EAGLES
THE RONSTADT FACTOR
Singer needs band: finds all that and more
Ronstadt: “Not playing made her a catalyst”
“THERE’S a Linda Ronstadt connection to everything,” Bernie Leadon believes. “I worked in her band the Corvettes in ’69. Then later Henley and Frey got hired by her, briefly Randy Meisner too. She’d been having significant hits since ’67, but because she wasn’t a writer or musician, she sought out both diligently. If you said you were a songwriter, she’d give you an acoustic guitar, put you in a corner and say, ‘Play me your best song.’ I saw her do it.”