(Credits: Far Out / Linda Ronstadt)
Sun 18 January 2026 18:30, UK
Few artists can count on such an easy balance of countercultural pedigree and commercial peaks as powerhouse singer Linda Ronstadt.
Her CV is littered with a host of disparate musical greats. Cutting razor commercials with Frank Zappa, touring with The Doors, and lending her vocals to Carla Bley’s jazz-rock odyssey Escalator over the Hill just as easily as duets with Bette Midler and operetta turns in The Pirates of Penzance. Until her voice sadly left her in the early 2010s due to progressive supranuclear palsy, Ronstadt was one of the 1960s’ most enduring artists, and can count over 100 million records sold.
The untold amount of session work Ronstadt lent her lungs to means her voice was a dependable and adaptive instrument for any song or project presented to her. Such dextrous vocals meant she was perfect for a good duet. In 2014, the Duets compilation was released, collating a select smattering of the artists she’d joined forces with in the studio, boasting everybody from Don Henley, James Taylor, and even ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’ Frank Sinatra.
Ronstadt has also jumped into the world of supergroups. First conceiving the idea back in the mid-1970s, and cutting material across the years that wound up on respective solo releases, the acclaimed Trio country venture finally found the light of day in 1987, Ronstadt teaming up with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton for the roosty, southern-inspired covers album, winning the Trio II follow-up in 1994.
Yet, Ronstadt had also entertained other ideas of a three-piece collaboration. Teaming up with Midler in 2003 for her own covers album, the two cut the Irving Berlin classic ‘Sisters’ from 1954’s White Christmas as a salute to the festive feature’s main star, Rosemary Clooney.
“I wish Rosemary could have heard that, because I knew her really well,” Ronstadt revealed to Parade in 2014. “I always wanted to get the three of us together, but every time I’d go to LA, one of us would be out of town. We never got to have that great dish on the sofa, which would’ve been more fun than anything.”
Midler didn’t just cut one cover, but dedicated an entire album, 2003’s Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook, with Barry Manilow in the producer’s chair, just a year after Clooney’s death. Reportedly, Manilow conceived of the project after a dream not long after the Hollywood veteran’s death, eagerly nabbing Midler for the record of reimagined Clooney numbers from ‘This Ole House’, ‘Tenderly’, and ‘Mambo Italiano’.
Clooney seemed to possess a similar leftfield streak that Ronstadt shared, happy to duet with Manilow on his ‘Green Eyes’ Spanish standard cover while also jumping behind the mic with outsider artist Wild Man Fischer for his ‘It’s a Hard Business’ with Barnes and Barnes.
Such intriguing alchemy between the hypothetical Ronstadt-Midler-Clooney supergroup could well have yielded a far more interesting and eclectic range of material than had been on offer with Ronstadt’s famed country three-piece, and makes one wish they’d all had that “dish on the sofa” moment she sincerely wanted.
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