For Sentimental Reasons

By the time of their third collaboration, 1986’s For Sentimental Reasons, Linda Ronstadt and Nelson Riddle had generated such intimate chemistry that Ronstadt’s vocals and Riddle’s orchestrations no longer felt like separate entities; they were two strands of the same braid. Their ability to complement each other had become second nature. When Riddle’s orchestra moves lushly and lazily on “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” Ronstadt pushes her voice toward peaks of R&B bravado. Meanwhile, when the orchestra gets brash and brassy on “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” Ronstadt plays it light and dainty. “When You Wish Upon a Star” was the breakout track, and with good reason: it was full of dreams of Old Hollywood at a time when everyone assumed those dreams were dead. Yet there's an equally transfixing magic in the spare rendition of “You Go to My Head,” which features Ronstadt singing along with a single guitar in the mold of early Julie London recordings. For Sentimental Reasons is the last memento of an artistic friendship that united generations.