Heart Like a Wheel

iTunes Review

Heart Like A Wheel (1974) lifted Linda Ronstadt out of the second tier of female rock singers and launched her into the pop stratosphere. For the first time in her career, she was given an album’s worth of exceptional songs that allowed her to fully unleash her interpretive talents. She also benefited from her new association with producer Peter Asher, who surrounded her voice with full-bodied yet uncluttered arrangements. The results are striking on the hits “When Will I Be Loved” and “You’re No Good,” featuring Andrew Gold’s Beatles-influenced guitar work. Ronstadt plunges into a range of moods here, getting down in the highway grit for “Willing” and ascending like a honky-tonk angel on “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You).” Most of all, she excels on the album’s ballads, wringing the last drop of sorrow out of the title track and embodying the heartache of “The Dark End Of The Street.” Heart Like A Wheel became the template for further Asher-produced Ronstadt albums, though its freshness was never quite duplicated. Linda and her studio partners fashioned a true country-rock milestone with this release.