03.12.2020
LINDA RONSTADT & COLLABORATORS LOOK BACK ON ‘MAD LOVE’ AT 40
Billboard: Ron Hart: March 10th 2020.
…..But perhaps the biggest elephant in the room with regards to the new wave presence that hung above Mad Love was that of one Elvis Costello, freshly basking in the adulation of music critics thanks to the success of his breakout 1979 album Armed Forces with the Attractions. Costello landed in Ronstadt’s periphery thanks to guitarist Danny Kortchmar, whose scorching guitar solo on the sultry version of Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Hurt So Bad” the singer herself tells Billboard was “the best guitar solo he ever played on one of my records.” (“Hurt So Bad” became one of two top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits on Mad Love, along with “How Do I Make You.”)
“I was at Tower Records when I saw the cassette for My Aim Is True with this skinny motherfucker on the cover and thought it looked interesting,” explains Kortchmar, who also played guitar on albums by James Taylor, Harry Nilsson, Warren Zevon and Jackson Browne, whose hit “Somebody’s Baby” was written by the guitarist nicknamed Kootch. “So I bought the tape, stuck it in my car. I wound up listening to it over and over again. At one point I wound up in Peter Asher’s office telling him how amazing this guy was and how he should check him out. Two weeks later, he calls me back and says, ‘Elvis is doing a concert at Hollywood High, and I bought tickets for all of us.’ So we all went, including Linda, and I think that’s when she realized what a great cat Elvis Costello was and how much he had to offer, so we wound up doing some of his tunes…..”