from losod evening angeles. tonight, our conclusion with linda ronstadt whose innate singing voice is now silenced due to parkinson's. a loss that she says she feels every day. she is not alone in that. she has published a memoir called simple dreams. our conversation, coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. linda ronstadt's impressive career has taken her from the small stage of a legendary l.a. club, the troubadour, two arenas and broadway. dreamir called simple gives insight to the creative decisions that have informed her collaboration. let's take a look at one of her great friends and musical heroes

, smokey robinson. ♪ ♪ tavis: so how great a songwriter is smokey robinson? >> i had a terrible crush on smokey robinson like every female. those eyes, i was so nervous singing with him. i thought i was going to drop

dead. imagine singing a song he wrote with him. oh my god. tavis: my friends and i play these games all the time. smokey is about as good a songwriter. lex he is as good as it gets. he sings in the same tradition as aaron neville. goes back to the french creole thing in louisiana. influenced by french baroque opera. instead of singing really loud, they would go into falsetto and sing a lot of embellishments. tavis: that is why neville loves doo-wop. >> he is one of the best and last of the great doo-wop singers. smokey goes to falsetto and sings those little embellishments.

is moret music -- he related to catholic music. but those like wilson pickett are going to belt that note. but those guys sang in the beautiful falsetto. tavis: i will come back to neville in just a second. i was going to ask you this question last night but there was so much to get to. you, i am i talk to struck by your depth of music history. you did not have time to go get a phd in musicology. nobody does these days. you know all of this stuff. how did you get versed in ? >> i am a reader. but i just went further and further and found out more about the lives of the people that sang it.

whatever i was singing, i wanted to know what was going on before that. i sang standards because it wanted to get my phrasing better. mainstream american pop music. what was before that? standards. that is what started all of that. when i went to new orleans, i started learning the history of new orleans. i produced a record with aaron neville and i wanted to know the history of his music. he sang the mardi gras indian stuff. it was a bunch of different stuff. what went into the making of that music is not arbitrary. tavis: his first doo-wop album after all these years, we had a great time talking to him. >> i read his poetry. i love him so much. tavis: i know you do. how have you known,

artistically, who and who not to collaborate with? at this, how did you know that your voices would match. >> you just have to throw yourself at it and start doing it. i am a can million. in my family music, i was a harmony singer. it is just as hard as lead singing, harder in some ways because you have to really listen. 99% of singing is listening and one percent is singing. you just have got to be able to shade and fly with the blue angels. if the wing guy goes like this, everybody else goes like that. in the case of aaron, he invited me onstage to sing with him. i did not know if he knew me from adam, but i i went to see

him and i will never go up on stage without singing -- without rehearsing. i thought,ere and what are we going to do? he wanted to sing doo-wop and i thought, great. harmony and hung on for dear life. i went home and got in my bed and thought, we sounded really good. everybody sounds good when they sing with aaron neville. i don't think about it for a lot of months. he asked if i would do a benefit with him, to sing with him at this benefit and i thought, i will be there in a minute. we thought, what are we going to sing echo we both went to catholic school and we both knew of emory. something in that countertenor and me singing soprano. a litany ofbody has

catholic school stories. >> we had a really tough time. i have to say that those women were unfairly trained, they were not allowed to make friends or have emotional support within the order. they have changed the way they treat them now, but they were very disturbed in that i think three of them had nervous breakdowns. one of them right in front of the class. and they were wearing these black wool habits. do you know how hard -- hot it is in tucson? it is like wearing a solar collector. in the meantime, the priests were wearing cotton shirts and they could smoke and drink and do what ever they want. they wouldn't let them change their habits even for white ones. they must've been miserable. and they were taught to be very disciplined.

to be strict disciplinarians. they really would have gone to jail for some of the things that they did to us. it was frightening. on the bus,re nuns the deliberation and theology nuns that were my heroes. there is one that was close friends with aaron and they don't have any property tax, so there is no money for the government to help or people. sister jane is the only person feeling -- dealing with the hunger and homeless. every day, she gets up and does it. i have great respect for her. my experience with those teachers, as badly as they frighten me. they did some damage. but not all of them are. you has yourant to

faith been? has that changed or shifted? >> i call myself a recovering catholic. i am a spiritual atheist. i don't believe in a separate anthropomorphized conscious entity. i think that is a kind of narcissism. i think there is a mind in nature and a power in nature and a universal power that you better not ignore. and i think there are kinds of christianity they get very close to that. and there are kinds that are so excluding and have nothing to do with faith or god. i believe in the divine is what i would have to say. there are christians out there these days that seem to have taken over the right wing of the government that don't have a clue about what the divine is.

i want to circle back to your music. such public news about your battle with parkinson's. we have been told that linda ronstadt will not sing again. and i knew for years i did not feel well. i knew i was really struggling with singing and apparently, it i didn your voice first. not know what was wrong. my back hurt and i thought it was because i fell off the horse so many times. if you go to the doctor and say you are tired, they look at you like you're an idiot. i'm tired, too. it occurred to me to go to a neurologist. finally, i was just completely shocked and i remember that my grandmother had it. luck of the draw.

