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You're No Good
It Doesn't Matter Anymore
Faithless Love
The Dark End of the Street
Heart Like a Wheel
When Will I Be Loved
Willin'
I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)
Keep Me from Blowing Away
You Can Close Your Eyes
Released in 1974, Heart Like a Wheel marked an important moment in the career of Linda Ronstadt. Although she had already made four albums and built a reputation as a strong live performer, this record heralded more commercial success and established her as one of the leading voices in American rock and country-influenced pop.
The album blended several styles, including country, rock, folk and rhythm and blues, but its real strength lay in Ronstadt’s ability to interpret songs written by others. She moved from the laid-back country of I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You) to the more dramatic title track, written by Anna McGarrigle, and her version of You're No Good became a major hit and showed how effectively she could bring new energy and clarity to a well-known song.
The production wasn't fancy, allowing the musicians and Ronstadt’s voice to remain the focus, and the album worked because of its careful arrangements and relaxed, confident performances. Heart Like a Wheel is not a complicated record, but it is clever, and it became a key step in Ronstadt's mid-70s rise.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in November 1974
- Autobahn - Kraftwerk
- Cantamos - Poco
- Fly to the Rainbow - Scorpions
- Man of Miracles - Styx
- Nightlife - Thin Lizzy
- Saturnight - Cat Stevens
- Country Life - Roxy Music
- Goodnight Vienna - Ringo Starr
- The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast - Roger Glover
- The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Genesis
- John Dawson Winter III - Johnny Winter
- Relayer - Yes
- Fire on the Mountain - Charlie Daniels Band
- Slade in Flame - Slade
- 7-Tease - Donovan
- Bluejeans & Moonbeams - Captain Beefheart
- Desolation Boulevard - Sweet
- Myopia - Tom Fogerty
- Out Of The Storm - Jack Bruce
- Propaganda - Sparks
- Soon Over Babaluma - Can
- Stormbringer - Deep Purple
- Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) - Brian Eno
- There's the Rub - Wishbone Ash
- Sheer Heart Attack - Queen
- Wish You Were Here - Badfinger
- Where We All Belong - Marshall Tucker Band
What they said...
"One of the reasons Heart Like A Wheel is so impressive, surpassing even the excellent Don’t Cry Now, is its expansion of repertoire beyond country and folk-rock. It also joins Ronstadt to her ideal producer, Peter Asher, who, with Andrew Gold, has provided ten well-chosen songs with full, distinctive sound settings, notable for the variety and imagination of their instrumentation. (Rolling Stone)
"Backed by a fleet of Los Angeles musicians, Ronstadt sings with vigour and passion, helping bring the music alive. But what really makes Heart Like a Wheel a breakthrough is the inventive arrangements that producer Peter Asher, Ronstadt, and the studio musicians have developed." (AllMusic)
"Her cover of the Everly Brothers’ immortal When Will I Be Loved was the hardest she’d ever rocked. She sang Hank Williams with her friend Emmylou, then turned two songs by other friends into career-defining statements: her version of J.D. Souther’s Faithless Love drifts on banjo and soft percussion that underline its aching, rueful lyrics, while she completely transforms Lowell George’s druggy-trucker paean Willin’ into a swaying power ballad." (Pitchfork)
What you said...
Evan Sanders: What an unusual choice, and a nostalgic one for me. I really enjoyed Linda Ronstadt in my teen years, and no matter how much we debate over LA rock vs. country rock vs. plain 'ol country, we have to acknowledge that she was a mainstay on US classic rock radio for most of the 70's.
The strong vocals on You're No Good, When Will I Be Loved, and even the country cover of Willin' showed her comfort in multiple genres. Some 50 years later, the sad part is that no matter how strong her vocals were, she is being seen as either too rock for the country fans or too country for the rock fans. If we set aside the categories, maybe we can agree that this was just enjoyable music? I'll go with a 7/10 on this one, not high enough to be in the classic category, but high enough to recognise her moment in time
Brian Carr: As I’ve gotten older, I seem to listen to quieter music than I did in my younger days, and I like a lot of the singer/songwriter type stuff. I had intended to check out classic era Linda Ronstadt, but hadn’t yet. Ronstadt didn’t write the tunes on Heart Like A Wheel, but it fits the mould. She has a nice voice, but to me the songs in general were too, well, blah. I often listen to records, listening for those hidden gems (non-radio hits), but the hits You’re No Good and When Will I Be Loved were definitely the strongest tunes. Maybe I’ll like the album more when I watch the new documentary, but for now, I’d much rather listen to Bonnie Raitt.
John Beckett: Obviously heard of Linda Ronstadt, but never listened to an album of hers. This is the first one: beautiful voice, and there are some gems on this album, but I'm a bit out of my depth with this genre, so my review is short.
Chris Elliott: This is a lovely album - and wonderfully short. It's somewhat eclectic: let's do country, let's do folk, here's some Laurel Canyon folk. A bit of easy listening? No problem, throw that in as well. As a result, the tracks sometimes stand better alone than as an album. Part of me smells record company logic of we can get this on so many radio stations, part of me hopes it's just randomly eclectic.
But at the same time, there's not a duff song. Five utter gems and the rest are just fun.
