albums, including Prisoner in Disguise (1975), Hasten Down the Wind (1976), Simple Dreams (1977), and Living in the USA (1978). Hits from this period included “Blue Bayou,” “It’s So Easy,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” and “Back in the U.S.A.” Each release reinforced her status as one of the most bankable and respected vocalists of her generation, while her interpretations of songs by Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Warren Zevon introduced classic tracks to new audiences.

Throughout the 1980s, Ronstadt continued to explore new territory, taking bold artistic risks. In 1983, she starred on Broadway in The Pirates of Penzance, receiving a Tony nomination for her performance. Her collaboration with composer Nelson Riddle on a trilogy of traditional pop and jazz albums—What’s New (1983), Lush Life (1984), and For Sentimental Reasons (1986)—demonstrated a remarkable vocal range and introduced a younger audience to the Great American Songbook. These albums were commercial hits and earned critical acclaim, particularly for Ronstadt’s elegant phrasing and stylistic precision.

Her resume expanded even further with her collaborations alongside Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. Their 1987 album Trio was a massive success, reaching No. 1 on the Country Albums chart and winning a Grammy Award. The follow-up, Trio II, released in 1999, also received critical acclaim. Ronstadt also ventured into her roots with the 1987 album Canciones de Mi Padre, a Spanish-language collection of traditional Mexican music that honored her heritage. The album became the best-selling non-English-language album in American recording history and won a Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American Performance.

Over the course of her career, Linda Ronstadt released 29 studio albums, multiple live and compilation albums, and scored 38 Billboard Hot 100 charting singles. She was a 10-time Grammy Award winner, and also received two Academy of Country Music Awards, an Emmy, and an ALMA Award. In 2014, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Library of Congress honored her in 2019 with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, marking her as the first Latina recipient of the award.

Outside of her musical legacy, Ronstadt was an outspoken advocate for causes she believed in. She supported political and cultural issues related to the arts, immigration, and the environment. She was also candid about her personal struggles, including her diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease, which she revealed in 2013. The condition ultimately forced her retirement from singing, but she continued to speak and write about her life and career, including the publication of her 2013 memoir Simple Dreams, which became a New York Times bestseller.

Despite no longer performing, her influence remains deeply felt in American music. Her interpretations of songs from a vast range of genres have inspired generations of vocalists, and her pioneering efforts in country rock, traditional pop, and Latin music continue to shape the industry. Ronstadt’s ability to defy genre constraints while maintaining a deep emotional connection to the material is one of the many reasons she remains beloved by fans, critics, and fellow musicians alike.

Linda Ronstadt’s legacy is defined not only by her astonishing vocal talent but by her artistic courage. She consistently refused to be boxed in by commercial expectations, choosing instead to follow her creative instincts—even when that meant taking the less conventional path. Her work introduced new generations to older forms of music, helped break cultural barriers, and reaffirmed the power of the American female voice in a male-dominated era.

Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z

1917 – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Across the Border – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Adieu False Heart – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Adios – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Adonde Voy – Winter Light – 1993
After the Gold Rush – Feels Like Home – 1995
After the Gold Rush – Trio II – 1999
Alison – Living in the USA – 1978
All I Left Behind – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
All My Life – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
All That You Dream – Living in the USA – 1978
Alma Adentro – Frenesí – 1992
Am I Blue? – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
Angel Baby – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
A Number and a Name – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Anyone Who Had a Heart – Winter Light – 1993
Are My Thoughts with You? – Silk Purse – 1970
A River for Him – Winter Light – 1993
Aren’t You the One – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Away in a Manger – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Baby, I Love You – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Baby, You’ve Been on My Mind – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Back in the U.S.A. – Living in the USA – 1978
Be My Baby – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
Birds – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
The Blue Train – Feels Like Home – 1995
The Blue Train – Trio II – 1999
Blue Prelude – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Blowing Away – Living in the USA – 1978
Blue Bayou – Simple Dreams – 1977
Brahms’ Lullaby – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Break My Mind – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Burns’ Supper – Adieu False Heart – 2006
But Not for Me – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
By the Fruits of their Labors – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Can’t We Be Friends? – Lush Life – 1984
Carmelita – Simple Dreams – 1977
The Christmas Song – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Closing – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Colorado – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Corrido De Cananea – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Cost of Love – Mad Love – 1980
Crazy – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Crazy Arms – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
Crazy He Calls Me – What’s New – 1983
Cry Like a Rainstorm – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Cry Me a River – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Cry ‘Til My Tears Run Dry – We Ran – 1998
Cuando Me Querías Tú – Frenesí – 1992
Damage – We Ran – 1998
The Dark End of the Street – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
Day Dream – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Dedicated to the One I Love – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Desperado – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Despojos – Frenesí – 1992
Devoted to You – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Devoted to You (instrumental) – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
The Dolphins – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind – Trio II – 1999
Don’t Cry Now – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Don’t Know Much – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) – Winter Light – 1993
Do What You Gotta Do – Winter Light – 1993
Dos Arbolitos – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Down So Low – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Dreams of the San Joaquin – We Ran – 1998
Easy for You to Say – Get Closer – 1982
El Camino – Mas Canciones – 1991
El Crucifijo de Piedra – Mas Canciones – 1991
El Gustito – Mas Canciones – 1991
El Sol Que Tú Eres – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
El Sueño – Mas Canciones – 1991
El Toro Relajo – Mas Canciones – 1991
En Mi Soledad – Frenesí – 1992
Entre Abismos – Frenesí – 1992
Everybody Loves a Winner – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Faithless Love – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
Falling Down – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Falling in Love Again – Lush Life – 1984
Farther Along – Trio – 1987
The Fast One – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Feels Like Home – Feels Like Home – 1995
Feels Like Home – Trio II – 1999
For a Dancer – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Fragments: Golden Song / Merry-Go-Round / Love Is a Child – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Frenesí – Frenesí – 1992
Get Closer – Get Closer – 1982
Get Out of Town – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Girls Talk – Mad Love – 1980
Give Me a Reason – We Ran – 1998
Give One Heart – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Go Away From My Window – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Good Night – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Goodbye – What’s New – 1983
Goodbye My Friend – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Grítenme Piedras del Campo – Mas Canciones – 1991
Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry – What’s New – 1983
Hasten Down the Wind – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Hay Unos Ojos – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Heart Like a Wheel – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
Heartbeats Accelerating – Winter Light – 1993
Heartbreak Kind – We Ran – 1998
Heat Wave – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
He Darked the Sun – Silk Purse – 1970
He Rode All the Way to Texas – Trio II – 1999
He Was Mine – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Hey Mister, That’s Me Up on the Jukebox – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
High Sierra – Feels Like Home – 1995
High Sierra – Trio II – 1999
Hobo – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Hobo’s Meditation – Trio – 1987
How Do I Make You – Mad Love – 1980
Hummin’ to Myself – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Hurt So Bad – Mad Love – 1980
I Ain’t Always Been Faithful – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
I Believe in You – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
I Can Almost See It – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
I Can’t Get Over You – Adieu False Heart – 2006
I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You) – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
I Can’t Let Go – Mad Love – 1980
I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You – What’s New – 1983
I Fall in Love Too Easily – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
I Fall to Pieces – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
I Feel the Blues Movin’ In – Trio II – 1999
If He’s Ever Near – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
If I Should Fall Behind – We Ran – 1998
I Get Along Without You Very Well – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
I Go to Pieces – We Ran – 1998
I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself – Winter Light – 1993
I Keep it Hid – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
I’ll Be Home for Christmas – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
I’ll Be Seeing You – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
I’m a Fool to Want You – Lush Life – 1984
I’m Leaving It All Up to You – Silk Purse – 1970
In My Room – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
I Knew You When – Get Closer – 1982
I Need You – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
I Never Will Marry – Simple Dreams – 1977
Interlude – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Interlude – Adieu False Heart – 2006
I Still Miss Someone – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
I Think It’s Gonna Work Out Fine – Get Closer – 1982
It Never Entered My Mind – Lush Life – 1984
It’s So Easy – Simple Dreams – 1977
It’s Too Soon to Know – Winter Light – 1993
I’ve Had Enough – Trio – 1987
I’ve Got a Crush on You – What’s New – 1983
I’ve Never Been in Love Before – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
I Will Always Love You – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
I Won’t Be Hangin’ Round – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
I Wonder as I Wander – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Icy Blue Heart – We Ran – 1998
In My Reply – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
It Doesn’t Matter Anymore – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
It’s About Time – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – We Ran – 1998
Just One Look – Living in the USA – 1978
Justine – Mad Love – 1980
Keep Me from Blowing Away – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
King of Bohemia – Adieu False Heart – 2006
La Barca De Guaymas – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
La Calandria – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
La Charreada – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
La Cigarra – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
La Mariquita – Mas Canciones – 1991
Let’s Get Together – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Lies – Get Closer – 1982
Life Is Like a Mountain Railway – Silk Purse – 1970
Little Girl Blue – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
The Long Way Around – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Long Long Time – Silk Purse – 1970
Look Out for My Love – Mad Love – 1980
Los Laureles – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Lo Siento Mi Vida – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Lose Again – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Louise – Silk Purse – 1970
Love Has No Pride – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Love Is a Rose – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Love Me Tender – Living in the USA – 1978
Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?) – What’s New – 1983
Lover’s Return – Feels Like Home – 1995
Lover’s Return – Trio II – 1999
Lovesick Blues – Silk Purse – 1970
Loving the Highway Man – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Lush Life – Lush Life – 1984
Mad Love – Mad Love – 1980
Making Plans – Trio – 1987
Many Rivers to Cross – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Marie Mouri – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Maybe I’m Right – Simple Dreams – 1977
Mean to Me – Lush Life – 1984
Mentira Salomé – Frenesí – 1992
Mental Revenge – Silk Purse – 1970
Mi Ranchito – Mas Canciones – 1991
Miss Otis Regrets – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Mohammed’s Radio – Living in the USA – 1978
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Get Closer – 1982
Morning Blues – Feels Like Home – 1995
Mr. Radio – Get Closer – 1982
My Blue Tears – Get Closer – 1982
My Dear Companion – Trio – 1987
My Funny Valentine – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
My Old Flame – Lush Life – 1984
Never Will I Marry – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Nobody’s – Silk Purse – 1970
O come, O come, Emmanuel – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Oh No Not My Baby – Winter Light – 1993
Old Paint – Simple Dreams – 1977
O magnum mysterium – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
The One I Love Is Gone – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Only Mama That’ll Walk the Line – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Ooh Baby Baby – Living in the USA – 1978
Opening – Adieu False Heart – 2006
The Pain of Loving You – Trio – 1987
Palomita de Ojos Negros – Mas Canciones – 1991
Parlez-Moi D’Amour – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Party Girl – Mad Love – 1980
Past Three O’Clock – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Pena de los Amores – Mas Canciones – 1991
People Gonna Talk – Get Closer – 1982
Perfidia – Frenesí – 1992
Piel Canela – Frenesí – 1992
Piensa en Mí – Frenesí – 1992
Plus Tu Tournes – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Poor Poor Pitiful Me – Simple Dreams – 1977
Por Un Amor – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Prisoner in Disguise – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Quiéreme Mucho – Frenesí – 1992
Raise the Dead – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Ramblin’ ‘Round – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
Rattle My Cage – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Rescue Me – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
River – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Rivers of Babylon – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Rock Me On the Water – Linda Ronstadt – 1972
Rogaciano El Huapanguero – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Roll Um Easy – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Rosewood Casket – Trio – 1987
‘Round Midnight – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
Ruler of My Heart – We Ran – 1998
Sail Away – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Shattered – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Siempre Hace Frío – Mas Canciones – 1991
Silent Night – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Silver Blue – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Silver Threads and Golden Needles – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
Silver Threads and Golden Needles – Don’t Cry Now – 1973
Simple Man, Simple Dream – Simple Dreams – 1977
Sisters of Mercy – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Skylark – Lush Life – 1984
Some of Shelly’s Blues – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Someone to Lay Down Beside Me – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Someone to Watch Over Me – What’s New – 1983
Sometimes You Just Can’t Win – Get Closer – 1982
Sophisticated Lady – Lush Life – 1984
So Right, So Wrong – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Sorrow Lives Here – Simple Dreams – 1977
Star and a Stone – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Still Within the Sound of My Voice – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Stoney End – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Straighten Up and Fly Right – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
Sweet Spot – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
The Sweetest Gift – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Talk to Me of Mendocino – Get Closer – 1982
Talking in the Dark – Mad Love – 1980
Tata Dios – Mas Canciones – 1991
The Tattler – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Teardrops Will Fall – Feels Like Home – 1995
Tell Him I Said Hello – Hummin’ to Myself – 2004
Te Quiero Dijiste – Frenesí – 1992
Tell Him – Get Closer – 1982
Telling Me Lies – Trio – 1987
That’ll Be the Day – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
This Is to Mother You – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Those Memories of You – Trio – 1987
To Know Him Is to Love Him – Trio – 1987
Too Old To Die Young – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Tracks of My Tears – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
Trouble Again – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
Try Me Again – Hasten Down the Wind – 1976
Tú Sólo Tú – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
Tumbling Dice – Simple Dreams – 1977
Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Valerie – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
Verdad Amarga – Frenesí – 1992
The Waiting – Feels Like Home – 1995
Walk Away Renée – Adieu False Heart – 2006
Walk On – Feels Like Home – 1995
We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock & Roll) – Hand Sown … Home Grown – 1969
We Will Rock You – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Welsh Carol – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Western Wall – Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions – 1999
What’ll I Do – What’s New – 1983
What’s New? – What’s New – 1983
When I Fall in Love – Lush Life – 1984
When I Grow Too Old to Dream – Living in the USA – 1978
When Something Is Wrong with My Baby – Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind – 1989
When We Ran – We Ran – 1998
When We’re Gone, Long Gone – Trio II – 1999
When Will I Be Loved – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
When You Wish Upon a Star – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
When Your Lover Has Gone – Lush Life – 1984
White Christmas – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
White Rhythm & Blues – Living in the USA – 1978
Wildflowers – Trio – 1987
Will You Love Me Tomorrow – Silk Purse – 1970
Willin’ – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
Wings – Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III – 1968
Winter Light – Dedicated to the One I Love – 1996
Winter Light – Winter Light – 1993
Women ‘Cross the River – Feels Like Home – 1995
Xicochi, Xicochi – A Merry Little Christmas – 2000
Y Ándale – Canciones de Mi Padre – 1987
You Can Close Your Eyes – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
You Can’t Treat the Wrong Man Right – Winter Light – 1993
You Go to My Head – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986
You’ll Never Be the Sun – Trio II – 1999
You Tell Me That I’m Falling Down – Prisoner in Disguise – 1975
You Took Advantage of Me – Lush Life – 1984
You’re No Good – Heart Like a Wheel – 1974
(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons – For Sentimental Reasons – 1986

