Her First Real Hit Arrived When The Studio Removed The Band From Its Own Record
The studio discovered that the woman standing at the microphone could carry the song by herself
Different Drum did not simply give Linda Ronstadt her first hit because it announced the shape of her whole career before she had fully stepped into it
The Monkees passed on Different Drum and when the Stone Poneys recorded it Linda Ronstadt was the only member of the group allowed to play on the hit and the song that saved their career also helped pull the band apart
By 1967 Linda Ronstadt had already left Arizona for Los Angeles and formed the Stone Poneys with Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards
Their first Capitol album had failed commercially and left the trio without the breakthrough they had expected and then they found a song written by Michael Nesmith
Different Drum had been written before Nesmith became famous with the Monkees and he later tried to bring it into the orbit of that group only to have the material rejected by the people controlling much of the recording decisions of the Monkees
The song eventually reached the Stone Poneys who heard the potential immediately
Nick Venet Rebuilt The Song Around Her Voice
But the recording session changed more than the arrangement because the Stone Poneys had imagined the song as a relatively simple acoustic performance
Producer Nick Venet instead brought in outside session musicians and added strings and harpsichord and built a more polished folk pop arrangement around the voice of Ronstadt
Ronstadt was the only Stone Poneys member who actually performed on the released recording
Even Ronstadt was uneasy with the result and she later remembered feeling unprepared for the new arrangement and dissatisfied with aspects of her own vocal yet listeners heard something else entirely
Released in 1967 Different Drum reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and gave Ronstadt her first national hit
The single was credited to the Stone Poneys but prominently identified her and Capitol increasingly began treating Ronstadt as the obvious focal point of the act
Success Widened The Distance Inside The Trio
That success created a problem the first album never had because the hit opened doors for Ronstadt while widening the distance inside the trio
The label wanted more of the voice that had sold the record and the musical interests of Ronstadt were moving beyond the material of Bobby Kimmel and the Stone Poneys gradually became less a three person identity than a vehicle built around their singer
By the end of 1968 the group was finished and Ronstadt stayed with Capitol and moved into a solo career that would eventually make her one of the dominant American singers of the 1970s
For Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards Different Drum was both a breakthrough and a warning and for Ronstadt it was the door
The song saved the Stone Poneys from being a forgotten first album act and then it helped pull them apart and left behind a voice too restless and too unmistakable to stay inside anyone else arrangement for long