Linda Ronstadt shares her 5 favorite places to visit in Tucson with the New York Times
Linda Ronstadt shared a list of her five favorite places to visit in Tucson with the New York Times.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was born in Tucson, and the city's impact on her life and music recently inspired her to write a second memoir, "Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands."
At 18, Ronstadt left her home in Tucson for Los Angeles.
After breaking through with "Different Drum" in 1967, she became one of the most successful pop stars of her generation, selling out “stupid arenas,” as she calls them, on the strength of hits as huge as "You’re No Good" and "Blue Bayou" before using the leverage that success provided to follow her muse in a series of intriguing new directions.
She earned a Tony nomination for her starring role in "Pirates of Penzance" on Broadway, interpreted standards on a trilogy of albums tracked with famed arranger Nelson Riddle and honored the Mexican side of her heritage on mariachi albums sung in Spanish.
Her 1987 album, "Canciones de Mi Padre," became the biggest-selling non-English language album in U.S. history, going double platinum and earning a Grammy for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album.
She's won lifetime achievement awards from both the Grammys and the Latin Grammys, taking her place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
By the time of that induction, Ronstadt had retired, unable to sing due to progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease originally misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.
In 2022, the Tucson Music Hall was renamed the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.
In 2023, the final HOCO Fest, launched in 2005 to celebrate the Tucson music scene, included daily celebrations of the city’s most important musical ambassador.
Selena Gomez will portray the legendary singer, Tucson’s most enduring contribution to the world of music, in a forthcoming biopic.
Linda Ronstadt's favorite places in Tucson, Arizona
The New York Times reporter Abbie Kozolchyk was also born and raised in Tucson.
In addition to sharing a list of her five favorite places to visit in Tucson, Ronstadt revealed that her favorite theater in the world is the Temple of Music and Art, a 1927 concert hall that sits on a one-way side street in her hometown.
She called it “just magic,” praising the theater’s proscenium and a main stage the size of “a good little opera house.”
And yet, it didn’t make her top 5.
Kozolchyk writes that when Ronstadt, who now lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco, visits Tucson every six months or so, she looks forward to “bubbling-hot cheese crisps at El Minuto Cafe, ice-chilled shrimp cocktail at Hotel Congress, giant saguaros at every turn and live entertainment of all kinds at the Fox Tucson Theater, where her father — a businessman with a renowned baritone — used to perform as Gil Ronstadt and His Star-Spangled Megaphone.”
These are Linda Ronstadt’s favorite places to visit in Tucson:
Barrio Bread
Tucson baker Don Guerra won the prestigious James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker in 2022. “I always go there straight from the airport,” Ronstadt said of the artisanal bread company at 18 S. Eastbourne Ave. She loves the locally sourced heritage grains Guerra uses. Her favorite dish? The Cubano with sesame seeds.
In September 2023, Guerra, who grew up in Tempe and has family in Gilbert, started taking over Hayden Flour Mills' new Gilbert kitchen every Tuesday, using heritage grains to bake his signature loaves and bagels.
Different Drum: How a pop song written by one of the Monkees made Linda Ronstadt a star
Arizona Inn
This landmark was built in 1930-31 by Isabella Greenway, who became Arizona's first female representative to the U.S. Congress in 1932. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and continues to operate as a boutique hotel.
Here’s what Ronstadt had to say: “It’s my favorite hotel in the world.” It’s where she stays when she’s in Tucson. She told the Times she’s been attending celebrations there since childhood, telling Kozolchyk she loves “the native landscaping, the piano-equipped Audubon Bar & Patio, and the fireplace and sunlight that illuminate her favorite guest room.”
Mission Garden
Mission Garden is at the foot of Sentinel Peak, at the site of the Native American village of S-cuk Son, a place sacred to the Tohono O’odham people. According to its website, Mission Garden is “a living agricultural museum of Sonoran Desert-adapted heritage fruit trees, traditional local heirloom crops and edible native plants.” It’s managed by the Friends of Tucson's Birthplace nonprofit.
Ronstadt told the New York Times, “I love going over there to get a mouthful of something fresh.”
Mas Canciones: How Linda Ronstadt fought — and won — a battle to release the Mexican 'songs of her father'
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum and art gallery founded in 1952 just west of downtown Tucson.
Ronstadt’s father was a founding member and her mother was one of the original docents. In the 1950s, when the museum was “just a little roadside attraction,” Ronstadt says, “I’d go to see George L. Mountain lion,” who, as the name suggests, was an actual mountain lion.
She loves what they haven’t done with the place since then. “You’re not looking at some perfect geometry imposed on the desert,” she said of the animals’ habitats. “Nature hates perfect geometry."
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Named for Francis Xavier, this historic Spanish Catholic mission is about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson on the Tohono O'odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation.
The mission was founded in 1692 by Padre Eusebio Kino in the center of a centuries-old settlement of the Sobaipuri O'odham. The original structure was razed in 1770 during an Apache raid. The current mission was built between 1783 and 1797. It’s Arizona’s oldest intact European structure and an active church.
Ronstadt told the Times, “I’m an atheist, but I baptized my children there,” citing “the magic she feels behind the mission’s white walls.” She told Kozolchyk she’s “lit candles with Ry Cooder, sought mid-recording respite with Emmylou Harris and adjusted the patron saint’s prayer-charm-studded blanket ‘to make sure he’s comfortable.’”
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-4495. Follow him on X @EdMasley.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Linda Ronstadt shares her favorite places to visit in Tucson