Albums

Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III (1968)

Hand Sown … Home Grown (1969)

Silk Purse (1970)

Linda Ronstadt (1972)

Don’t Cry Now (1973)

Heart Like a Wheel (1974)

Prisoner in Disguise (1975)

Hasten Down the Wind (1976)

Simple Dreams (1977)

Living in the USA (1978)

Mad Love (1980)

Get Closer (1982)

What’s New (1983)

Lush Life (1984)

For Sentimental Reasons (1986)

Trio (1987) (with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton)

Canciones de Mi Padre (1987)

Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind (1989)

Mas Canciones (1991)

Frenesí (1992)

Winter Light (1993)

Feels Like Home (1995)

Dedicated to the One I Love (1996)

We Ran (1998)

Trio II (1999) (Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton)

Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999) (with Emmylou Harris)

A Merry Little Christmas (2000)

Hummin’ to Myself (2004)

Adieu False Heart (2006) (with Ann Savoy)

Check out our fantastic and entertaining Linda Ronstadt articles, detailing in-depth the band’s albums, songs, band members, and more…all on ClassicRockHistory.com

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Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z article published on ClassicRockHistory.com© 2025

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Complete List Of Prince Band Members

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Web Rock Radio News Dept

Complete List Of Prince Band Members

Feature Photo: Northfoto / Shutterstock.com

Throughout his legendary four-decade career, Prince assembled and dissolved numerous musical configurations that became the sonic backbone of his ever-evolving artistry. From his earliest Minneapolis days forming Grand Central in high school to his final performances with 3rdeyegirl, Prince’s musical journey encompassed multiple distinct eras, each characterized by different band lineups that reflected his artistic growth and changing musical vision. His career spanned from 1978 to 2016, during which he released 39 studio albums and worked with dozens of musicians across various band configurations. The most notable lineups included his early touring bands, The Revolution during his commercial peak, The New Power Generation throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and 3rdeyegirl in his final years.

Prince’s band history can be divided into several major periods: his early unnamed touring bands (1979-1986), The Revolution (officially from 1984-1986), various transitional lineups (1987-1990), The New Power Generation (1990-2013), and 3rdeyegirl (2013-2016). Each configuration brought unique musical elements to Prince’s sound, from The Revolution’s new wave-influenced pop-rock stylings that dominated the Purple Rain era to The New Power Generation’s funk-heavy approach that defined his 1990s output. The Revolution is famous for its “Purple Rain”-era all-stars: Wendy & Lisa, Dr. Fink, Brown Mark, and Bobby Z, while NPG fans point to the lineup featuring Rosie Gaines, Tommy Barbarella, Sonny T, and Michael Bland as Prince’s tightest, funkiest outfit.

Prince’s approach to band leadership was notoriously demanding yet rewarding, with many former members describing the experience as both challenging and career-defining. Prince gave a lot of spotlight to his bandmates, launching careers such as Sheila E, The Time, New Power Generation, Vanity, Carmen Electra, and Apollonia. His bands served not only as backing musicians but as creative collaborators who contributed significantly to his artistic output. The musicians who worked with Prince often went on to have successful solo careers, with many continuing to perform his music in tribute bands and reunion tours following his death in 2016.

André Cymone

André Cymone, born Andre Simon Anderson on June 27, 1958, was a bass guitarist for Prince’s touring band before The Revolution period. Cymone’s relationship with Prince stretched back to childhood, as they lived together during Prince’s troubled teenage years. The Anderson home had an additional member – a young Prince who left his own home due to conflicts with his father. Their musical partnership began in earnest when in 1979, Prince created a band with André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums.

Cymone performed with Prince from 1979 to 1981, appearing on the albums Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), and Controversy (1981). Cymone left over a number of grievances with Prince—little input in the studio, he was not getting credit for his contributions to Prince’s music, and in general his desire to start his own career—and would have bitter feelings toward Prince as he later claimed that Prince stole many of his ideas that were used for the Time and that he created the bassline for Controversy’s “Do Me, Baby”. His departure led to him being replaced by Mark Brown, who was renamed “Brownmark” by Prince.

After leaving Prince’s band, Cymone embarked on a successful solo career, signing with Columbia Records. He released three solo albums – Livin’ In The New Wave (1982), Survivin’ in the 80s (1983), and AC (1985). His only successful single – a song written by Prince – was “The Dance Electric” from AC, which reached #10 on the R&B charts in 1985. Cymone transitioned into production work and became better known for producing his then-wife Jody Watley, co-writing and producing her hits “Looking for a New Love” and “Real Love.” He has also produced tracks for Evelyn “Champagne” King, Pebbles, Jermaine Stewart, and Adam Ant. In 2014, Cymone released his fourth studio album The Stone, ending a 27-year singing hiatus, followed by his sixth album 1969 in 2017.

Dez Dickerson

Desmond D’andrea Dickerson, born August 7, 1955, was a guitarist who joined Prince’s band after answering an advertisement in the Twin Cities Reader in 1979. After a 15-minute audition in the back of Del’s Tire Mart, Dickerson was picked as guitarist, joining what would eventually become The Revolution. His tenure with Prince lasted from 1979 to 1983, during which he contributed to several key albums and helped establish the band’s early sound.

Dickerson’s most notable studio contributions include co-lead vocals on the 1999 album and backing vocals plus a memorable guitar solo on “Little Red Corvette.” His guitar solo on “Little Red Corvette” was ranked number 64 in Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Solos of All Time. However, his relationship with Prince became complicated when in 1980, during a Christmas break, Dickerson had a profound conversion experience and became a born-again Christian. Afterwards, performing songs with sexual themes began to trouble his conscience.

Dickerson left the band for religious reasons, with Prince telling him that he needed three years from him, and Dickerson was not willing to commit. Prince honored his contract and kept him on payroll. After leaving Prince, Dickerson contributed songs for Prince’s side projects, writing “He’s So Dull” for Vanity 6 and co-writing several tracks for The Time. He moved into the Christian music industry, eventually becoming vice president of A&R with CCM label Starsong Communications in 1990. In 1994, he founded his own label, Absolute Records, a Christian rock record company, and later managed record label and branding companies Pavilion Entertainment and Pavilion Synergies in Nashville.

Bobby Z

Bobby Z. (Robert Rivkin) served as drummer and percussionist from 1979–1986, and later reunited with The Revolution for concerts in 2012 and from 2016–present. As one of the longest-serving early members, Bobby Z was instrumental in establishing the rhythmic foundation of Prince’s sound during his commercial breakthrough period. His drumming can be heard on crucial albums including Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984), Around the World in a Day (1985), and Parade (1986).

Bobby Z’s drumming style perfectly complemented Prince’s vision, providing the steady backbeat that anchored hits like “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Purple Rain,” and “When Doves Cry.” He was credited as a “heaven-sent helper” alongside André Cymone on the Prince album, reflecting his early importance to Prince’s recording process. His work during The Revolution era helped define the sound that would make Prince a global superstar.

After The Revolution disbanded in 1986, Prince called Bobby Z. to tell him that he was being replaced by Sheila E, although he was kept on payroll for quite a few years after the fact, honoring Z’s contract. Following his departure from Prince’s touring band, Bobby Z released a solo album in 1989. He later became involved in Revolution reunion activities, organizing benefit concerts and continuing to perform Prince’s music. In 2012, Bobby Z organized a full-scale Revolution reunion which was set up to raise money and awareness for heart disease; Prince attended the performances but did not participate.

Matt “Dr.” Fink

Matt Fink served as keyboardist, synthesizer player, and vocalist from 1979–1986, and continued to work with Prince until the Nude Tour. He later reunited with The Revolution in 2012 and from 2016–present. Known for his distinctive stage persona, Fink originally wore a black- and white-striped prison jumpsuit. However, a member of Rick James’ band was doing the same thing and not wanting to copy that, Prince asked Fink, “Do you have any other ideas?” Fink said, “What about a doctor’s outfit?” Prince loved the idea, and thus was born Doctor Fink.

Dr. Fink was one of Prince’s most consistent early collaborators, contributing keyboards and synthesizers to all the major albums during Prince’s rise to stardom. Fink went the furthest back, having co-written the title track from 1980’s Dirty Mind. His synthesizer work was crucial in creating the electronic textures that characterized Prince’s sound during the 1980s, particularly on albums like 1999 and Purple Rain. His distinctive keyboard sounds helped bridge Prince’s funk roots with the new wave and synth-pop influences that made his music so commercially appealing.

After The Revolution disbanded, Dr. Fink continued working with Prince for several more years, demonstrating the respect Prince had for his musical contributions. When the Revolution ended, some of the musicians remained, including Leeds, Bliss, Fink and Weaver. These men would stay with Prince through the ensuing years, eventually departing prior to the creation of the New Power Generation. Following his time with Prince, Dr. Fink has remained active in the music industry and participates in Revolution reunion performances, keeping the legacy of Prince’s most famous band alive.

Gayle Chapman

Gayle Chapman was one of Prince’s earliest keyboard players, joining the initial touring band formation in 1979. She was part of the original band that included André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Matt “Dr.” Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums, making their debut at the Capri Theater in Minneapolis on January 5 and 6, 1979. Chapman contributed to the early development of Prince’s live sound during his transition from solo recording artist to bandleader.

Keyboard player Gayle Chapman left the band before the Dirty Mind Tour in late 1980, making her tenure relatively brief but significant as she was part of the foundational lineup that helped establish Prince’s touring presence. Her departure occurred during a period when Prince was rapidly evolving his sound and image, particularly with the more sexually explicit material on the Dirty Mind album. Chapman was subsequently replaced by Lisa Coleman, who would become a much more prominent figure in Prince’s musical development.

After leaving Prince’s band, Chapman maintained a lower profile in the music industry compared to many of her former bandmates. Her contributions to Prince’s early development as a live performer, however, were crucial during a formative period when he was learning to balance his role as both a solo artist and a bandleader. The experience she gained with Prince’s early band helped establish many of the performance dynamics that would later be refined during The Revolution era.

Lisa Coleman

Lisa Coleman served as keyboardist, synthesizer player, and vocalist from 1980–1986, and later reunited with The Revolution in 2012 and from 2016–present. Coleman replaced Gayle Chapman, joining when she was just 19 years old. Her addition to the band marked a significant evolution in Prince’s musical development, as she brought both technical skills and creative input that would influence his songwriting during some of his most successful years.

Coleman’s keyboard work can be heard on 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984), Around the World in a Day (1985), and Parade (1986). Coleman was usually only identified by her first name during her time with Prince. She formed a particularly important creative partnership with Wendy Melvoin, and together they provided significant musical input during The Revolution era. Wendy and Lisa shortly thereafter formed a special bond with Prince and greatly influenced his output during the rest of their tenure in the band.

Shortly after the Parade Tour in October 1986, after all the tension between Prince, Wendy Melvoin, and Coleman due to his relationship with Susannah Melvoin, Prince invited Wendy Melvoin and Coleman to dinner at his rented Beverly Hills home and fired them both. Following their departure, Coleman and Wendy Melvoin formed the successful duo Wendy & Lisa, releasing several critically acclaimed albums and eventually moving into television scoring. Their work has included composing music for series like “Heroes,” “Crossing Jordan,” and “Nurse Jackie.” The duo has maintained a successful partnership for over three decades, demonstrating the creative chemistry that originally caught Prince’s attention.

Brownmark (Mark Brown)

Mark Brown, renamed Brownmark by Prince, replaced André Cymone as bassist in September 1981 and served until 1986. His tenure with Prince covered some of the most commercially successful years of Prince’s career, including the albums that would establish him as a global superstar. Brownmark’s bass playing provided the rhythmic foundation for hits during the 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Parade eras.

Brownmark’s bass work was crucial during the period when Prince was perfecting his blend of funk, rock, and pop that would define his commercial peak. His playing style complemented Bobby Z’s drumming and the keyboard work of Dr. Fink and Lisa Coleman, creating the tight rhythm section that made The Revolution such an effective unit. The Revolution knew they had a problem when Prince began making changes to his stage setup, specifically putting the dancers in front of his band, and tensions grew over financial and creative issues.

Brownmark was asked to stay but quit after The Revolution disbanded, partly out of loyalty to the others and also because he was unhappy with the direction of Prince’s music at the time. During the later tour periods, Prince promised Brownmark a lot of money, but Brownmark settled for $3000 a week, a paltry sum based on other touring bands. He turned down a much more lucrative gig as bassist for Stevie Nicks, who was going on tour at that time. Brown has said that Prince never followed through on “all that money”. After leaving Prince, Brownmark pursued other musical projects and remained connected to the Minneapolis music scene that had nurtured his early career.

Wendy Melvoin

Wendy Melvoin replaced Dez Dickerson as guitarist following the 1999 Tour and served from 1983-1986. Her arrival – like Coleman, Melvoin joined when she was just 19 – completed Prince’s vision of a multi-gender Fleetwood Mac-style band. Wendy was Lisa Coleman’s childhood friend, and their musical partnership would become one of the most important creative relationships in Prince’s career during the mid-1980s.