Greg Schwepe: If you look up the definition of “belting out a song” in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure there would be a picture of Linda Ronstadt standing at the mic. While the 17-year-old me was initially attracted to Linda Ronstadt due to her "attractiveness," I quickly found that her voice was as big a draw as she could go from raw power to quiet whisper in one fell swoop. She is an artist who was influenced by many genres growing up and can truly make a song her own.
Heart Like A Wheel was the first of her string of platinum albums that got her noticed as a solo artist on a national scale. At that time, Ronstadt was usually lumped in the L.A. country-rock musical bucket. For me, Heart Like A Wheel has three buckets: the aforementioned country rock, plain ol’ rock and plain ol’ country. And generally, I only like two of those buckets.
You’re No Good leads off and is the quintessential Ronstadt vocal. Slow and sultry at the beginning, then we up the ante at the chorus, and you hear that vocal power. And if that vocal isn’t enough, there’s an awesome instrumental section that rates pretty high as well. That vocal power is repeated on When Will I Be Loved. While only two songs, they make a big impression and finish the rock bucket on this album.
The country rock bucket is filled with mellower ballads and more of Ronstadt’s impressive voice. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, Faithless Love, Dark End Of The Street, Heart Like A Wheel, and You Can Close Your Eyes fall into this group. And yes, most of these are slow, slow songs. If I were listening to this in the car, my wife would be saying “Boring! Change it!” And on some days, I might too. But if you’re in the right mood, these slower songs are enjoyable to listen to.
The last bucket, the country bucket, was my least liked by far. Way too twangy and too much pedal steel. Willin’, I Can’t Help It, and Keep Me From Blowing Away were in this batch. I seriously almost bailed on many of these.
Even though I suggested this album, I had never actually listened to it before. Besides the tracks that ended up on Ronstadt’s compilation albums, I was not familiar with the remainder. And while this album started her on her upward trajectory, it’s not for everyone. For me, the perfect Linda Ronstadt album is a collection of up-tempo songs in the vein of You’re No Good, and When Will I Be Loved, with the more introspective ones like she did later with Blue Bayou and Desperado. 7 out of 10 on this one for me. A voice that can sing it all, just find the stuff you like.
John Davidson: Not really my cup of tea. You're No Good and When Will I Be Loved are good sing-alongs, and It Doesn't Matter Any More and Willin' are decent enough pop/country, but the rest is too country/singer songwriter to really make much impression on me.
Adam Ranger: Country rock? Country folk? I'm coming down more on the side of just country. Great voice, but just not my thing. Most of this album is just country vocals and minimal music. It's not that it is bad, just not something I can enjoy listening to. The good songs are You're No Good and When Will I Be Loved, It Doesn't Matter Any More and Willin' are OK, but the album left no lasting impression on me.
Mike Canoe: Odds are if you like Laurel Canyon folk rock and/or Nashville countrypolitan, you'll like Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel. It doesn't rock very much, but that probably had as much to do with the male-dominated music industry as Ronstadt's musical leanings.
Ronstadt is a great interpreter of other people's songs and surprisingly good at singing from a male perspective. On paper, it's hard to imagine Ronstadt as a road-weary trucker, but she completely owns Lowell George's Willin'. Her versions of the Everly Brothers' When Will I Be Loved and Hank Williams' I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" also shine, but my favourite is The Dark End of the Street, a hit for James Carr that I wasn't previously familiar with.
You're No Good has been permanently "Van Halened" for me, and my brain always sings Steve Miller's song Heart Like a Wheel from several years later when I see that song title. Linda Ronstadt would have probably done a great job with that one, too.
Warren Bubb: I enjoyed the 1977 album Simple Dreams, but I just found this one lifeless and rather boring. The voice is great, of course, but it's a phoned-in affair. The songs I was familiar with, like You're No Good and Willin' have been done better by Van Halen and Little Feat. Maybe not my kind of music, but just a 4 or 5 for me.
Philip Qvist: This week is quite a tricky affair. I am open to a lot of music genres, but country music is near the bottom of my music food chain, just above hip hop and rap. Still, I can appreciate the genre for what it is, and so I went into this review with a very open mind.
Linda Ronstadt has always been philosophical about her songwriting abilities (in a career of around 40 years and 24 studio albums, she has received only three co-writing credits), and yet, despite starting in an era where solo singer-songwriters started to come to the fore, she has managed to forge a successful music career. Put it down to having a great voice, surrounding herself with great songwriters and becoming a great interpreter of said songs, while co-producing her own songs also helped.
So what can I say about Heart Like A Wheel, regarded by many as her breakout record? Well, for a start, it has a couple of her more recognisable songs, such as You're No Good and When Will I Be Loved - both of which I do like. Then there is the title track and the Little Feat cover, Willin'.
The first side is quite good, but once side two gets to Hank Williams' I Can't Help It, the album becomes pure country, and that's when I started to switch off.
There is a lot to like about Heart Like A Wheel, while I cannot fault the quality of the songs, the musicianship and Peter Asher's production, with some help from the primary artist, while Linda Ronstadt's voice is right up there. The country influence on the album, particularly the last three tracks, does let the record down a bit, but there is still a lot on it for me to appreciate the album for what it is. A 7 from me this week.
Final score: 6.59 (32 votes cast, total score 211)
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