Hasten Down the Wind

This article is about the album by Linda Ronstadt. For information on the title track itself, see Hasten Down the Wind (song).

Hasten Down the Wind
Studio album by
Linda Ronstadt
ReleasedAugust 9, 1976
RecordedMarch 1976
StudioSound Factory (Hollywood)
Genre
Length41:23
LabelAsylum
ProducerPeter Asher
Linda Ronstadt chronology
Prisoner in Disguise
(1975) 		Hasten Down the Wind
(1976) 		Greatest Hits
(1976)
Singles from Hasten Down the Wind
  1. "That'll Be the Day"
    Released: August 1976
  2. "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me"
    Released: November 1976
  3. "Crazy"
    Released: November 1976
  4. "Lose Again"
    Released: May 1977
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Christgau's Record GuideB−[2]
Rolling Stone(average)[3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[4]
Stereo Review[5]

Hasten Down the Wind is the seventh studio album by Linda Ronstadt. Released in 1976, it became her third straight million-selling album. Ronstadt was the first female artist to accomplish this feat.[6] The album earned her a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female in 1977, her second of 13 Grammys. It represented a slight departure from 1974's Heart Like a Wheel and 1975's Prisoner in Disguise in that she chose to showcase new songwriters over the traditional country rock sound she had been producing up to that point. A more serious and poignant album than its predecessors, it won critical acclaim.[citation needed]

Hasten Down the Wind contained two major hit singles: Ronstadt's covers of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" (US Pop #11, Country #27) and her reworking of the late Patsy Cline's 1961 hit, "Crazy", reaching #6 on the US Country chart in early 1977.[7]

The album showcased songs from artists such as Warren Zevon ("Hasten Down the Wind") and Karla Bonoff ("Someone to Lay Down Beside Me", US #42, Easy Listening #38), both of whom would soon be making a name for themselves in the singer-songwriter world. The album included a cover of a cover: "The Tattler" by Washington Phillips, which Ry Cooder had re-arranged for his 1974 album Paradise and Lunch. The album also included two songs co-written by Ronstadt, including one in Spanish (her first recorded foray into Spanish music, more than a decade before she released her first fully-Spanish album).

Her third album to go platinum, Hasten Down the Wind spent several weeks in the top three of the Billboard album charts. It was also the second of four number 1 Country albums for her.[citation needed]

  1. ^ a b c Allmusic review
  2. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: R". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 12, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ^ "Hasten Down The Wind". Rolling Stone. September 23, 1976. Archived from the original on October 23, 2016.
  4. ^ Brackett, Nathan; Christian Hoard (2004). The Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York City: Simon and Schuster. p. 701. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  5. ^ Stereo Review review
  6. ^ "Bio". Linda Ronstadt. Elektra. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2011.
  7. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 301.