Dec 14

The Stone Poneys

Greatly Appreciated

THE STONE PONEYS
 
 
The Stone Poneys  were a folk-rock trio formed in Los Angeles, consisting of Linda Ronstadt on vocals, Bobby Kimmel on rhythm guitar and vocals, and the late Kenny Edwards on lead guitar.  Their recordings include Ronstadt’s first hit song, a cover of Mike Nesmith’s “Different Drum”.  Even at this early stage, Ronstadt was already showcasing her performances of an eclectic mix of songs, often from under-appreciated songwriters, requiring a wide array of backing musicians.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
See Also:    Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys 
 
 
Kenny Edwards had been a founding member with Linda Ronstadt in the band Stone Poneys (“Different Drum”) prior to the formation of Bryndle.  
 
(January 2010)
 
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Barbara Sullivan’s connections at Capitol Records didn’t pan out either.  Nik Venet was the point man at Capitol for folk-rock music and would have been a natural to work with Jim Sullivan.  He had produced albums for Fred Neil – to whom Sullivan is often compared – Lothar and the Hand People, and Linda Ronstadt’s first band the Stone Poneys, plus more mainstream acts like the Kingston Trio and the Beach Boys.  But Venet turned him down. 
 
   (October 2011)
 
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Linda Ronstadt is another singer where I determined to get all of her albums; besides her regular studio albums, I picked up numerous compilation albums of various kinds.  Not all of them are terrific, and I am mostly lukewarm about her country period; but I became a big fan of all three Stone Poneys albums.  They were all tough finds throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, particularly the original release of the first album before they had their hit with “Different Drum”; even the post-Heart Like a Wheel reissue in 1975 wasn’t that easy to find.  Ronstadt albums have remained available for years and years; her 1980 new-wave album Mad Love went out of print just last year. 
 
(April 2012)
 
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The debut 1968 album by Blood, Sweat and Tears, Child Is Father to the Man include among the cover songs Tim Buckley’s “Morning Glory”.  The Stone Poneys also recorded the latter song, though with the title “Hobo” instead; it is my favorite Poneys song (even beating “Different Drum”) and one of my very favorite Linda Ronstadt songs.  
 
(September 2012)
 
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The 1970’s was the heyday of vinyl record albums, and there are still thousands and thousands of them out there; so as the demand for vinyl has tailed off, prices even for scarce 1970’s albums have come down.  For instance, the three Stone Poneys albums that I got for $12 to $30 back in the day are now priced not that much higher than the other Linda Ronstadt albums. 
  
(November 2012)
 
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Thus, I was beginning to tire of Wikipedia, but not before I put together another greatly expanded article on Linda Ronstadt’s first band the Stone Poneys (as well as their three albums).  The Stone Poneys had a big hit with “Different Drum”, written by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees, but all three of their albums are just wonderful and have become some of my very favorite Linda Ronstadt music.  I heard just this week that Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson’s Disease, and that the disease has progressed to the point where she can no longer sing – so sad.  Here is the Stone Poneys article:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Poneys .  

 

(September 2013)

 

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Linda Ronstadt’s first songwriting credit was on “Lo Siento Mi Vida” (“I’m Sorry, My Love”), which she co-wrote with her father Gilbert Ronstadt and her former bandmate in the Stone Poneys, Kenny Edwards.  

 

(October 2013)

 

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Following the Beatles’ lead, many rock musicians began incorporating sitar into their recordings, including the Byrds and Stone Poneys; the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”, included on their 1965 album Rubber Soul, was the first rock song to include sitar music, which was played by George Harrison on the song.  One of my favorite songs on the Sgt. Pepper album, “Within You, Without You”, was composed by George Harrison, who plays sitar and another Indian instrument, the tambura; several Indian musicians were also on hand.  
 
(September 2014)
 
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Mike Curb became a major recording industry professional that can be dated to his founding of Sidewalk Records in 1964 (a subsidiary of Capitol Records).  Among other achievements, in this period he recorded the very first tracks by Linda Ronstadt, specifically her first band, the Stone Poneys.  Mike Curb was even Lt. Governor of California in 1979-1983 under Governor Jerry Brown – the ageless Brown is also the current Governor of California.  

 

(December 2014)

 

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Greg Shaw and the Bomp! Records crew even came up with a cool term for the kind of music that they like: “Bomp-Worthy”. Sadly, in the 12+ years since Shaw’s untimely death in 2004, this term has largely dropped out of sight on the Internet. I remember one “thread” (in the pre-blog era) talking about Linda Ronstadt’s Bomp-Worthy music that was still findable not so long ago, and I wish I could remember more about it. It was one of the references for the Wikipedia article that I wrote on the Stone Poneys. Now, there are only 20 results on Google for “Bomp-Worthy”. 
(June 2017)
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Over the next several years, I wrote up numerous articles for Wikipedia, mostly on other 1960’s garage rock and psychedelic rock bands and nearly all of the albums in the Pebbles series.  In all, I started over 100 articles and made contributions to Wikipedia that number more than 2,500.  Most of these rock bands are quite obscure to most people, but some are not:  The Outsiders had a major hit with “Time Won’t Let Me” that still gets a lot of radio play.  The same is true of Stone Poneys, Linda Ronstadt’s first rock band who scored with “Different Drum”.  Both of these bands had only a few sentences – what is called a “stub” on Wikipedia – so I fleshed out their stories and also wrote up an article on all of their albums. 

 

(Year 5 Review)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021