Melvoin’s guitar work appears on Purple Rain (1984), Around the World in a Day (1985), and Parade (1986). Wendy and Lisa formed a special bond with Prince and greatly influenced his output during the rest of their tenure in the band. Her guitar style brought a different texture to Prince’s music compared to Dez Dickerson’s approach, contributing to the more polished and mainstream sound that characterized Prince’s commercial peak. The creative input from both Wendy and Lisa helped push Prince’s music in new directions during this period.

The musicians got a sense that Prince was yearning for change, and his relationship with the Revolution over the next few months would only exacerbate the matter. The raise request added tension between Prince and his group. Prince invited Wendy Melvoin and Coleman to dinner at his rented Beverly Hills home and fired them both in October 1986. After leaving Prince, Wendy & Lisa became a successful recording duo, releasing multiple albums and eventually transitioning into television and film scoring. Their work has included Emmy-winning compositions for television series, establishing them as respected composers in their own right.

Sheila E

Sheila Cecilia Escovedo, known as Sheila E., is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist born December 12, 1957, who worked extensively with Prince from 1984 onwards. While primarily a solo artist, Sheila E. served multiple roles with Prince’s various bands and projects. She began recording her first solo album with Prince, whom she met at a concert when she was performing with her father in 1977. Her relationship with Prince encompassed both professional collaboration and personal involvement.

In June 1987, Sheila served as the musical director for Prince’s Sign o’ the Times Tour. She also served as musical director during his Lovesexy Tour in 1988 and 1989. Her percussion and drumming skills made her an invaluable addition to Prince’s musical arsenal. Prince called Bobby Z. to tell him that he was being replaced by Sheila E during the transition period after The Revolution disbanded. Her dynamic stage presence and musical versatility made her a perfect fit for Prince’s evolving artistic vision.

Sheila E.’s solo career flourished alongside her work with Prince. She released The Glamorous Life (1984), which peaked at number 28 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and sold over 500,000 copies, becoming certified gold. The album’s lead single “The Glamorous Life” peaked in the top-ten on the US Hot 100. She continued collaborating with Prince throughout the decades, appearing at various reunion performances and special events. In 2001, she began as a member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band and toured with the band in 2001, 2003, and 2006, establishing herself as one of the most respected percussionists in popular music.

Eric Leeds

Eric Leeds was a saxophonist who joined Prince’s band during the expanded Revolution period in 1986. In early 1986, the lineup was augmented with the additions of guitarist Miko Weaver, and the horn section of Eric Leeds and Matt “Atlanta Bliss” Blistan. Leeds brought a jazz sensibility to Prince’s music that would influence his sound throughout the late 1980s and beyond. His saxophone work added sophisticated harmonic textures that complemented Prince’s expanding musical palette.

Leeds’ contributions can be heard on the Parade album and subsequent tours. Eric Leeds is a former member of The Family; brother Alan served as Prince’s then-tour manager, which demonstrates the interconnected nature of Prince’s musical family. The addition of a horn section marked a significant evolution in Prince’s live sound, moving beyond the basic rock band format toward a more complex musical arrangement that could accommodate his increasing interest in jazz and R&B.

When the Revolution ended, some of the musicians remained, including Leeds, Bliss, Fink and Weaver. These men would stay with Prince through the ensuing years, eventually departing prior to the creation of the New Power Generation. Leeds’ continued presence in Prince’s band during the transitional period between The Revolution and the NPG demonstrates the value Prince placed on his musical contributions. His saxophone work during this period helped bridge the gap between Prince’s rock-oriented Revolution era and the more funk-focused New Power Generation period.

Matt “Atlanta Bliss” Blistan

Matt Blistan, known as “Atlanta Bliss,” was a trumpet player who joined Prince’s expanded Revolution lineup in 1986. In early 1986, the lineup was augmented with the additions of guitarist Miko Weaver, and the horn section of Eric Leeds and Matt “Atlanta Bliss” Blistan. His trumpet work, combined with Eric Leeds’ saxophone, created the horn section that gave Prince’s mid-1980s music a more sophisticated jazz-funk sound.

Bliss contributed to the Parade album and the subsequent Hit n Run – Parade Tour. For their part, the newcomers understood their place. “When Eric and I joined, we called ourselves the Counter Revolution,” Bliss revealed. “We couldn’t say we were the Revolution because the Revolution is that quintessential band”. This statement reflects the respect that later additions had for the core Revolution members while acknowledging their own important contributions to Prince’s expanding sound.

These men would stay with Prince through the ensuing years, eventually departing prior to the creation of the New Power Generation. Bliss’s trumpet work during this transitional period helped establish the horn arrangements that would become a recurring element in Prince’s later music. His contributions during the late Revolution era and the subsequent unnamed band period helped bridge Prince’s evolution from rock-oriented music toward the more R&B and funk-focused approach he would take with the New Power Generation.

Miko Weaver

Miko Weaver was a guitarist who joined Prince’s band during the expanded Revolution period in 1986. In early 1986, the lineup was augmented with the additions of guitarist Miko Weaver, and the horn section of Eric Leeds and Matt “Atlanta Bliss” Blistan. Weaver’s addition provided Prince with additional guitar textures and allowed for more complex musical arrangements during live performances.

Miko Weaver joined via association with Sheila E. and as session guitarist for The Family, demonstrating the interconnected nature of Prince’s musical associates. His guitar work complemented Wendy Melvoin’s playing and added depth to the band’s sound during the Parade era. Weaver’s style brought different influences that helped expand the sonic palette available to Prince during this creative period.

When the Revolution ended, some of the musicians remained, including Leeds, Bliss, Fink and Weaver. These men would stay with Prince through the ensuing years, eventually departing prior to the creation of the New Power Generation. Weaver’s continued presence during the transitional period between bands shows that Prince valued his contributions enough to retain him through the major personnel changes. His guitar work during the late 1980s helped maintain continuity in Prince’s sound while allowing for the evolution that would eventually lead to the New Power Generation era.

Levi Seacer Jr.

Levi Seacer Jr. was a guitarist who became part of the New Power Generation, serving from 1990 through the mid-1990s. Seacer had been working with Prince since the late 1980s transitional period and became a founding member of the NPG. Seacer knew who Prince was before he saw him at the Circle Star Theater in San Francisco in 1980, with word being that Prince played all the instruments – something only Stevie Wonder could do, as far as Seacer knew. They were introduced a few years later by mutual friend Sheila E. After the Revolution disbanded, Seacer was tapped for the new project. The call came on Friday; rehearsal was Monday.

Seacer’s guitar work appears on crucial NPG albums including Diamonds and Pearls (1991) and various projects during the symbol period. A reduced NPG returned to the Prince fold when he began performing under the symbolic moniker in early 1994, backing him on The Gold Experience. The rappers and dancers were let go, and Levi Seacer left the band as well. His departure marked the end of the first major era of the New Power Generation and the beginning of Prince’s next musical evolution.

Following Prince’s death, Seacer has been involved in NPG reunion activities, participating in tribute concerts and tours celebrating Prince’s legacy. His guitar work during the early NPG era helped establish the funkier, more R&B-oriented sound that defined Prince’s 1990s output. “He’s no notice, it’s either yes or no – and you don’t say no,” said Seacer, who played bass and sang backup, describing the demanding but rewarding nature of working with Prince.

Michael Bland

Michael Bland was the drummer for the New Power Generation from 1990 to 1996, serving as one of the core members during the band’s most successful period. His drumming provided the rhythmic foundation for some of Prince’s biggest 1990s hits. The band consisted of holdovers from the Nude Tour: Michael Bland (drums), Levi Seacer, Jr. (guitar), Rosie Gaines (keyboards and backing vocals), Tony M. (lead raps and dancing), Kirk Johnson (percussion and dancing), and Damon Dickson (dancing), along with two new members Tommy Barbarella (keyboards) and Sonny T. (bass).

Bland’s drumming can be heard on Diamonds and Pearls (1991), Love Symbol Album (1992), and various other NPG projects during the early-to-mid 1990s. His style perfectly complemented the funk-heavy direction Prince was taking with the New Power Generation, providing the solid backbeat necessary for the band’s dance-oriented material. In 1996, longstanding members Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella, and Sonny T. were fired and a new band was formed for touring.

After leaving Prince’s band, Bland continued his music career and eventually reunited with former NPG members for various projects. In 2010, three former members of the original New Power Generation, drummer Michael Bland, keyboardist Tommy Barbarella and bass player Sonny T., became members of Nick Jonas and the Administration (a side project of Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers). This collaboration demonstrated the continued demand for the musical talents that had been honed during their time with Prince, as they brought their professional experience to support another major artist’s creative endeavors.

Rosie Gaines

Rosie Gaines served as keyboardist and backing vocalist for the New Power Generation from 1990 until she left after the Diamonds and Pearls Tour. Her powerful voice and keyboard skills made her one of the most prominent members of the early NPG lineup. Rosie Gaines’ incomparable voice was a particular standout in NPG, and as she said: “We were his first black band, and our thing was to help him get his audience back”.

Gaines’ contributions to Diamonds and Pearls (1991) were substantial, with her vocals featured prominently on several tracks. Her gospel-influenced singing style brought a different dynamic to Prince’s music, complementing his own vocal approach and adding depth to the NPG’s sound. Her keyboard work also provided important textural elements that enhanced the band’s overall musical arrangements during live performances and recording sessions.

Rosie Gaines left the band after the Diamonds and Pearls Tour and was replaced by keyboardist Morris Hayes. After leaving the NPG, Gaines pursued a solo career and continued to work as a session musician and performer. Her time with Prince helped establish her as a respected vocalist and keyboardist, and she has continued to perform and record music that draws on the experience and skills she developed during her tenure with one of music’s most demanding and perfectionist artists.

Tommy Barbarella

Tommy Barbarella was a keyboardist who joined the New Power Generation as one of two new members along with Sonny T. when the band was formed in 1990. His keyboard work became an integral part of the NPG sound during their most commercially successful period. The band consisted of holdovers from the Nude Tour plus two new members Tommy Barbarella (keyboards) and Sonny T. (bass). His addition provided Prince with expanded keyboard capabilities, working alongside other keyboardists to create the layered electronic textures that characterized the NPG sound.

Barbarella’s keyboard work appears on Diamonds and Pearls (1991), Love Symbol Album (1992), and other NPG projects during the early 1990s. After the tour, Prince asked Morris to officially join the NPG as another keyboard player alongside Tommy Barbarella, showing that Prince valued having multiple keyboardists to handle the complex arrangements he was creating during this period. Barbarella’s contributions helped establish the sophisticated musical arrangements that made the NPG such an effective backing band.

In 1996, longstanding members Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella, and Sonny T. were fired and a new band was formed for touring. After leaving Prince’s band, Barbarella continued his music career and eventually reunited with former NPG members. In 2010, three former members of the original New Power Generation, drummer Michael Bland, keyboardist Tommy Barbarella and bass player Sonny T., became members of Nick Jonas and the Administration. Following Prince’s death, Barbarella has participated in NPG reunion concerts and tribute tours, helping to preserve and celebrate the musical legacy of Prince’s 1990s era.

Sonny T

Sonny T. served as bassist for the New Power Generation from 1990 to 1996, joining as one of two new members when the band was officially formed. His bass playing provided the rhythmic foundation for the NPG’s funk-heavy sound during Prince’s commercially successful 1990s period. The band consisted of holdovers from the Nude Tour plus two new members Tommy Barbarella (keyboards) and Sonny T. (bass).

Sonny T.’s bass work can be heard on Diamonds and Pearls (1991), Love Symbol Album (1992), and other NPG projects throughout the early-to-mid 1990s. His funk-influenced bass style perfectly complemented Michael Bland’s drumming and helped establish the groove-oriented sound that defined the New Power Generation. His playing was crucial in creating the danceable rhythms that made songs like “Gett Off” and “Cream” so effective on dance floors worldwide.

In 1996, longstanding members Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella, and Sonny T. were fired and a new band was formed for touring. This marked the end of the original NPG lineup that had been so successful during Prince’s early 1990s commercial resurgence. After leaving Prince’s band, Sonny T. continued his music career and maintained connections with his former bandmates.

In 2010, three former members of the original New Power Generation, drummer Michael Bland, keyboardist Tommy Barbarella and bass player Sonny T., became members of Nick Jonas and the Administration (a side project of Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers). Following Prince’s death in 2016, Sonny T. has been actively involved in NPG reunion tours and tribute concerts, helping to keep the music and memory of Prince’s 1990s era alive for fans worldwide.

Tony M

Tony M. served as lead rapper and dancer for the New Power Generation from 1990 through the mid-1990s, bringing a hip-hop element to Prince’s music during a period when rap was becoming increasingly mainstream. The band consisted of holdovers from the Nude Tour including Tony M. (lead raps and dancing), Kirk Johnson (percussion and dancing), and Damon Dickson (dancing), along with the core musicians. His addition reflected Prince’s awareness of changing musical trends and his desire to incorporate contemporary urban music styles into his sound.

Tony M.’s rap contributions can be heard prominently on Diamonds and Pearls (1991) and Love Symbol Album (1992), where his vocals provided a contrast to Prince’s singing style and helped bridge the gap between rock, funk, and hip-hop. When Prince began his formal dispute with Warner Bros. and changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1993, the NPG became a side-project for Prince, allowing him to release music outside of his contract. The NPG’s debut album, Goldnigga, featured Tony M. as lead vocalist/rapper.

A reduced NPG returned to the Prince fold when he began performing under the symbolic moniker in early 1994, backing him on The Gold Experience. The rappers and dancers were let go, and Levi Seacer left the band as well. Tony M.’s departure marked the end of Prince’s most direct engagement with hip-hop elements in his music. Following Prince’s death, Tony M. has participated in NPG reunion activities and tribute concerts, representing the important role that rap and hip-hop played in Prince’s musical evolution during the 1990s.

Morris Hayes

Morris Hayes became one of Prince’s longest-serving and most important musical collaborators, joining the New Power Generation in the early 1990s and continuing to work with Prince for nearly 20 years. Hayes got his big break in 1991 when Jerome Benton asked him to play keyboards with the Time, replacing Jimmy Jam. After the tour, Prince asked Morris to officially join the NPG as another keyboard player alongside Tommy Barbarella. During the time that Morris was in the NPG, Prince dubbed him “Mr. Hayes” and that is how he is known to many.

