Few artists in popular music have roamed as restlessly as
Linda Ronstadt. Since the mid-'80s, when she broke away from her sure-fire SoCal pop/rock formula long enough to team with the legendary arranger
Nelson Riddle for a trio of pop standards albums,
Ronstadt has continued to diversify: a couple of Spanish-language albums here, a kids' set there, a Christmas album, an outing with
Dolly Parton and
Emmylou Harris.
Adieu False Heart is yet another detour down a side road for
Ronstadt: a full-fledged collaboration with
Ann Savoy, a mainstay of the
Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, one of the most respected bands within that genre.
Ronstadt and
Savoy first worked together on the 2002 compilation album Evangeline Made: A Tribute to Cajun Music, and
Adieu False Heart is, in its own way, a tribute as well. Although its soul resides squarely in Cajun country, it's not as purist a Cajun recording as those
Savoy makes with
Savoy-Doucet, a band that also includes her husband, accordionist
Marc Savoy, and the ace fiddler
Michael Doucet. Yet it's as different from
Ronstadt's radio hits as the
Riddle and mariachi recordings were, and rendered as honestly and confidently:
Ronstadt clearly enjoys visiting
Savoy's musical territory and honoring this particular pocket of Americana. The pair, switching off on lead vocals and/or harmonizing tightly, take two from the British songsmith
Richard Thompson, "Burns' Supper" and "King of Bohemia," alongside largely languid material from
Bill Monroe,
Julie Miller, and others. But the big ear-opener of the album is the duo's cover of "Walk Away Renee,"
the Left Banke's 1966 Top Five hit, here recast as an acoustic weeper. That
Ronstadt would give the song such a heartfelt reading does not surprise -- it's a natural for her songbook. That she and
Savoy so effortlessly transform it into a Cajun-style ballad does. With top pickers like mandolinist
Sam Bush and bassist
Byron House onboard, and the two versatile vocalists clearly enjoying their moment together,
Adieu False Heart captures the Cajun flavor naturally, without pretending to be something it's not. ~ Jeff Tamarkin