The article recounts Linda Ronstadt’s admiration for Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, whom Ronstadt described as having died “a national hero” after a difficult life and late-career revival. It argues that Ronstadt’s willingness to move beyond rock and roll, including towards Mexican music and the Great American Songbook, reflected her desire to follow her artistic interests rather than commercial expectations.

Ronstadt said Vargas had been a prominent singer in the 1940s but faced discrimination for being gay and struggled with alcoholism, before being rediscovered in Europe during her eighties and reintroduced to Mexican audiences. Although Ronstadt only discovered Vargas as an adult, the article presents Vargas’s emotionally direct singing and Mexican musical traditions as important influences on Ronstadt’s later artistic direction.