Hayes’ keyboard work appears on numerous Prince albums from the 1990s onward, and he served as Prince’s Musical Director for many years. Morris left the NPG for a few years to tour with Maceo Parker – the renowned saxophonist who achieved prominence with James Brown – and who embarked on a solo career in the 1990s. He returned to the NPG in 2005, performing with Prince during his memorable Super Bowl halftime performance in Miami in 2007. Hayes was involved in some of Prince’s most high-profile performances, including tours across multiple decades.

Following Prince’s death, Hayes was the Musical Director for the official Prince Tribute Concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, in October 2016. The longest-running member of the NPG, Hayes brought the original band members back together to serve as the house band for the epic musical celebration. He has since led NPG reunion tours worldwide, including headlining performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, British Summer Time, Bluesfest in Australia, and North Sea Jazz Festival. Hayes has also worked with artists including Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston, Herbie Hancock, and many others, establishing himself as one of the most respected keyboardists and musical directors in popular music.

Kirk Johnson

Kirk Johnson served as percussionist and dancer for the New Power Generation from 1990 through various lineup changes, representing the visual and rhythmic elements that made the NPG such a dynamic live act. The band consisted of holdovers from the Nude Tour including Kirk Johnson (percussion and dancing), Tony M. (lead raps and dancing), and Damon Dickson (dancing). His dual role as both musician and performer reflected Prince’s vision of creating a complete entertainment experience that combined musical excellence with visual spectacle.

Johnson’s percussion work and stage presence contributed to the energetic live performances that made the NPG concerts memorable experiences. When membership changes occurred in 1996, guitarists Kat Dyson and Mike Scott, along with bassist Rhonda Smith joined Morris Hayes and Kirk Johnson, who re-joined the band to play drums. This transition showed that Prince valued Johnson’s contributions enough to bring him back in an expanded role.

Johnson’s versatility as both a percussionist and drummer allowed him to adapt to Prince’s changing musical needs throughout different eras of the NPG. His continued presence through various lineup changes demonstrates the consistency and reliability that Prince demanded from his core musicians. Following Prince’s death, Johnson has participated in NPG reunion activities and tribute tours, helping to maintain the performance energy and musical precision that characterized Prince’s live shows during the New Power Generation era.

Rhonda Smith

Rhonda Smith joined the New Power Generation as bassist in 1996 when the band underwent a major personnel change. Guitarists Kat Dyson and Mike Scott, along with bassist Rhonda Smith joined Morris Hayes and Kirk Johnson, who re-joined the band to play drums. Smith’s addition marked the beginning of a new era for the NPG, as Prince continued to evolve his sound and explore different musical directions with fresh personnel.

Smith’s bass playing brought a different energy to the NPG sound compared to previous bassists. Her technical skills and musical versatility allowed her to handle the complex arrangements that Prince was creating during the mid-to-late 1990s. Her addition to the band also represented Prince’s continued commitment to working with highly skilled musicians who could match his demanding performance standards and creative vision.

Smith’s tenure with Prince extended beyond the NPG period, as she continued to work with him on various projects and tours throughout the later 1990s and into the 2000s. Her bass work can be heard on various Prince recordings from this period, contributing to the evolution of his sound as he moved through different musical phases. Following her time with Prince, Smith has continued to work as a session musician and performer, building on the experience and skills she developed as part of one of the most demanding and creative musical environments in popular music.

Kat Dyson

Kat Dyson joined the New Power Generation as guitarist in 1996 during a major lineup change. In 1996, longstanding members Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella, and Sonny T. were fired and a new band was formed for touring. Guitarists Kat Dyson and Mike Scott, along with bassist Rhonda Smith joined Morris Hayes and Kirk Johnson, who re-joined the band to play drums. Her addition brought fresh guitar perspectives to Prince’s music during a period of significant transition.

Dyson’s guitar work contributed to Prince’s evolving sound during the mid-to-late 1990s, a period when he was exploring different musical directions and dealing with his ongoing disputes with Warner Bros. Records. Her playing style added new textures to the NPG sound while maintaining the high musical standards that Prince demanded from all his collaborators. Working with Prince required extraordinary versatility and the ability to adapt quickly to his changing musical ideas and performance requirements.

Her tenure with the NPG demonstrated Prince’s continued search for musicians who could contribute to his artistic vision while bringing their own unique musical perspectives to the collaboration. Following her time with Prince, Dyson has continued her music career, drawing on the intensive experience of working with one of the most creative and demanding artists in popular music. Her contributions to the NPG during this transitional period helped bridge Prince’s musical evolution from the 1990s into the new millennium.

Mike Scott

Mike Scott joined the New Power Generation as guitarist in 1996 alongside Kat Dyson during the major personnel change that reshaped the band. Guitarists Kat Dyson and Mike Scott, along with bassist Rhonda Smith joined Morris Hayes and Kirk Johnson, who re-joined the band to play drums. This new lineup represented Prince’s continued evolution and his desire to work with fresh musical perspectives while maintaining the core elements that made the NPG effective.

Scott’s guitar work contributed to the NPG sound during the mid-to-late 1990s, a period marked by Prince’s artistic experimentation and his complex relationship with the music industry. His playing complemented Kat Dyson’s guitar work, providing Prince with expanded sonic possibilities and allowing for more complex arrangements during both recording sessions and live performances. The dual-guitar approach gave Prince additional flexibility in creating the layered musical textures he was exploring during this period.

Working with Prince during this era required exceptional musical skills and the ability to adapt to his demanding creative process. Scott’s contributions to the NPG helped maintain the band’s reputation for musical excellence while supporting Prince’s ongoing artistic development. Following his tenure with Prince, Scott has continued his music career, carrying forward the experience and professional standards he developed while working with one of popular music’s most innovative and demanding artists.

Mayte Garcia

Mayte Garcia joined Prince’s musical entourage as a dancer and later expanded her role to include backing and Spanish vocals during the mid-1990s. A reduced NPG returned to the Prince fold when he began performing under the symbolic moniker in early 1994, backing him on The Gold Experience. The rappers and dancers were let go, and Levi Seacer left the band as well. Given an expanded role in the band was dancer Mayte Garcia who provided backing and Spanish vocals.

Garcia’s involvement with Prince extended beyond music into personal relationship, as she became his wife in 1996. Her Spanish vocals added an international flavor to Prince’s music during the mid-1990s, reflecting his continued interest in expanding his musical palette and reaching diverse audiences. Her dancing background also contributed to the visual elements of Prince’s live performances during this period.

This incarnation released Exodus in 1995. Prince again took a role behind the scenes, adopting the guise of the masked “Tora Tora” and performing lead vocals on several tracks, sometimes with an altered voice. Garcia’s presence during this creative period provided both professional and personal support as Prince navigated his disputes with Warner Bros. and explored new artistic directions. Following their personal and professional relationship, Garcia has continued her career in entertainment and has written about her experiences with Prince, providing insights into both his artistic process and personal life during a crucial period of his career.

John Blackwell

John Blackwell was a drummer who worked with Prince during various periods in the 2000s and 2010s, bringing exceptional technical skills and dynamic stage presence to Prince’s later career performances. The second half of the tour had a new band, John Blackwell, Ida Kristine Nielsen, and Sheila E. His drumming style perfectly complemented Prince’s evolving musical vision during the later stages of his career.

Blackwell’s powerful and precise drumming can be heard on various Prince recordings and performances from the 2000s onward. His technical proficiency and energetic performance style made him an ideal fit for Prince’s demanding musical standards and high-energy live shows. Walking into Paisley Park and seeing all of Prince’s bandmates …New Power Generation….John Blackwell, Morris Hayes, Mike Scott, it was amazing, according to later band members who were impressed by the caliber of musicians Prince assembled.

Blackwell’s work with Prince represented the continuation of a long tradition of exceptional drummers who contributed to Prince’s music throughout his career. His contributions helped maintain the rhythmic excellence that was a hallmark of Prince’s bands across all eras. Following Prince’s death, Blackwell’s work with Prince is remembered as part of the later period legacy, demonstrating Prince’s continued ability to attract and work with world-class musicians throughout his career.

Donna Grantis

Donna Grantis is a Canadian guitarist who became a member of Prince’s final band, 3rdeyegirl, from 2012 to 2016. In November 2012, Grantis received an invitation to Prince’s Minnesota recording complex, Paisley Park. Alongside Prince, drummer Hannah Welton, and bassist Ida Nielsen, Grantis jammed a short list of songs as an audition for what would evolve into the funk-rock recording and performing trio, 3rdeyegirl. Her addition marked the beginning of Prince’s final major band configuration.

Grantis contributed significantly to 3rdeyegirl’s only album, Plectrumelectrum, released on September 30, 2014. The album reached #1 on the Billboard Rock Chart in the USA. The title track, “Plectrumelectrum”, was originally written by Grantis and later arranged by Prince, demonstrating the collaborative nature of the band’s creative process. Her guitar work brought a contemporary rock edge to Prince’s music during his final years, complementing his own guitar playing and contributing to the band’s dynamic sound.

Following Prince’s death in 2016, Grantis moved to Minneapolis and formed a new jazz-fusion band, continuing to build on the experience she gained working with Prince. She released her solo album Diamonds & Dynamite in 2019, which reached #1 on iTunes Canada for top jazz album and top jazz song. Her work with 3rdeyegirl represented the culmination of Prince’s long history of working with exceptional guitarists, and she has continued to honor his legacy while pursuing her own artistic vision. Grantis has also become an advocate for music education and environmental causes, using her platform to promote positive change.

Hannah Welton

Hannah Welton was the drummer for 3rdeyegirl, Prince’s final band, serving from 2012 to 2016. Born June 29, 1990, Welton was recruited by Prince in September 2012 as a guest drummer for the Welcome 2 Chicago three-show residency after seeing videos of her performing online. Soon after, she appeared as lead drummer of the New Power Generation for Prince’s performance of his song, Rock And Roll Love Affair on Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s show on October 23, 2012.

Welton’s drumming provided the rhythmic foundation for 3rdeyegirl’s energetic funk-rock sound. Her jazz fusion background prepared her for the spontaneous and demanding nature of working with Prince. “A big part of playing with Prince is to know all his material,” according to her bandmate Donna Grantis. “He likes to switch it up. He might go apart from the set list we have. We have to pay attention.” Welton’s technical skills and adaptability made her an ideal fit for Prince’s unpredictable performance style.

She was offered a spot in Prince’s backing band 3rdeyegirl with guitarist Donna Grantis and bassist Ida Kristine Nielsen in 2013. She is married to Joshua Welton, who co-produced three Prince albums and guested with 3rdeyegirl performances on keyboard and cowbell. 3rdeyegirl were formed in December 2012 and went on to tour with Prince on his Live Out Loud Tour in 2013, and his Hit and Run Tour from 2014 to 2015. Following Prince’s death, Welton has continued her music career while preserving the legacy of her work with one of music’s greatest artists.

Ida Kristine Nielsen

Ida Kristine Nielsen, also known as Bass Ida, Bassida, and Ida Funkhouser, is a Danish bass player, composer and vocalist born in 1975. In 2010 Nielsen started working with Prince, and became a member of The New Power Generation as singer and bassist. She later became a part of Prince’s musical trio, 3rdeyegirl, alongside guitarist Donna Grantis and drummer Hannah Welton. They toured the UK, Europe and North America, and in 2014 released their only album, Plectrumelectrum.

Nielsen was the only member of the 3rdeyegirl trio to have previous experience playing for Prince, having been performing with The NPG since October 2010. Her bass playing and vocals contributed significantly to both the New Power Generation’s later period and 3rdeyegirl’s distinctive sound. In 2014 Nielsen released her second album, Sometimes a Girl Needs Some Sugar Too. Her first single, “SHOWMEWHATUGOT” (from her “TurnItUp” album) was hand-picked by Prince to be “Purple pick of the week” on TIDAL when it was released.

Nielsen and Prince continued to work together until Prince’s death in April 2016. Later that year, she released her third album, TurnItUp in his memory. In an interview with Danish National DR-TV in 2017 she underlined Prince’s influence – to her music as well as her life: “The most important thing Prince taught me was to play with my heart.” Her work with Prince represented the international reach of his musical influence, and she has continued to honor his legacy through her solo work and continued performances with 3rdeyegirl alumni.

Complete List Of Prince Band Members presents a comprehensive rundown of all the lineup changes and musicians who were a part of Prince’s various bands throughout his legendary career. From his early Minneapolis days to his final performances, these musicians contributed to one of the most innovative and influential bodies of work in popular music history.

Check out more Prince articles on ClassicRockHistory.com Just click on any of the links below……

10 Most Rocking Prince Songs

Complete List Of Prince Albums And Discography

Top 10 Prince Album Covers

Prince Congressional Gold Medal Resolution In The Works

10 Best Covers Of Prince Songs

Top 10 Prince And The Revolution Songs

When Prince Added A Whole Lotta Funk To Zeps Whole Lotta Love

Top 25 Prince Songs

Bruce Springsteen Performs Prince’s Purple Rain

Remembering Prince

Complete List Of Prince Band Members article published on ClassicRockHistory.com© 2025

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“I was afraid something inside of me was dying. Leaving was an act of survival”: Life in the fast lane and the turbulent tale of the Eagles

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Web Rock Radio News Dept

(Image credit: RB/Redferns)

Some years ago, after the Eagles had broken up, Glenn Frey remembered: “We were on stage, and Don Felder looks at me and says: ‘Only three more songs until I kick your ass, pal’. And I’m saying: ‘Great, I can’t wait’. We were singing Best Of My Love, but inside both of us were thinking: ‘As soon as this is over, I’m going to kill him’.”

In the light of such circumstances, it’s not surprising that Don Henley once admitted: “I had an ulcer before I was thirty because of the Eagles”. And the music of the Eagles sounded so cool, so effortless. They wrote songs that defined the woozy, Southern California idyll: Peaceful Easy Feeling, Desperado, Tequila Sunrise and scores of others.

