ARTS
Page 8 Friday, October 24, 1980 The Michigan Daily
PRISONER OF DISGUISES
Ronstadt finds a new posture
By DENNIS HARVEY
The Linda Ronstadt backlash has, by
now, gotten so noisy and trendy that it.
has almost wholly obscured her non-
earthshaking but genuine gifts. She's a
slick purveyor of top-40 poppers, three-
minute instant gratifications, with an
almost-great set of pipes and a fairly in-
telligent (if decreasingly so) eye for
choosing material.
The singer-songwriter flood of ten
years ago crumbled whatever was left
of the old acceptability, of major rock
cover artists. Ronstadt's huge record
sales, her manufactured take-me
image and the failings of her recent at-
tempts to adopt punk and rocker poses
have laid her open to anyone anxious to
take a shot at an easy target. Wed-
nesday night's concert at Crisler
Arena, on the positive side, confirmed
that Ronstadt is nothing more heinious
than a thoroughly commercial vehicle
for bringing a lot of good songs to the at-
tention of the masses, in a simplified
and accessible form-and there's
nothing wrong with that, really, even if
there's nothing particularly exciting,
about it either. On the negative side, the
concert made it clear that all of Ron-
stadt's posing-last year's backwoods
vixen, now this year"s pseudo-
punker-is more noticeably vacant
than ever. She's a minor artist with
major sales, proficient but rather
dull-especially in concert.
WEDNESDAY night's .performance
was a quirckless grestest-hits-package
with the seven-member band (includng
Southern California's everybody's-
band members Kenny Edwards, Danny
Korchmar, Russ Kunkel, etc.) playing
like practiced hired hands, loosening up
only during the extended instrumental
break in "You're No Good." Linda's
yearly pledging of allegiance to the
latest clotheshorse-rock fashion has
gotten to be something of a joke, and
her image here was chi-chi
cheesecake-silk hot pink-and-black
shorts, a polka-dotted top, carefully
chopped and teased I'm-so-punk hair,
all of that leg. She certainly dresses for
the part, although I prefer the act when
it's done by Nikki and the Corvettes.
(At least they don't seem to be saying,
"Don't worry, we're only slumming.")
Surprisingly, despite the contrivance
of the new Ronstadt persona, and its
frighteningly stale musical expression
on the embalmed "new wave" album
Mad Love, the recent material came off
fairly well live. The taut pop construc-
tion of Elvis Costello's and Mark
Croenburg's songs keep them alive in
concert, and Costello's "Party Girl"
actually had some power-without
Elvis' ironic delicacy, the song is
reduced to a spacey tearjerker, but
Ronstadt has always been better at sen-
timentality than at her more
aggressive poses.
PERHAPS THE punk image appeals
to her because its insolence provides an
excuse for the slightly bored emotional
ambivalence she's always been stuck
with as a performer. The Crisler con-
cert must have caught her in an above-
average mood-smiling and telling in-
nocuous stories between songs (while
audience members showed what was on
their minds by yelling, "Nice
ass!")-but she remains a lame
physical presence on stage, looking
faintly silly when expressionlessly
swinging a tambourine or clanging a
cowbell while the rest of the band
struggles to get that we're-kicking-out-
the-jams-man look.
Her best efforts on records probably
remain stark, gin-soaked ballads,
though lately those have been
sacrificed entirely for wall-to-wall up-
beat radio fodder. The effect of her ex-
traordinarily strong voice is usually
more impressive than moving-her in-
flections are flawless but chilly, slip-
ping into character easily but never
quite convincing. The air of sexy hash-
slinger desperation/resignation she ef-
fectively conjures up on concert stan-
dards like "Willin' " and "Faithless
Love" (both off Heart Like A Wheel,
still seamless pop/country/rock and
her best album) is touching, but her
facial impassivity sours them a bit. If
her attitude at Crisler wasn't exactly
one of being actively engaged, at least
she wasn't clearly apathetic as she has
been in the past.
WHAT CAN BE said about the songs
themselves? They were as clean and
predictable a set of choices as those on
her latest Greatest Hits collection:
most of the Mad.Love tunes, "It's So
Easy," "Just One Look," "That'll Be
The Day," "Silver Threads and Golden
Needles" (The Cowsills were more
fun), "Back in the U.S.A.," "Heat-
wave," "Desperado".. . "Can't Let
Go" remains exhilerating pop, and
Linda had a sole moment of charm
when she shrugged off blowing the
lyrics for "Blue Bayou." Her
breathless leaps into falsettoes on
"Faithless Love" were the most
striking among many technically
superb effects, and the evening cer-
tainly had Something For The Boys
with Linda flouncing around shaking
her below-the-belt goods like a
childishly sensual Creemdream of the
week.
time pleasantly enough, but his music
seems curiously dated. It's feather-
weight West Coast pop on the har-
mlessly trite level of Steve Stills and
countless other solo artists now
residing in cut-out bins across the coun-
try (like Livingston himself). His
homely, banal audience raps-along
the lines of "Ann Arbor, we're gonna
have a hot damn time!"-was
aggressively charmless, and even an
Daily Photo by JOHN HAGEN
LINDA'S ADVENTURE IN THRIFTSHOPLAND, CHAPTER 29: All
dressed up for her latest role as a punk rocker, singer Linda Ronstadt belts
out a tune at Wednesday night's Crisler Arena concert. In strong voice, as
usual, Ronstadt offered a thoroughly competent, crashingly predictable set
of her recent hits and misses. Next week: Linda goes ska!
Ronstadt in concert offers everything
one expects-the sex kitten image, the
tidy procession of hits-and while that
may be enough for some, it's devoid of
any real interest.
Opening the evening was Livingston
Taylor, who has the same pleasantly
flat, mellifluous voice as his more suc-
cessful brother, with an MOR style
somewhat flossier, more glib, com-
placent and ignorable than James'. His
set of sleekly crafted pop-rock tunes
about nothing in particular passed the
amusing idea for an encore (a gentle,"-
low-key version of The Wizard of Oz's
"If I Only Had A Brain") turned a bit
self-consciously cute.
Now I think I know why Livingston
Taylor has never approached James'
commercial standing: both produce
very nice music, but where James often
goes beyond pleasantness into touching
introspection, Livingston stays on the
sunshiny surface. Perhaps the price of
being nicey-nice all the time is a fatal
case of dullness.
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Americans in Cuban
jails to be released
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WASHINGTON (AP)-The Carter
administration is planning to send a
plane to Cuba in several days to pick up
American prisoners who the Cuban
government says will be allowed to
return to the United States if they so
choose, U.S. officials said yesterday.
The officials said Cuba has informed
the United States it has virtually com-
pleted the paperwork on the prisoners.
They said American consular officers
began interviewing the prisoners Thur-
sday afternoon at Combinado del Este
prison.-
Cuba announced on Oct. 13 its
decision to release all Americans
currently jailed in Cuba. American of-
ficials believe there are 33 such
prisoners.
The officials, who asked not to be
identified, said they expect the inter-
views will be completed in two days and
that a flight, "on a contingency bases,"
is being arranged to return the
Americans on Monday, probably to
Miami.
The officials added that the Cuban
government says it does not plan to
release any Americans who also hold
Cuban citizenship.
They said it is possible that some of
the prisoners will be arrested on their
return. Among the Americans involved 0!
are about 10 who are wanted in this
country on hijacking charges.
Most are accused of drug trafficking
in Cuba. None is a political prisoner.
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