Hasten Down the Wind
After the critical and commercial smashHeart Like a Wheel, Linda Ronstadt could have had her pick of material from the day's top songwriters. Instead, she chose the wares of a couple of young artists on the rise,Warren ZevonandKarla Bonoff. Each provided her with first-rate material forHasten Down the Wind: Zevon wrote the title track and Bonoff supplied "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me," "Lose Again," and "If He's Ever Near." Ronstadt also bravely covers songs already done definitively by others--Patsy Cline's "Crazy,"Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day," andTracy Nelson's "Down So Low"--and emerges not merely unscathed, but triumphant. She also presages the turn toward Spanish material her career took in the '80s with "Lo Siento Mi Vida." It's easy to see why the public went wild forHasten, Ronstadt's first platinum album.--Daniel Durchholz