Rarely, though, has the internal life of a band been so at odds with the sounds that it made. “Led Zeppelin could argue with us, but I think we might have thrown the greatest travelling party of the 70s,” Glenn Frey remembered. He was talking about the Eagles’ infamous ‘third encore’, the debauched gathering that would follow every gig, featuring the band, their entourage, hangers-on, bizheads “and as many beautiful girls as we’d meet from the airport to the hotel”.

The Eagles took Learjets like other people take cabs. Don Henley would send one to pick up his girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, after she’d finished a gig with Fleetwood Mac. They’d hire them, Elvis-style, to fly in food and cases of Chateau Lafite Rothschild when Henley celebrated his birthday.

For half a decade during the 1970s, the Eagles seemed unstoppable, rising upwards on great thermals of fame and success. But the whole thing fell apart when they tried to record a follow-up to their creative and commercial highpoint that was Hotel California.

During the three years of intensity and insanity that were the making of The Long Run, Don Henley is said to have composed a long memo to the recording studio manager informing him of his displeasure that the lavatory paper in the toilets came off the bottom of the dispenser and not the top. ‘If it was meant to come from the bottom,’ the memo allegedly ran, ‘then the little flowers would be printed on the underside of the paper’.

“The Long Run was not as good as Hotel California, and it was an excruciatingly painful album to make,” Henley said. “We were having fights all the time about the songs – enormous fights about one word – for days on end. That record took three years and cost $800,000, and we burned out.”

Don Henley had always been tense. Even when the band were making millions of dollars and he’d shared a house in the Hollywood Hills (that used to belong to film star Dorothy Lamour) with Glenn Frey, and they’d sit and look at the whole of Los Angeles spread out before them and think: ‘It really doesn’t get much better than this’, he would be worrying about something or other.

The cover of Classic Rock 63, featuring Ozzy Osbourne — **This feature was originally published in Classic Rock 63, (January 2004).** (Image credit: Future)

His oldest friend, a musician called Richard Bowden, who was better known as Balloon Dick, remembered: “Joe Walsh came up to me just after he’d joined the Eagles and said: ‘You’ve known him the longest. Just tell him to relax’. I told him: ‘Just let Don be tense. He’s always been that way. When he solves one problem, he just moves on to something else to worry about’.”

Henley and Bowden had grown up together in a town in Texas called Linden, which had a population of just over 2,000. “Mrs Henley was a real fine lady, but she never had any control over Don,” Bowden told Rolling Stone magazine when they profiled the band in 1976. “Not that he didn’t respect her, he just always did what he wanted. And his father would have to come down on him. They couldn’t get along for years. Don always felt he had to prove something to him.”

His father was a worrier, too. He was a hard-working man who saved 25 cents a week for Henley’s college fund, and ultimately Henley did not complete his education. C J Henley’s death was pivotal to Don’s world view.

“I figured out a long time ago, when my father got sick and died, that life wasn’t fair,” he said, “but I got mad about it. I used to go around and cuss God all the time, because my father died too early and he suffered. He only lived to see Take It Easy and a couple of weeks of Witchy Woman.

“He literally worked and worried himself to death, and he had a cardiac and he died on July 7, 1972, after four or five other heart attacks. You don’t know what’s real until you see your father in the emergency room heaving and gasping for breath and saying: ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ Everything else gets real trite after that. There’s been a lot of death in my family.”

Don Henley played drums in Bowden’s first band, The Four Speeds, which became Shiloh. More death came when Jerry Dale Surratt, one of that band, was killed while messing about on his motorcycle right in front of the band and his family outside their rehearsal rooms in Linden. Things were never the same again for Shiloh, and first Bowden and then Henley went to Los Angeles.

There Henley encountered singer/guitarist Glenn Frey in 1970. Frey had drifted from Detroit to California at the age of 19, and had met guitarist J D Souther on his first day in town.

“I grew up running in Detroit,” Frey remembered. “I went to school with the sons and daughters of automobile factory workers – fathers who beat their wives and beat their kids. The kids would then go to school and beat on me. My father was a machinist in a shop that built the machines that built car parts.

“I had a pretty normal childhood. My parents weren’t drinkers. I always had clothes. I always went to camp for a week in the summer. My parents didn’t have enough money to buy me a car when I turned sixteen, but I had a great childhood.”

Congregating at the Troubadour club where The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield and other SoCal scenesters hung out, everyone was dreaming the same dream.

“We all watched the sun set in the west every night of adolescence and thought someday about coming out here,” Frey told the LA Times. “It all seemed so romantic… The Life magazine articles about Golden Gate Park and the Sunset Strip… And the music: The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield. It was definitely the archetype of the most beautiful place in the world.”

“Glenn asked if I’d like to go on the road with Linda Ronstadt’s band, and I said: ‘You bet I do,’” Henley said of their first, fateful connection. “I was broke, and here was a chance for two hundred dollars a week. We went out for a month or two, and Glenn and I struck up this great friendship. That’s when we started plotting to put a band together.”

The relationship between Henley and Frey – both their friendship and the writing partnership – became the key one in the Eagles right from the start. They met bassist Randy Meisner first – he was standing about six feet away, also backing Linda Ronstadt. Then, legend has it, they came across singer/guitarist Bernie Leadon on a drunken day out at Disneyland.

After the third rehearsal, Frey turned to Henley and said conspiratorially: “We’re going to have to run things…”

David Geffen, who was busy building an empire of his own, had signed up Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, J D Souther and other artists. He gave the Eagles some money, and Jackson Browne co-wrote Take It Easy with them.

It came out as a single on May Day 1972, and became, almost instantaneously, the soft-rock radio classic that it remains today. And for the Eagles the repercussions began. It was, as Rolling Stone reported, ‘Hell from the very start’. Leadon and Meisner resented Henley and Frey but couldn’t do much about it. Henley and Frey began living together, and, as Jackson Browne said: “Glenn always went around messing things up, and Don always followed him around cleaning things up”.

It was as if they had a portrait of Dorian Gray in the attic: the more beautiful the sounds they made (the Eagles album came out in 1972; Desperado in ’73; On The Border in ’74; One Of These Nights in ’75), the uglier things became within the band.

Leadon quit for the first time in 1975, saying: “I kept asking: ‘Are we going to rest next month?’ I wanted to get in shape before the age of thirty so I would have a chance at the rest of my life. I was afraid something inside of me was dying. Leaving was an act of survival.”

Desperado was the album that defined Eagles, in terms of their image as much as their sound. They styled themselves after a bunch of real-life outlaws, the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Henley and Frey used the cowboy mythology to explore their own tortured feelings about the sexual and financial and social politics of the US. It was another of their contradictions: these beautiful songs that could just pass you by in a haze of melody, and yet carried such spite and bite.

“In retrospect, I admit that the whole cowboy-outlaw-rocker myth was a bit bogus,” Henley said after the band had split for the first time, in 1980. “I don’t think we really believed it, we were just trying to make an analogy. Suddenly we were getting famous and making all this money, and it just turned our little heads around. We were living outside the laws of normality, we were out here in LA, things were kind of Western, and we just decided to write something about it to try to justify it to ourselves.”

“When the band first started,” Henley recalled, “I never thought we’d last more than a couple of years. I thought we’d make a couple of albums and that would be it. At first we loved what we were doing, and then, once we got a modicum of success, we said, well, this is nice.

“Then we realised that staying there was harder than getting there, which is always the case. So then we put all our energies into staying up there, realising that you have your hour in the sun and then you live the rest of your life in the shade.

“In any event, those first three or four records were just as much us trying to grow up as anything. We were trying to explain things to ourselves, and a lot of the time we didn’t know what we were talking about. There’s something on all those albums that makes me cringe. I mean, our whole quest as we went along was to try to make each album better than the previous one. And that’s difficult to do when you’re trying to run a group as a democracy. Keeping that group together was a full-time job.”

The other members of the Eagles started calling Don Henley Grandpa. He’d taken drugs with the best of them – he’d needed to, to keep up with the band’s relentless schedule – but he hated the fact that they fucked things up.

“I guess there was a brief period of time where I tried to put some kind of creative stock into drugs,” he said, “but I realised pretty soon that you could get more work, and better work, done if you were straight. We did a lot of work on drugs in the Eagles.

“Our schedule was just so gruelling; we didn’t have the stamina otherwise. We’d do things like go out on tour, play a few gigs, then get on a Lear jet and fly to Miami and start recording at four o’ clock in the morning, then get back on the Lear jet at three or four in the afternoon and go back to Cleveland and do a concert. And we’d do it all just to meet deadlines. So we took drugs.

“But from the beginning in the Eagles I would get in fights with the other guys about smoking joints or doing coke before going on stage. Using drugs would screw up their voices, and they’d sing out of tune. So I got the nickname of Grandpa. I mean, drugs had their place, but I was never one of those guys to get up and roll a breakfast joint.”

The Eagles released a greatest hits album – the famous one with the blue cover with a bird’s skull on – and it sold 22 million copies. Until Michael Jackson’s Thriller surpassed it many years later it was the biggest album of all time. And then they made Hotel California.

The implosion of the Eagles, the years of rancour and regret, all began with a little guitar noodle that Don Felder came up with one idle afternoon. “I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu. I guess it was around ’74 or ’75,” Felder told Guitar magazine many years on. “I remember sitting in the living room, with the doors all wide open, on a spectacular July day. I had a bathing suit on and I was sitting on this couch, soaking wet, thinking the world is a wonderful place to be.

“I had this acoustic twelve-string and I started tinkling around with it, and those Hotel California chords just kind of oozed out. Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos parts and something great plops into your lap. I had a four-track set up in one of the back bedrooms, and I ran back there to put this idea down before I forgot it.

“When I gave Henley the cassette it had eight or ten different song ideas on it. He came back and said: ‘I really love this one track on your tape, the one that sounds like a matador or something… like you’re in Mexico’. We worked it all up and went into the studio and recorded it.”

Eagles onstage in 1972 — Eagles onstage circa 1972 (Image credit: GAB Archive / Getty Images)

Henley and Frey took Felder’s Mexican melody somewhere else entirely with the lyric. It was another of their bittersweet epics, all superficial shimmer and sad-eyed social comment.

“I think he and Glenn had this idea, kind of the fantasy of California. It’s supposed to be kind of a microcosm of the world,” Felder said. “But I wouldn’t want to speak for them. The ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave’ line was based on Jackson Browne’s first wife, who committed suicide. In other words, you can check out, die, but you’re still in the cosmos somewhere. You’re not going to get out of that karmic phase of it.

“The way Glenn and Don worked it was, Glenn was great at conceptualising. He’ll say: ‘I can see this guy driving in the desert at night, and you can see the lights of LA, way off on the horizon…’ Henley gets the picture and goes from there. He was an English literature major. He writes really great prose. He can take those snapshots and put them into just two or three lines.”

Henley viewed his gift for a telling phrase as a double-edged sword. “Life In The Fast Lane – by God if they didn’t turn that into a celebration of exactly what we were trying to warn them about,” he said of the cautionary third track on Hotel California. “Everybody’s got cocaine now, no matter how shitty it is. I could hardly listen to that song when we were recording it, because I was getting high a lot at the time and the song made me ill.

“We were trying to paint a picture that cocaine wasn’t that great. It turns on you. It messed up my back muscles, it messed up my nerves, it messed up my stomach, and it makes you paranoid. I’m not saying I’m an angel or a saint now, because I’m not, but I’ve slowed down quite a bit.”

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The Hotel California album came out in 1976, year that punk rock began. Henley struggled with the guilt of it all: “You know that you don’t deserve it. You get too much money and too much of everything when you’re too young, and it comes really quickly. And it messed me up for a while. I grew up in a town of 2,400 people. My dad didn’t believe in credit cards, he paid cash for everything. And suddenly I had a gold American Express card which I was embarrassed to take out of my wallet because I’d never done that before.”

By now, Henley, Frey and the band (including new guitarist Joe Walsh) were confronting the enormity of the Eagles and the ubiquity of Hotel California. “If you were to ask a struggling, twenty-five-year-old musician: ‘How would you like to sell eighteen million albums?’ he’d say: ‘Yeah! Damn right I would’,” Glenn Frey explained.

“The next question is: ‘But how would you like to try to make one as good as the one that sold millions and millions of records?’ Somebody asked my friend Bob Seger: ‘Why do you think the Eagles broke up?’ He said: Hotel California.”

They began making the follow-up album, and it was difficult from the start. “Don and I did not have any fun working on The Long Run together,” Frey told Interview magazine. “Henley and I would sit across from each other for hours not saying a word. We would sit trying to write, but we were both afraid to suggest a lyric or a chord in case it wasn’t perfect, in case it wasn’t great.”

They cut the first track, I Can’t Tell You Why, a lush ballad from the new bass player Timothy B Schmit, on March 9, 1978. Fifteen months later they weren’t much further on.

To demonstrate exactly how big the Eagles had become, and how intense the pressure on them was, the band’s manager, the acerbic Irving Azoff, told Rolling Stone: “We only hear from the record company about ten times a week. When they project a $116-million-year because Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles are going to release albums, and then they come up $40 million short from not having an Eagles album, they hurt.”

Elektra/Asylum concurred. The company chairman, Joe Smith, said: “We all need that record now, but there’s no guarantee how it will do. A lot of new bands have come out since the Eagles last released an album.”

On the door of Bay Shore recording studio in Miami, the band had pasted cut-outs from hundreds of magazines and newspapers, and had written captions and private jokes about their sexual habits, favourite drugs, football bets and more for all of them. It was to the studio manager here that Henley wrote the famous toilet paper memo…

Eagles onstage circa 1976: L-R Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, Don Felder (Image credit: Gai Terrell/Redferns)

So they were in it together, trying to grind out a hit album that the record company were desperate for in a new and uncertain artistic landscape. Bored with the recording process, assaulted by their individual concerns, the Eagles responded in time-honoured fashion: they got out of it. They called it getting ‘monstered’: you could be ‘half monstered’, ‘three-quarters monstered’, or usually, ‘totally monstered’. Frey’s nickname was Roach, after his love of a joint.

