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. ; w ;£ } i y) Y . 4 /4 HAVE DINNER WITH Charley THIS WEEK A bowl of chili, a slice of corn- bread & house beverage for $1.50 Special is from 6-8 pm, M-F 4 Good TimeCharley's 1140 South University-668-8411 Americans in Cuban jails to be released : , :... <: : a , # bee 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. 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