Career biography

At age fourteen, she formed a folk trio with her brother Peter and her sister Suzy. They called themselves The New Union Ramblers, and the trio played around coffeehouses, fraternity houses, and small joints. Their repertoire included the music they grew up on - folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican. But increasingly, Linda wanted to make a union of folk music and rock 'n' roll, and in 1964, at 17, she decided to move on to Los Angeles.


The Stone Poneys

The cover of the Stone Poneys' 1967 LP, Evergreen, Volume 2.While Ronstadt was a student at Arizona State University, she met guitarist Bob Kimmel. Together they moved to Los Angeles. In 1964, guitarist-songwriter Kenny Edwards joined the pair, co-writing several folk-rock songs with Kimmel. They recorded So Fine for Curb Records. The record company wanted them to sing surf music, which the trio chose not to do. The trio was discovered and signed with Nick Venet and Capitol Records, with Ronstadt as the lead singer. They became a leading attraction on California's folk circuit, recording their first album in the fall of 1966. The Stone Poneys acted as a supporting act for The Doors on tour; The Lizard King didn't exactly endear himself to Ronstadt, she remarked... We thought they were a good band, but we didn't like the singer,

That same year, a second album followed, Evergreen, Volume 2, released in June. The album cover is notable for showing all three Stone Poney members on the cover. Evergreen was significant for the group's hit single Different Drum, which reached 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was written by future Monkees member Michael Nesmith, along with notable songs, Back on the Street Again (Steve Gillette) and One for One (Al Silverman and Austin DeLone).

The beginning of the end for the Stone Poneys occurred when their then-manager came up to them at The Troubadour one night and said, Well, I can get your chick singer recorded, but I don't know about the rest of the group. And that was the end of it. Capitol Records released The Stone Poneys in January 1967; it failed to chart.

A third album, The Stone Poneys & Friends, Volume 3, was released in April 1968 and included the single Up To My Neck In High Muddy Water, which stalled at No. 93; however, at this stage, the group had disbanded, and Linda Ronstadt went solo.