“We haven’t always practised everything in moderation,” he admitted. “But we were figuring out the slow burn, the long run. If you use cocaine like the Indians use it – when you have to, but not all the time – you don’t get toxic. I thank God I have enough close friends who would tell me if I were messing up my life. Thank God for the love and support I’ve received from them. But if there’s a night to party, you go right a-fucking-head…”

Don Henley’s enthusiasm for such extracurricular activities made him something of a Hollywood legend. One particular incident at his California home, which featured five prostitutes, a sex aid and prodigious amounts of cocaine, was excessive enough to feature in the famous exposé of La-La Land You’ll Never Make Love In This Town Again.

When The Long Run finally came out in 1979, it had been three years since Hotel California, an eternity in the music business of the 1970s, and the world had indeed changed. It sold several million copies quite quickly, but where the society of the 70s had chimed with the Eagles’ sensibility, the 80s would prove very different. They were called misanthropes and cynics. Their attitudes to women were called into question.

“I suppose a lot of good art down through the ages has come out of turmoil and stress, but this was just too much,” Henley explained. “This misanthrope business has always been a complete mystery to me. We were critical, but for fair reasons. We cared about our fellow man; we cared about the ecology; we cared about the Indians; we cared about nuclear energy. And so we would point out what was wrong. I don’t consider that to be misanthropic.

“We were arrogant. Sure. You have to be arrogant if you’re going to be in a rock’n’roll band. But, you know, I thought we were pretty nice people all in all.”

“I’m though my Playmate period,” Frey said as The Long Run emerged. “I constantly ask myself what I think of women. Lately I’ve been feeling much less physical, you know, where you meet a real pretty girl and immediately attach all these great qualities to her. But women are objects for men, whether or not sex objects. They’re a goal. That’s the way we’re bought up.”

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Don Henley threw another party at his Hollywood home to celebrate the end of the tour to support The Long Run. Police arrived in the early hours and discovered that a 16-year-old girl had overdosed. Henley was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, cocaine and Quaaludes, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was fined, put on two years’ probation and ordered to attend drug counselling.

“I had no idea how old she was and I had no idea she was doing that many drugs,” Henley explained afterwards. “I didn’t have sex with her. Yes, she was a hooker. Yes, there were roadies and guys at my house. We were having a farewell to the Eagles.”

In its own way it was a fitting finale. When time gave Henley some distance from that final year, he realised how awful 1979 and 1980 had been, how close to ruin he had come.

“It was a terrible year,” he said. “The band broke up. I broke up with my girlfriend and got into trouble with the law. Then I met my new girlfriend and we almost got killed in a private plane crash in Colorado. John Lennon got killed, and that devastated me for a while. And my girlfriend contracted a virus and she has been practically an invalid for a year and five months.”

He and Glenn Frey didn’t really announce the end of the band. Instead they went to Irving Azoff separately and played him the solo albums they had recorded. It was 1982 by the time an announcement was made.

“I have no regrets,” Henley said. “A lot of people in the media attach more importance to bands that came out of the 60s than bands that came out of the 70s, so I don’t know how the Eagles will be remembered. Some day, though, I think people may look back and say: ‘Some of that stuff was pretty good after all’.”

He was right. The band had written scores of beautiful and brilliant songs. But more than that, they had come to embody a particular life and a particular time. By 1986 they were being asked to reunite.

“I don’t think so,” Frey said. “We were offered two million dollars to play the US Festival and two and a half million to play the second one. One of my managers at the time said: ‘Come on, you rehearse for a couple of weeks, you play the gig, that’s it’. He had just gotten a divorce from his wife, and I said: ‘I’ll go rehearse with the Eagles if you’ll go back for a couple of weeks with your wife’. I can’t see myself at age forty-one, up on stage, with a beer belly, singing Take it Easy. Without a reunion, the Eagles are forever young, like James Dean.”

It was with wry humour, then, that the eventual reunion, in 1994, was called Hell Freezes Over.

“Well,” Henley said, “we worked long and hard. We earned it. It is payday. We prided ourselves on the fact that were one of the only bands of our generation left where all the members are still living.”

He paused. “Actually, I really think that’s an achievement.”

This feature was originally published in Classic Rock 63, (January 2004).

Jon Hotten is an English author and journalist. He is best known for the books Muscle: A Writer’s Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries and The Years of the Locust. In June 2015 he published a novel, My Life And The Beautiful Music (Cape), based on his time in LA in the late 80s reporting on the heavy metal scene. He was a contributor to Kerrang! magazine from 1987–92 and currently contributes to Classic Rock. Hotten is the author of the popular cricket blog, The Old Batsman, and since February 2013 is a frequent contributor to The Cordon cricket blog at Cricinfo. His most recent book, Bat, Ball & Field, was published in 2022.

“The rock gods gave me gifts”: Love/Hate frontman Jizzy Pearl on new album Punk Rock Fiesta and rock’n’roll’s magic carpet ride

Posted on May 23, 2025 by Web Rock Radio News Dept

Jizzy Pearl standing against a graffiti'd wall.

(Image credit: Kenyon Records)

Jizzy Pearl has a fairly simple rule about getting old. “You can go one of two ways,” says the Love/Hate singer. “You can be Billy Idol or Billy Joel. I’m going the Billy Idol route.”

The 67-year-old made his name at the dawn of the 90s with inelegantly wasted Sunset Strip livewires Love/Hate, whose brilliance was never matched by their record sales. He’s resurrected the band several times over the years, sometimes billed as Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate, but for 2022’s Hell, CA and blazing new album Punk Rock Fiesta!, regular, undiluted Love/Hate.

What’s the difference between Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate and plain old Love/Hate?

To all intents and purposes, I’m Love/ Hate now. All the other old guys have retired. The bass player, Skid, lives in the Philippines, he doesn’t do music any more. The drummer, Joey, has a really amazing job and doesn’t do music any more either. But there’s been a pantheon of Love/Hate music coming out, whether it’s solo Jizzy, Jizzy’s Love/Hate or Love/Hate. They really are interchangeable.

What does a punk rock fiesta involve?

I would say sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, but at my age one out of three ain’t bad.

How is making a record in 2025 different to making a record in 1990?

I think we spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on [1990 debut album] Blackout In The Red Room, back when studios were a thousand dollars a day. Who has that kind of money now? There’s so many fucked up things going on in music now, but one of the good things is that you can do it yourself with a good mic and some knowledge.

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As well as Love/Hate, you’ve sung for Ratt, L.A. Guns and, currently, Quiet Riot. Do you do that for the love of the music or for the money?

Well, I could tell you it’s for the love of the music, but it’s for the same fundamental reason that everyone works a job. Not to say I don’t enjoy being in those bands, because I do. There was a time in the nineties when everybody got married and started having kids and suddenly the gypsy lifestyle wasn’t happening. But the rock gods gave me gifts: why don’t you join L.A. Guns and make records with them? Or go join Ratt and play arenas again. I think the only band I haven’t sung in yet is Warrant, but hey, there’s still time.

Love/Hate are a classic example of a band who should have been huge but weren’t. What went wrong?

Nothing went wrong. That’s a glass-half-empty way of looking at it. Most bands never get anything – no record deal, no money, no Hammer Of The Gods awesomeness. They don’t know what it’s like to be Fonzie and snap your fingers and jump on the magic carpet ride. That’s what we got.

Have promoters dangled big cheques in front of you to try to persuade you to reunite the original line-up?

You’d have to find Skid. He’s in the jungle! We broke up [in 1997] and briefly got back together [in 2007], but as time goes by you have to accept that when someone says they’ve retired a hundred times, they’ve retired. It’s just not meant to be.

If you were twenty years old now, would you still join a rock’n’roll band?

Oh yeah. Rock’n’roll still matters. Writing about partying and chicks and getting fucked up – it never goes away

Punk Rock Fiesta! is available from the Love/Hate website.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

10 Essential Rock Albums From 1985: Exclusive Excerpt

Posted on May 23, 2025 by u0zp4y

Were the ’80s really the greatest decade ever in music? We posit that question on the back cover of our new book, 501 Essential Albums of the 80s (Motorbooks/Quarto Group), and certainly that case could be made – though other 10-year spans can make their own claims to that distinction.

With portable hardware such as the Sony Walkman and boom boxes, the arrival of MTV and a total embrace from the rest of the culture, film soundtracks to sports arena playlists, music became ubiquitous during the ’80s. Our immersion was total, and the buy-in authentic. For a brief, handful-of-years minute, the various musical tribes united in a consensus about what were essential listens, resulting in levels of popularity we’d never seen before.

And to take the argument further – which was the best year in that (perhaps) greatest of decades?

A lot of attention is being paid to 1985 on its 40th anniversary, and a case can certainly be made for its preeminence during the 80s. It was the year of “We Are the World” and Live Aid, which in turned spanned the first Farm Aid concert – and which in turn brought together Sammy Hagar and Eddie Van Halen, and Bob Dylan and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, harbingers of some big things to come.

VH-1 started on January 1 of that year. The Rock in Rio festival began 10 days later. David Lee Roth left Van Halen, Roger Waters quit Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson bought the Beatles’ publishing catalog, rock did battle with the Parents Music Resource Center (P.M.R.C.) – clearly there was no shortage of headlines.

And there was no shortage of great, or for our purposes essential, music. Amidst the book’s 501 genre-spanning choices is a potent chapter for 1985, and from that we’ve gleaned these 10 as the most essential classic rock albums of the year, selected and written by a corps of more than two dozen contributors – including some names that will be familiar to UCR readers…

Phil Collins
No Jacket Required
(Atlantic)
Released: February 18, 1985
Producers: Phil Collins, Hugh Padgham

By 1985, Phil Collins was on a roll coming off Top 10 hits with his first two solo albums, Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going?, in addition to the same success of Abacab with his longtime mates in Genesis. Not one to settle for just being good, he responded with the biggest album of his career, No Jacket Required, titled from a personal story of Collins being denied entrance to a restaurant for not wearing proper attired, included softer ballads dealing with personal themes such as divorce and political angst, but he also he consciously decided to write more up-tempo and danceable tunes.

With 10 tracks (11 including the CD bonus “We Said Hello Goodbye”) the blend of well-written and expertly-performed and recorded Adult Contemporary and pop sounds made No Jacket Required a veritable hit-making machine. The album’s first two released singles — “Sussudio,” a Prince-inspired rollicking song about a schoolboy crush, and “One More Night,” a soulful paean about lost love — both reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Those were followed by the Top 10 likes of “Don’t Lose My Number,” with melodramatic lyrics and Collin’s gated reverb drum sound (and a comically elaborate video), and “Take Me Home,” whose soaring lyrics refer to the distressed pleas of a mental patient.

No Jacket Required earned three Grammy Awards for Collins, including Album of the Year and went on to become one of the best-selling releases of all time, with worldwide sales of more than 25 million copies. Its extraordinary success started him down the path from rock star to international music icon, with ubiquitous collaborations with other artists and a spot playing both Live Aid concerts, in London and Philadelphia, during the summer of 1985. – Jeff Corey

Dire Straits
Brothers in Arms
(Warner Bros.)
Released: May 17, 1985
Producers: Neil Dorfsman, Mark Knopfler

The historical significance of Dire Straits’ fifth LP stretches further than the music. As one of the first albums to be digitally recorded, the 1985 work came out around the time compact disc players were beginning to move into the mainstream. As such, Brothers in Arms became the first million-selling CD, a distinction served by the record’s clean, clear sound and the rising format’s upgrade in sonic quality. (CD buyers were also given expanded versions of the album’s songs, allowing more space for the nine pristine tracks to move within.)

But the technical accolades would have meant less if the songs didn’t support them. Starting with 1980’s Making Movies, Dire Straits began recording lengthier, artier songs that willfully branched out from the group’s carefully constructed 1978 debut single, “Sultans of Swing”; the five tracks on 1982’s Love Over Gold, averaged eight minutes each, with the longest clocking in at more than 14. That album set the stage for Brothers in Arms and the expanse that greeted the expertly crafted and deliberately paced “Your Latest Trick,” “Why Worry,” and the title track.

But it was the album’s oddest track, “Money For Nothing,” that sent it to the top of the charts and made Dire Straits one of the biggest bands in the world during the mid-’80s. With a vocal assist from Sting, a fuzzy guitar line inspired by ZZ Top, and an award-winning computer-generated video that illustrated the song’s working-class takedown of pampered pop stars (“That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it / Money for nothing and your chicks for free”), the No. 1 hit was an inescapable part of the culture in 1985. But its success wore down frontman Mark Knopfler, who disbanded Dire Straits a decade later, after one last album. -Michael Gallucci

Bob Dylan
Biograph
(Columbia)
Released: Autumn 1985
Producer: Jeff Rosen

Before there was The Bootleg Series, there was Biograph. And before that, of course, there were Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits albums – three of them. But Biograph was not a best-of, per se, though it does contain a substantial number of Dylan’s best-known songs.
No, instead, it’s a 53-track career-spanning collection that was released as a five LP/three cassette/three CD box set containing previously released material, studio outtakes and demos, unreleased songs, and live performances, all of which date from 1962-81.

Somewhat illogically – but this is Dylan, right? – the set was not arranged chronologically, although small themes emerge here and there from the songs’ groupings — love songs, political songs, etc. Ultimately, though, the Bob-Dylan-has-come-unstuck-in-time order evinced his enduring talent, never mind that his critical fortunes sometimes foundered during that span.

The real draw here, of course, was the rarities – 18 previously unreleased songs, some of them known to the Dylan cognoscenti but not the general public. Some are revelatory, such as “Caribbean Wind,” and a smoking live take of “Groom Still Waiting at the Altar,” both of which hail from the mostly unloved Shot of Love era. There were also great tracks from the Rolling Thunder tour, from the Blood on the Tracks album sessions, and much more.

