Heart Like a Wheel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Linda Ronstadt album. For the 1983 film about drag racing driver Shirley Muldowney, see Heart Like a Wheel (film).

"Heart Like a Wheel" is also the name of a song by Human League and The Corrs.

Professional reviews
Heart Like a Wheel

Studio album by Linda Ronstadt
Released	November 1974
Recorded	June-September 1974
Genre	Rock/Country
Length	32:19
Label	Capitol
Producer(s)	Peter Asher
All Music Guide link Robert Christgau (A-) link
Linda Ronstadt chronology
Don't Cry Now (1973)	Heart Like a Wheel (1974)	Prisoner in Disguise (1975)

Heart Like a Wheel (1974) is Linda Ronstadt's fifth solo LP release and the last of her studio projects for Capitol Records, arriving a year after 1973's Don't Cry Now, which was the first release under her new label, Asylum Records. By her outgoing contract, Ronstadt owed Capitol one more album and, as such, brought in producer Peter Asher, who worked with her on Don't Cry Now, and multi-instrumentalist and arranger Andrew Gold. Asher and Gold have been credited over the years as being a significant part of the album's artistic and commercial success.

The result — a more refined and streamlined mix of country and rock music than her previous releases, with less of a folk influence — proved to be Ronstadt's commercial breakthrough, the album that many critics later said would standardize the musical formula for her subsequent albums in the 1970s. Released in November 1974, Heart Like a Wheel became the first of her three No. 1 peaks on the Billboard 200 album chart, reaching the perch for the week ending Feb. 15, 1975, right alongside the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, "You're No Good" (Side A, Track #1). Ronstadt was featured for the first time on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in its March 27, 1975, issue. The B-side of the single for "You're No Good," a cover of Hank Williams's "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)," peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart (link). The recording features harmony vocals by Emmylou Harris.

The follow-up single release, a cover of the Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved," spent two weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in late June 1975, stalling under the Captain & Tennille's power hit, "Love Will Keep Us Together." It peaked at No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart (link). The B-side of "When Will I Be Loved," a melancholy cover of a Buddy Holly & the Crickets song, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," reached the lower end of both the pop and country charts (link)

Ronstadt on the cover of Rolling Stone's issue of March 27, 1975

Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone reviewed Heart Like a Wheel in the magazine's Jan. 16, 1975, issue. "No other pop singer so perfectly embodies the Western mythical girl/woman," he wrote, "heartbroken yet resilient and entirely feminine in the traditional sense. There is a throbbing edge to Ronstadt's honey-colored soprano that no other singer quite possesses — the edge between vulnerability and willfulness that I find totally, irresistibly sexy." (link) Stephen Thomas Erlewine, senior editor of the Web-based All Music Guide, writes that the album "stands as a landmark of '70s mainstream pop/rock." (link) In a review of a later Linda Ronstadt album, Rolling Stone's David McGee wrote of Heart Like a Wheel, "I'm beginning to believe its perfection occurs but once in an artist's career" (link).

Heart Like a Wheel spent 51 weeks on the album chart (link). Based on her performance on the singles and album charts, Billboard magazine named Ronstadt the top female pop artist of the year. The album was certified gold in January 1975 by the Recording Industry Association of America and double-platinum in 1991.

Ronstadt won a Grammy Award in 1976 for Best Country Vocal Performance/Female for "I Can't Help It." She was nominated for Best Pop Female Vocalist (losing to Janis Ian for "At Seventeen"), and the album was nominated for Album of the Year (losing to Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years).

Rolling Stone ranked Heart Like a Wheel No. 164 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time (link)

There have been numerous subsequent covers of "You're No Good" by artists including Van Halen, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Aswad, Reba McEntire and Wilson Phillips. Likewise, "When Will I Be Loved" has been recorded by the Little River Band, Dave Kelly, Rockpile, Vince Gill and Silk, among others. And "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" has been recorded by Don McLean, Martin Simpson, Vince Gill, Daniel O'Donnell, Danny Gatton, Suzy Bogguss and Eva Cassidy, among others. In 2005, the Corrs included a cover of the Anna McGarrigle-penned title track, "Heart Like a Wheel," on their album Home.