Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys – Stoney End (1972):  Linda Ronstadt never seems to get enough credit as a ground-breaking female musician if you ask me.  Her career started as a bandmember in the Stone Poneys, which was a sort of electric version of Peter, Paul and Mary.  One of the bandmembers in the Stone Poneys, Kenny Edwards would later work with Linda Ronstadt again beginning in the mid-1970’s; while Linda eventually performed background vocals on a 2007 CD by the other bandmember, Bob Kimmel.  Everyone knows their 1967 hit song “Different Drum” – written by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees – which appeared on their second album, Evergreen, Volume 2 (1967).  By then, Linda Ronstadt was singing virtually all of the vocals solo – except on the album’s surprising psychedelic-flavored title track, “Evergreen (Part One)”; lead vocals were sung by Kenny Edwards who also plays sitar – but it wasn’t always like that.  Most critics think that their first album, The Stone Poneys (1967) is even better; on that album, Linda Ronstadt sang solos on only three songs plus one verse of a fourth.  By the time their third album came out, Kenny Edwards had left the band; and in spite of pressure on Linda Ronstadt from Capitol Records to become a solo act, Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys managed to come up with a fine album, Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Volume III (1968).  The album includes another Michael Nesmith song, “Some of Shelly’s Blues”, plus “Let’s Get Together” and “Stoney End” – several years before those songs became big hits for the Youngbloods and Barbra Streisand, respectively.  And Linda Ronstadt was already showing her gift for spotting excellent songwriting by including no less than three songs by Tim Buckley, including “Hobo” (which Buckley called “Morning Glory”), which might be my favorite Linda Ronstadt song of them all.  Stoney End was released on the budget label Pickwick Records and includes songs that are all taken from the second and third Stone Poneys albums.  All of the songs are great, but there are only nine of them, and the cover art is uglier by a country mile than any other Linda Ronstadt albums that I have seen.