Beyond the material itself, there was much more that Biograph got right, most notably the booklet and accompanying materials, which offered rare photographs, a long, insightful essay by Cameron Crowe and, perhaps best of all, direct comments about many of the songs by Dylan himself. Because it turned out to be a commercial success – going platinum, even – Biograph was a game-changer for the way archival material was presented, paving the way for a thousand box sets to come and presaging Dylan’s own vast (and still-in-progress) Bootleg Series. – Daniel Durchholz

John Fogerty
Centerfield
(Warner Bros.)
Released: January 7, 1985
Producer: John Fogerty

With a howl like Little Richard’s and guitar riffs that rival Chuck Berry’s, John Fogerty is one of the great primal forces in rock ‘n’ roll. The hits he recorded with Creedence Clearwater Revival—more than a dozen in the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100 between 1968-1972—ranked among the genre’s enduring classics. After Creedence broke up, Fogerty recorded two solo albums to little acclaim. After a decade out of the spotlight, he returned in 1985 with Centerfield.

“Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play!” the singer declared joyfully in the album’s title track, with allusions to Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and poet Ernest Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.” The song opened with programmed drum beats that mimic a baseball crowd’s rhythmic claps—one of several moments that highlight that Fogerty apparently crafted this entire album without any other musicians in the room.

“The Old Man Down The Road” opens the album with a swamp rock hook that echoed CCR’s “Run Through The Jungle”—so much so, unfortunately, that Fogerty was sued by Saul Zaentz, then-owner of the Creedence publishing rights, and the inspiration for the sharply penned “Mr. Greed” and “Vanz Kant Danz” on Centerfield. (Zaentz lost the “Jungle” suit in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and set a new precedent over damages in copyright cases.)

Score-settling aside, Centerfield was packed with exceptional songwriting, often bittersweet. Big Train (From Memphis) recalled the inspiration of Elvis Presley who, like the big train, “is gone gone gone.” Echoing “Fortunate Son,” the aging narrator recounting baby-boomer memories in “I Saw It On T.V.” tells of the politicians who “took my only son from me.” With double-platinum sales, Centerfield brought Fogerty back to where he so richly deserved to be—No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. – Thom Duffy

Heart
Heart
(Capitol)
Released: June 21, 1985
Producer: Ron Nevison

“Some people told us we might have hits if we did these songs,” Ann Wilson said about Heart‘s eighth studio album. “We hadn’t had hits for awhile, so we listened to them.” After falling on commercial hard times and switching labels, the band led by Ann and younger sister Nancy Wilson regained its beat here, accepting polished tunes from outside writers and scoring four Top 10 singles, including “These Dreams” and “Never,” a No. 1 album and five-times platinum sales. The decision likely saved Heart from permanent failure. – Gary Graff

John Mellencamp
Scarecrow
(Riva/Mercury)
Released: July 31, 1985
Producers: John Mellencamp, George Green

The maturity — and there is no other work for it — that John (then) Cougar Mellencamp began with American Fool in 1982 and continued on the following year’s Uh-Huh took another step with the Indiana rocker’s eighth studio album. He still liked to “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.,” but most of the 11 songs — including that one — mined deeper terrain, whether it was Rain on the Scarecrow‘s paean to the plight of America’s family farmer, the poignant statement of character in the biographical Small Town, the socio-political outlook in “The Face of the Nation” or the soulful self-realization in the sweeping Minutes to Memories.
The penultimate track was even called “You’ve Got to Stand for Somethin’,” and this time Mellencamp really did — albeit with a bit of kicking and screaming to get there.

“Up until this year I was just a guy in a band in a bar. I didn’t want to go beyond that,” Mellencamp, acknowledging he also wanted to dodge specific comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, said as he started touring to support Scarecrow. “Then I started to realize, ‘What’s wrong with two people putting their best foot forward?'”

Writing a “terrible” screenplay, meanwhile, put him in a different kind of mode, with characters and narrators even more fleshed out than those he drew in “Jack & Diane” and “Pink Houses.”

Mellencamp, joined by guests Rickie Lee Jones and Ry Cooder in spots, also deepened the musical well here. He made his band members learn a bunch of mostly ’60s garage rock tunes, opening their minds to different ways to approach music and draw from a larger palette. Scarecrow let us know that Mellencamp was an American fool no more but was, rather, ready to join the ranks of thoughtful, resonant heartland troubadours — and still let it R.O.C.K. when he wanted. — GG

Robert Palmer
Riptide
(Island)
Released: November 1985
Producer: Bernard Edwards

The depth of the late Robert Palmer’s genius can only truly be appreciated in retrospect, and for those who haven’t done so, the rabbit hole of his music is definitely worth falling into. For most of his career, Palmer played with genres and a great wardrobe while garnering a respectful following. His short stint in the Power Station with Duran Duran’s Andy and John Taylor catapulted him to something near stardom, although he left the band in the lurch to work on his own material .

That led to his eighth album, Riptide, and its breakthrough single, “Addicted to Love.” A rocking singalong played by musicians from the Power Station and Chaka Khan’s band, it became Palmer’s signature hit and was a bona fide earworm– though what people remember most is the video, in which Palmer sings while five identically styled models barely dance behind him while holding instruments they obviously aren’t play. MTV had the clip in perpetual rotation, searing its vapid imagery into the eyeballs of history while pushing the song – which won a Grammy Award — to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Palmer hit big again with his cover of Cherrelle’s “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On,” whose video replicated “Addicted to Love”’s cloned models with similar success. “I hardly ever get asked about music,” Palmer told the U.K.’s Guardian in 2002. “I do, however, get asked about the ‘Addicted To Love’ video and my suits on a daily basis.”

Riptide had more to recommend it than those two juggernauts, however, including the first single, “Discipline of Love,” “Hyperactive” and the title track. The double-platinum success of the album, and those two videos, may have minimized the brilliance of some of Palmer’s previous work – notably 1980’s Clues — but it insured he is remembered. -Helene Dunbar

Simple Minds
Once Upon a Time
(A&M)
Released: October 21, 1985
Producers: Jimmy Iovine, Bob Clearmountain

Scotland’s Simple Minds was big in the U.K. and Europe with six successful albums, but it was the No. 1 hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from the Brat Pack film The Breakfast Club earlier in 1985 that broke the group in America and set the table for its biggest album.

The band teamed with American producers Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain to punch up its already anthemic sound, bringing in more guitar drive and accentuating frontman Jim Kerr’s yearning vocals. The result radiated a raw energy and solid structure not fully realized on its previous releases. Once Upon a Time reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and topped U.K.’s albums chart. “Alive and Kicking” scored another abundance of radio play with its hymn-like melody and a coda featuring backup singer Robin Clark’s gospel-inspired vocals. There was a spiritual vibe to the Sly & the Family Stone-influenced “Sanctify Yourself,” while “All the Things She Said” was inspired by quotes from Polish political prisoners in Russia. – JC

Sting
Dream of the Blue Turtles
(A&M)
Released: June 1, 1985
Producers: Sting, Pete Smith

The Police’s hiatus after its Synchronicity album and tour was supposed to be temporary. But the massive success of Sting’s solo debut, Dream of the Blue Turtles — released on Synchronicity’s two-year anniversary and containing a reworked version of Zenyatta Mondatta’s “Shadows in the Rain” — helped put the kibosh on reconciliation plans.

Playing guitar with a band of rising jazz stars including Branford Marsalis on sax and future Rolling Stone Darryl Jones on bass, Sting revisited his pre-Police roots, as well as his love for composer Kurt Weill (on the vampire-inspired “Moon Over Bourbon Street”). He also editorialized about socio-political issues such as Cold War tensions (“Russians”), a British coal miners’ strife (“We Work the Black Seam”) and war, child exploitation and drugs ( Children’s Crusade). He also counter-balanced his stalkerish “Every Breath You Take,” the Police’s biggest hit, with the upbeat opener and first single, “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”; reaching No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, it remains his highest-ranking solo single. Three more singles climbed inside the Top 20; the album itself hit No. 2 on Billboard’s Top 200 and launched Sting’s remarkable run of seven consecutive Top 10 solo studio albums

He actually quoted “Every Breath…” in the feel-good calypso track “Love is the Seventh Wave,” then leavened its somewhat reverential lyrics with the line, “every cake you bake, every leg you break.” Marsalis’ and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland’s instrumental flights offset the lyrical density of songs such as Children’s Crusade and the gorgeously arranged Fortress Around Your Heart, and, with Omar Hakim’s drumming, found a cool-jazz/funk groove on tracks such as “Consider Me Gone.” Turtles was all-killer/no-filler and kept any Police reunion plans cuffed for another two-plus decades. – Lynne Margolis

Tears For Fears
Songs From the Big Chair
(Mercury)
Released: February 25, 1985
Producer: Chris Hughes

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, aka Tears for Fears, worked out their childhood traumas on their first album The Hurting, freeing their psyches for the poppier Songs From the Big Chair. Where the debut was deeply introspective and heavily synth-based, the duo’s sophomore effort had more intentionally “joyful,” guitar-driven songs, though the joy was mitigated by tracks such Everybody Wants to Rule the World, overtly about the Cold War (as were many other songs during the mid-80s). It hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts, as did the follow-up single, the more personal but equally intense Shout.
Based on the Jungian theory that the way to move past childhood trauma is to (literally) scream, Shout made the loudest noise of Tears For Fears’ career. The song opened with the anthemic mantra “Shout, shout, let it all out / these are the things I can do without” and went on to profess that, “If I could change your mind / I’d really like to break your heart.” It was brutally candid, but overall the album offered a bold, explosive sound from an otherwise cerebral band.

Song From the Big Chair was relentless with hooks and beats that made listeners need to sing along – nowhere more true than on the unapologetically romantic “Head Over Heels,” a third Top 5 hit from the album. Whatever sonic magic Tears For Fears unleashed on this album, the band’s heart still shined through. As Stylus magazine noted 21 years after the album’s release, “Even today, when all rock musicians seem to be able to do is be emotional and honest, the brutality and power of Songs From the Big Chair’s catharsis is still quite shocking.” -HD

The ’80s Most Outrageous Rock Fashion

In the same way that ducktails defined the ’50s and bell bottoms became shorthand for the ’70s, neon-lit sartorial choices can be firmly placed in the Reagan years.

Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso

Billy Joel Cancels Tour After Diagnosis of Rare Brain Disorder

Posted on May 23, 2025 by u0zp4y

Billy Joel has halted all touring after being diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus. Doctors say performances have exacerbated his condition, “leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance.”

Joel’s most recent show dates back to Feb. 22 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. A few weeks later, he announced a lengthy break from the road to deal with an unspecified “medical condition” that required surgery and physical therapy.

These newly canceled concerts were set to run from late April through early July. “I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience,” Joel said in a new statement, “and thank you for understanding.”

READ MORE: Billy Joel’s Best Love Songs

Normal pressure hydrocephalus is a disorder where excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain. “It is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease,” according to the Alzheimer’s Association. “In fact, less than 20 percent of people with the disease are properly diagnosed.”

Joel, 76, is now “undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period,” according to the official statement. “Billy is thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritizing his health.”

Normal pressure hydrocephalus is rare, impacting only 0.2 percent of people in their 70s. Sufferers usually undergo surgery where a shunt is implanted to remove the excess fluids.

If you’ve already bought tickets, Joel’s statement says “you don’t need to take any action to receive your refund. It will be automatically processed back to the original payment used for the purchase.”

Top 40 Singer-songwriter Albums

From Bob Dylan and John Lennon to Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel.

Gallery Credit: UCR Staff

See Bob Dylan Play ‘All Along the Watchtower’ With Billy Strings

Posted on May 23, 2025 by u0zp4y

Christopher Polk, Getty Images / Amy Sussman, Getty Images

Bob Dylan does not often perform with guests, but he made an exception Thursday night when guitarist Billy Strings joined him for “All Along the Watchtower.”

The collaboration took place in Spokane, Washington. Both Dylan and Strings are currently touring on the same bill as part of Willie Nelson‘s annual Outlaw Festival.

You can watch a video of the performance below.

Billy Strings Grew Up on Bob Dylan

Like many musicians of his generation, Strings, who is 32, started listening to Dylan from a young age.

“When I was in middle school, I worshiped Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, James Brown, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, just people like that who are larger than life,” he said in a 2022 interview with journalist Alan Paul. “I still don’t think those kind of people exist anymore, but I never thought it was gonna be an option to even be on stage in front of thousands of people cheering for me. It’s a childhood dream come true.”

Strings has also previously covered various Dylan songs at his own concerts, including “All Along the Watchtower,” “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power),” “Drifter’s Escape,” “Tangled Up in Blue” and others.

The Outlaw Festival Tour, which also features Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Sheryl Crow, Turnpike Troubadours, the Avett Brothers, Wilco, the Red Clay Strays, Lake Street Dive, Waxahatchee, Charles Wesley Godwin, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers and many others, will continue on May 24 in Ridgefield, Washington.

Bob Dylan Albums Ranked

Through ups and downs, and more comebacks than just about anyone in rock history, the singer-songwriter’s catalog has something for just about everyone.

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci

The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now

Posted on May 23, 2025 by fgt

Electric Callboy, Ithaca, Blackbraid and Death Pill in 2025

(Image credit: Christian Ripkens | Press | Wolf Mountain Productions | Kirsty Garland)

As spring continues and the weather only gets warmer and warmer, we can’t help but find ourselves in a sunny disposition. Summer’s about to come, the festivals are about to kick off – oh, and we have another week of magnificent metal songs to think about.

But first, let’s look at the results of last week’s poll. We got new tracks from Lorna Shore, Nova Twins, President and more, but the voting was an absolute landslide, with more than 50% of our readers saying that Sing Like A Siren from Within Temptation was the best new release of those seven days. Congrats to the Dutch symphonic metal masters!

Now, the cycle begins again, and we have new stuff from Electric Callboy, Blackbraid, Ithaca, Malevolence and many more for you to sink your teeth into. Listen to them all, then use the genius little widget below to name your fave.

Electric Callboy – Revery

Electric Callboy have embraced the dark side! Since their 2022 album Tekkno, the German gang have been all-smiles and synths, up to and including January’s bounce-a-thon Elevator Operator. Revery, however, is a metalcore rager with keyboards that sound like they’re fresh from an 80s horror movie soundtrack. The band haven’t announced an album yet, but they’ll more than likely play this song on their European festival dates, which kick off at Slam Dunk in the UK this weekend.

