Recorded for a television special and promptly forgotten, the audio from Linda Ronstadt’s 1980 show before a small studio audience captures the singer at the tail end of her pop career. 

Recently rediscovered, the recordings have been released as Live in Hollywood. 

Ronstadt was promoting her new wave-influenced Mad Love with a band that featured guitarists Kenny Edwards and Danny Kortchmar, drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Bob Glaub, keyboardist Billy Payne (Little Feat), pedal steeler Dan Dugmore and backing vocalists Wendy Waldman and Peter Asher. 

Consisting of Ronstadt’s hand-picked selections from the concert, Live in Hollywood represents her first live album, although three of the 12 tracks – Buddy Holly’s “It’s So Easy,” Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” and Warren Zevon’s “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” – appeared as bonus material on the 2017 Simple Dreams reissue. 

The resulting LP is a mix of greatest hits like “Desperado,” still a joy in Ronstadt’s voice, and “You’re No Good,” hampered by a pointless, band-showcasing jam of slap bass and extra vocals; the singer’s favorites like Feat’s “Willin’” and J.D. Souther’s sappy “Faithless Love;” and then-new rockers such as “How Do I Make You” and “Hurt So Bad.”

Recorded in less-than-ideal circumstances at a less-than-ideal time in pop music – too much cowbell; too little subtlety – Live in Hollywood is nevertheless a long-overdue in-concert document from Ronstadt, arguably rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest female vocalist. And though she is in fantastic form throughout, the album’s flaws makes the listener pine for a full-concert recording from a few years earlier.