With a career that spanned decades and genres and defied expectations of women in music, Linda Ronstadt hasn’t left many stones unturned—but touring with this iconic band is a notable exception that the singer has regretted ever since. And quite frankly, it’s hard not to agree with her.
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Ronstadt’s backing bands were musical figureheads in their own right, from Cajun rock band Swampwater to the lineup that would eventually become the Eagles. But as she explained in a 2017 interview with Uncut Magazine, her real “dream tour” lineup was never able to make it on the road.
Linda Ronstadt Regretted Not Touring With This Band
Although we most often associate Linda Ronstadt as a solo frontwoman (take your pick of pop, country, and rock ‘n’ roll genres), for one fleeting, femme-fronted moment in the late 1970s, Ronstadt was also part of a country supergroup consisting of herself, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris. Their collaborative album, Trio, would take ten years to come to fruition, from its rocky start in 1978 to its official release in 1987.
“It was hard,” Ronstadt recalled. “Dolly’s career was just taking off then, and Emmy had her own touring thing that she was doing, and I was doing what I was doing with rock ‘n’ roll. It was hard to get all of our schedules together and decide who was going to produce it and how it was going to go, what we were going to aim for. It worked out, finally; it just took a lot of years.”
“I always thought it was a shame that we never toured together because we would’ve refined what we were doing on the bus singing together, and that would’ve made a big difference. Doing it night after night, we would’ve gotten really tight.”
Three Incomparable Voices Are Better Than One
While Linda Ronstadt is undoubtedly correct in her beliefs that spending time on the road would have tightened up the trio’s arrangements, it’s hard to imagine the supergroup needing much improvement. Ronstadt, Emmy Lou Harris, and Dolly Parton blended their voices beautifully on their 1987 release. From “Wildflowers” to “Hobo’s Meditation,” Trio combined folk and pop sensibilities to make a chart-topping record that celebrated and highlighted each singer’s unique timbre and musical history.
For the three musicians, real-life friends, and mutual admirers, finding a way to work together in an official capacity was a no-brainer. “Whenever we saw each other in the ‘70s, the guitars would come out, and we’d start to sing right away. The minute we heard the sound of our three voices together, we just went, ‘We have to record together. We’ve got to do it.’ Emmy and I really wanted to do traditional stuff because we had Dolly, who’s such a good traditional singer.”
“Emmy and I always could finish each other’s sentences,” Ronstadt continued. “Our sensibilities are very similar, and both of us were big fans of Dolly. I liked it best, frankly, when Emmy was singing lead, Dolly was singing on the top, and I sang on the bottom. That was my favorite configuration of our harmonies. I thought that was really the Trio sound.”
We can’t help but share Ronstadt’s disappointment that the Trio never made it as a touring band. Nevertheless, these regrets pale in comparison to each woman’s successful solo career and the wealth of recorded material they offered the world in the late 1980s. A worldwide tour—or even a full-fledged, permanent band—would have been nice, but the albums the iconic Trio gave us instead are certainly a close second.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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