Linda Ronstadt had the voice to make a 1967 mega-hit. She didn’t have the “confidence”

Linda Ronstadt’s recording of Michael Nesmith’s ‘Different Drum’ became a breakthrough hit for her early band, the Stone Poneys, despite her doubts about the performance. The story shows how a song that later helped define her career was made under conditions that left her feeling out of her depth.

Ronstadt had learnt the song from a Greenbriar Boys record and wanted to sing it in a folk style, but the studio arrangement shifted closer to Nesmith’s twangier original. She was surprised by the number of musicians involved and later described her singing as marked by fear and a lack of confidence; she thought the struggle was audible and did not want the recording released. The article says it became a major hit, though it does not give sales or chart figures.