Linkmeister

This was bound to happen

I finally found a Linda Ronstadt album I didn't immediately love: Trio, a 1987 release with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. On first listen, it seemed like there was too much Dolly singing lead. I like Parton in small doses, but there seemed to be an awful lot of her. On further review, however, I've decided that it's pretty darned good. The voices meld beautifully, and there is a handoff of lead vocals that's so seamless it's often hard to determine which woman is singing what when. Trio II, a 1999 release by the same three singers, is more to my taste.

Western Wall | The Tucson Sessions is a collection of duets between Ronstadt and Harris, and it's a winner. Maybe it's just that the songs on this one are far more modern (Trio was far more country/gospel than Trio II, which included a masterful version of Neil Young's After the Gold Rush). Maybe Linda and Emmylou unconsciously deferred to Dolly's style and musical preferences with the first album? Given the status of the three women on the musical landscape, that's hard to believe, but it's possible.

This was my first experience borrowing CDs from the library, and it's certainly a good way to determine whether an album's worth buying. Somehow I miss the tactile sense of holding an unopened jewel case and fiddling with the insert for the first time, though. I didn't try it, but I did wonder if there was anything on the CD which would prevent me from copying it. How do libraries handle that issue, I wonder?