Electric Callboy – REVERY (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube Electric Callboy - REVERY (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - YouTube

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Blackbraid – Wardrums At Dawn On The Day Of My Death

One of the most popular new names in all of black metal, Blackbraid are a Native American project screaming about the sanctity of nature and narrating parts of their Indigenous culture’s past. Wardrums… is their first new, original song in two years – a comparatively long turnaround for this prolific outfit – but more will soon come. Its sharp riffing, shrill vocals and thunderous drumming precede the arrival of new album Blackbraid III, coming out on August 8.

Blackbraid – Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death (Official Music Video) – YouTube Blackbraid - Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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Sinsaenum – In Devastation

Almost a decade on from their debut, death metallers Sinsaenum are back and eyeing up an August 8 release for their third album, In Devastation. Their first without Joey Jordison behind the drums, the band have said the album will be a tribute to their fallen bandmate, recruiting Breed 77’s Andre Joyzi to clatter the kit. Lead single In Devastation continues the old school death metal vibes the band have traded in thus far, a raging, sweeping tide of malevolence.

Sinsaenum – In Devastation (Official Video) – YouTube Sinsaenum - In Devastation (Official Video) - YouTube

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Ithaca – Ithaca

RIP Ithaca. The British metalcore heroes have bowed out with a self-titled track ahead of their final performance at ArcTanGent festival in August. It’s a howling farewell to a brilliant and distinctive band, the guitars coming out like a distorted wail of the national anthem while the breakdowns and howls evoke a sense of apocalyptic finality. God, we’ll miss ’em. “Don’t cry because it’s over/smile because it happened” indeed.

Ithaca ‘Ithaca’ (Official Audio) – YouTube Ithaca 'Ithaca' (Official Audio) - YouTube

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The Armed – Well Made Play

Hardcore might be blowing up in the mainstream, but some bands are keeping it avowedly underground. Aural terrorisers The Armed certainly fall into that latter camp, unyielding squeals and howls aplenty unleashed in a whirlwind of fury and anguish. The first single to be taken from their upcoming album The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed, due August 1, it’s a punishing exercise in extremity complete with squalling, atonal sax. Ouch.

The Armed – Well Made Play (Official Video) – YouTube The Armed - Well Made Play (Official Video) - YouTube

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Malevolence – Salt The Wound

If The Armed represent hardcore’s most extreme tendencies, then Malevolence are representing metalcore’s ability to blend heaviness with anthemia. Salt The Wound treads a line between melodic serenity and vicious, powerful thunder. New album Where Only The Truth Is Spoken drops in just under a month – June 20 – and judging from this, it’s gonna be massive.

MALEVOLENCE – Salt The Wound (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) – YouTube MALEVOLENCE - Salt The Wound (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) - YouTube

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Unleashed – War Comes Again

One of Stockholm’s OG death metal bands, Unleashed have announced their first album in four years, Fire Upon Your Lands, will drop on August 15. War Comes Again doesn’t so much offer a taste of what’s to come as it does an unrepentant punch in the mouth. “I dream of your death!” singer/bassist Johnny Hedlund roars, backed up by blasts of chug-along riffing and scraping but melodic lead lines. Ready your neck for when the rest of the album comes.

UNLEASHED – War Comes Again (Official Video) | Napalm Records – YouTube UNLEASHED - War Comes Again (Official Video) | Napalm Records - YouTube

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The None – At Hope

Lurching basslines and grotesque imagery characterises the noisy new single from newcomers The None. A band featuring members of British alt underground acts like Cassels, Bloc Party and Youth Man, the band’s sound sits somewhere between the abrasive clang of Shellac or Jesus Lizard and the oppressive post-punk of The Fall. Menacing and magnificent, we can’t wait to hear more.

Igorrr – Blastbeat Falafel

When you’ve got a band as avowedly weird and experimental as Igorrr, you have to expect some left-turns. Even so, Blastbeat Falafel is all wild-eyed nerves and skittering energy, the recruitment of Mr. Bungle’s Trey Spruance feeling oh-so-right in a track which seems to meld Middle Eastern melody, surf rock, death metal and all-out prog. Taken from the band’s new album Amen, due September 19, it’s a tooth-gnashing beastie.

IGORRR – BLASTBEAT FALAFEL – YouTube IGORRR - BLASTBEAT FALAFEL - YouTube

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Death Pill – Phone Call

Scattered around the world by the Russian invasion right as they released their self-titled debut in 2023, Ukraine’s Death Pill have nonetheless continued to triumphantly and defiantly make joyful music. Phone Call reduces some of the spiky, Discharge energy of their debut in favour of something more melodic as they prepare for the release of Sologamy on June 20.

Death Pill: Phone Call – YouTube Death Pill: Phone Call - YouTube

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Vower – Deadweight

Composed of former members of Palm Reader, Toska and Black Peaks, Vower wowed the UK underground with their wonky alt-metal EP Apricity last year. Since then, they’ve played a number of fests in their native land and expanded internationally, touring across Germany earlier this year. Deadweight is set to continue their expansion, striking with their heaviest and most immediate strikes to date. Spin it and learn the words for when the band grace Donington’s legendary Download festival in the middle of June.

VOWER | DEADWEIGHT (Official Music Video) – YouTube

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Taking cues from Bring Me The Horizon and Babymetal, Aussie newcomer RinRin shows a disregard for genre on latest single Gunmetal Black. There’s bouncy, nu metal like riffing and quickfire rap flows, bleeping electronica and thumping metalcore breakdowns, all blended into a massive, meaty package.

RinRin – Gunmetal Black (Official Music Video) – YouTube RinRin - Gunmetal Black (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token.

With contributions from

Matt MillsContributing Editor, Metal Hammer

“Nothing Else Matters exposed the vulnerability behind what previously seemed to be a bulletproof heavy metal machine”: The five least metal Metallica songs

Posted on May 23, 2025 by fgt

(Image credit: Niels van Iperen/Getty Images)

When your band name literally has the word “metal” in it, you’re setting up some major expectations in the heaviness stakes. However, Metallica quickly flourished beyond their snot-nosed thrash roots and showed no fear of other soundscapes, to the delight of many a fan and the chagrin of many a gatekeeper. From the youth-charged sprint of Kill ’Em All to Load’s moody introspection, there’s plenty of variety in the Four Horsemen’s canon.

So – while such bruising tracks as For Whom The Bell Tolls, Master Of Puppets and Enter Sandman have all played their part in pushing metal forwards – that’s not what we’re talking about today. Instead, below is a celebration of Metallica’s most sensitive and soft-hearted moments. These are the five times James Hetfield crooned, Lars Ulrich went easy on his kit and Kirk Hammett had the restraint not to lacerate the listener with solo after solo, listed in chronological order.

The first pick on our timeline is probably the most obvious. Metallica had dabbled in a few ballads before Nothing Else Matters (see: Fade To Black, Welcome Home (Sanitarium) and One). But, never had these fire-breathing behemoths laid themselves as bare as they did on this Black Album single.

On a cut so tender that Hetfield questioned whether his band should actually even release it, the frontman softly sang for his then-girlfriend, expressing how much he missed her on the road. Though the song crescendoed with some metallic beats and a solo from Papa Het himself, it was largely pensive and clean, exposing the vulnerability behind what previously seemed to be a bulletproof heavy metal machine. The result was an instant crossover hit that played a serious part in making Metallica one of the most successful albums to ever come out.

Mama Said (Load, 1996)

After Nothing Else Matters offered a sneak peek into the window of Hetfield’s soul, the songs on Load saw him swing the door open. The lyrics throughout Metallica’s still-controversial blues rock dalliance let the singer/guitarist voice the pain of losing his Christian Scientist mother to cancer, shortly after his father had up and abandoned the family. And Mama Said was one of the most sincere bits out of the bunch.

Wielding an acoustic guitar, Hetfield told the autobiographical story of his time with his mum, hinting towards both a troubled relationship (“Let my heart go, let your son grow”) and a lack of gratitude for his departed parent (“I took your love for granted, all the things you said to me”). With the rest of the band as background figures, this cast their founding man’s complexities centre-stage then turned them into something beautiful.

Metallica: Mama Said (Official Music Video) – YouTube

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Low Man’s Lyric (Reload, 1997)

Recorded simultaneously to Load, Reload was a sibling every bit as expansive, experimental and revealing as the album that preceded it just one year prior. Low Man’s Lyric was something of a shift, however, in that Hetfield didn’t voice his own struggles as much as those of others. The seven-and-a-half-minute journey cast him into the headspace of a homeless person, expressing the day-to-day tragedy of a ragged vagabond.

Though this was more of a full-band effort than Nothing Else Matters and Mama Said, the music was suitably sombre throughout. A solemn “One, two, three…” heralds layers of undistorted guitar, joined by bare, stomping percussion. Strings and hurdy-gurdies later add to the drama and tragedy of the piece, but Metallica still resist the urge to go full-force, proving that sometimes quietness can be just as powerful and declarative as unfiltered noise.

Tuesday’s Gone (Lynyrd Skynyrd cover; Garage Inc., 1998)

Metallica have seldom been a collaborative group, often preferring to blaze their own trail through the metal wilderness and leave everyone else scrambling to catch up. The exception proving the rule was Tuesday’s Gone. It remains the one time heavy music’s masters turned to outside help on a studio album, and what they’ve otherwise lacked in the teamwork department was made up for in one fell swoop on this star-studded odyssey.

In a move that could have come across as a joke if it weren’t played so skilfully, Metallica corralled a who’s-who of contemporary riffage – including members of Alice In Chains, Corrosion Of Conformity, Faith No More and Primus – then asked them not to play metal at all. Instead, this Lynyrd Skynyrd cover was a constantly tobacco-spitting country jam, harmonica ’n’ all. A risky move, but immersive and moving in practice.

The Unforgiven III (symphonic version; S&M2, 2020)

From The Godfather to the Tobey Maguire Spider-Mans, the trope of the trilogy that couldn’t stick the landing is one of the longest-standing in media. For more than a decade, The Unforgiven had an unfortunate seat at the table, with the first two tracks being thematic and musical mirrors of each other, before the third needlessly tacked itself on and refused to say anything new. That was, until the Death Magnetic entry was re-modelled for S&M2.

For the sequel to their boundary-breaking symphony-orchestra-meets-metal effort, Metallica went even more transformative than before, with this being one of the boldest reinventions. Every conventional instrument was pulled away, turning this once-inessential entry into Hetfield hollering over grandiose strings. Instantly, new life was added, with the singer’s words feeling all the more rending thanks to their quasi-cinematic backing, and it paradoxically came after parts got taken away.

Metallica – The Unforgiven III (S&M2) [5.1 Surround / 4K Remastered] – YouTube Metallica - The Unforgiven III (S&M2) [5.1 Surround / 4K Remastered] - YouTube

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Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

“In a recent moment when I was really struggling, I picked up my guitar and wrote a song”: Sheryl Crow releases new single in support of Mental Health Awareness Month

Posted on May 23, 2025 by fgt

(Image credit: Will Scown)

Sheryl Crow has released a new single, I Know, in support of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been observed in May since 1949.

“In a recent moment when I was really struggling, I picked up my guitar and wrote a song,” says Crow. “I sent it to some friends and got such a strong reaction that I’m going to put it out this week – it’s called I Know.

“Sometimes when we’re struggling, just knowing that another soul can relate to what we’re feeling makes things a little bit better. That’s what this song is about. At times, our challenges can seem so overwhelming that we need professional help, which for a lot of folks isn’t always easy to find or access.

“I recently came across a mental health charity that resonated with me called To Write Love On Her Arms – their mission statement is ‘presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide.’ When we’re struggling, we all need hope. And when you add help to hope, you can overcome huge challenges.

“Therapy is often not covered by insurance and is expensive. To Write Love On Her Arms provides resources so people in need of help can find affordable care. And this I really love: they have a ‘Disconnect to Reconnect’ challenge which encourages people to get off social media for two weeks and reconnect what matters most.

“Social media isn’t really great for anyone’s emotional well-being, so encouraging folks to put the phone down and enjoy nature, family and friends, music… I do that all the time, and I know how beneficial it is to take a break.

“I encourage you to check out To Write Love On Her Arms, check out the resources on their website and see if they might help you or someone you love. And if it does, please consider donating to them or any mental health charity that resonates with you.”

Crow recently received multiple threats on social media after selling her Tesla in protest at Elon Musk’s involvement in politics. She gave the proceeds to public service broadcaster NPR, whose funding is threatened by Donald Trump’s controversial DOGE initiative to cut wasteful spending.

“There was a moment where I actually really felt very afraid,” Crow told Variety. “A man got on my property, in my barn, who was armed. It doesn’t feel safe when you’re dealing with people who are so committed.”

Crow’s latest album, Evolution, is out now.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.

Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z

Albums

Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III (1968)

Hand Sown … Home Grown (1969)

Silk Purse (1970)

Linda Ronstadt (1972)

Don’t Cry Now (1973)

Heart Like a Wheel (1974)

Prisoner in Disguise (1975)

Hasten Down the Wind (1976)

Simple Dreams (1977)

Living in the USA (1978)

Mad Love (1980)

Get Closer (1982)

What’s New (1983)

Lush Life (1984)

For Sentimental Reasons (1986)

Trio (1987) (with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton)

Canciones de Mi Padre (1987)

Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind (1989)

Mas Canciones (1991)

Frenesí (1992)

Winter Light (1993)

Feels Like Home (1995)

Dedicated to the One I Love (1996)

We Ran (1998)

Trio II (1999) (Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton)

Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999) (with Emmylou Harris)

A Merry Little Christmas (2000)

Hummin’ to Myself (2004)

Adieu False Heart (2006) (with Ann Savoy)

Check out our fantastic and entertaining Linda Ronstadt articles, detailing in-depth the band’s albums, songs, band members, and more…all on ClassicRockHistory.com

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Complete List Of Linda Ronstadt Songs From A to Z article published on ClassicRockHistory.com© 2025

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