i am curious as to what you will call upon to help you in this fight. >> i have my own good sense and i believe in the empirical wisdom of science. i hope that there might be some treatment out there that might be helpful. the best promise is with stem cells and again, the religious right is not allowing such research and it shows promise for helping people not just with parkinson's, but diabetes and different kinds of cancers. that research will loosen up and i don't know if it will ever happen in our lifetime, but i will see. you seem so call my about this. calm about this. not that i expect you to break down but -- >> i miss it terribly. over, ifriends come

miss it terribly. we all used to harmonize together and i don't want to talk to them about politics because they are republicans. i can't do that now. something is going to get you. i am 67 years old. an unusually long turn at the trough and i got to do things that other people were not allowed to do. i am grateful for that and i have to find a way to make myself useful. there are lots of ways to participate. i believe all children should be taught music at an early age. i have worked in the east bay of northern california, and they work a lot with immigrant kids and teach them how to play, dance, and sang.

they do the best job i have ever are, kids with art. they all not necessarily for performing. are to use it in a social life and emotional life to work on their problems. you can use music in a really organic way. i go to her her soles and i go to dance classes. and i have the best time. it is like going to rehearsal for me. well.ds are doing really they finish high school and go to college. there is a huge reduction in teen pregnancy. lots of times, they have gone through terrible situation -- tavis: so even though you don't sing, there are still reasons to wake up. tavis>> that's right.

that i nowt of folks to the troubadour back in the day got caught up in the drug scene who did not make it. how did you avoid that particular fate? >> i have this weird body chemistry. i tried almost everything but i did not try injectables. my assistant said that when she smoked pot, it made her want to not share and she would get really paranoid and hungry. who needs that? gooduana has a lot of very medical uses and i believe it should be legal. but for recreational use, it wasn't my drug. cocaine made my nose bleed right away. it would make me real nervous and talk pretty fast. why do i need that? my true addiction is reading. and if i get too loaded, i

wouldn't remember the sentence i just read. we would travel for miles on the road and i was never bored because i always had a book. i had a doorway into another world or universe. and the guys in my band were readers, too. they were highly literate and intelligent guys. we had a pretty nice atmosphere. reading is one thing and writing is another. i would writeught because i had never written anything in my life but a thank you note. cameron crowe, the movie writer, when he was a kid and trying to make his bones as a reporter, he went to jackson browne's house to interview him and jackson left the room for a little while and he went in his drawers and found a lot of recs -- lyrics and he printed them.

not to readised me anybody else's mail or diary. writingt, i am never anything down because they will find it and print it in rolling stone. diary or journal. i wrote one letter home about touring with the doors that i used as reference for the book and i was glad i had that. i was sitting next to this guy that wrote the bonding of desire. he said, are you going to write a book e i said, i can't write. i know how hard it is to write and i know the difference and he said, i think everybody has one story they can tell in an authentic way and get it out. people haveo many written about me and so much of

it was inaccurate that i think i want my side of the story. renée fleming and her musical journey and how she developed as a singer. it would be interesting to tell my story because i am not the most important pop singer but i might be the most diverse in that era. i thought it would be good to show how those musical choices were not arbitrary. >>y were very deliberate. did linda ronstadt learned anything researching herself? >> i learned what a lousy memory i had. incredibleas an memory and my uncle has total recall. policeher was chief of and he said never trust an eyewitness because they never remember it right. ihad written stuff down and thought it was the gospel truth,

but they said it did not happen like this. i had a really good copy editor that check dates and i had somebody dying five years before they did. i was shocked at how much my memory could trick me. but i checked and i think almost everything in there is true. will the takeaway be for readers? >> to understand what was going on. made me they liked a song or something. how i got there. from got to mexican music gilbert and sullivan operetta. i went folk music to country gilbert andent to sullivan operetta and american standards. i went to caribbean jazz standards.

i did a lot of different stuffs. it was a lot of jumping around and a lot of family music. i heard it before i was the age of 10. tavis: i have noted it in every conversation i have had with you over the years. honest in your own personal critique. you know when you have killed it and you also know, to your point, that i have not done the best job. >> i had pretty stiff competition on that one. but not all of us are as honest with ourselves. i get the sense that one of the reasons why you are so brilliant at what you do is that you have

always been, at the very least, honest with yourself. started, i wasn't very good and i should have been better prepared and trained. i was 17 and jumped in with both feet. i got a little better. i've failed over and over again. but i got better. it made me happy. i want to go to the troubadour because we have raised it a couple of times. wereems to me that you part of a generation that was thanmore collaborative this generation is. rappers come together, so i'm not saying there are not collaborations but i mean i can the day if james taylor or carol king had written a song and it didn't work for this person, they gave it to someone else.

maybe i am over reading this and maybe it wasn't that kind and charitable. but there were a lot of good collaborations going on. >> i think musicians always want to do that. there were a lot of competitions and posturing. basically got down and helped each other out. i imagine it happens now, too. i bet it probably does happen. i was on youtube and i was so impressed -- i liked the way that she performed, a really fine performer. she's got the old moves like you would see at the apollo theater. she also has this idea of respect for herself. she has got dignity and respect for her own body. she is really sexy. she is really beautiful. but she is not throwing it out in the street.

i think that musicians are always supportive of each other because they want the groove to keep going and they just basically want to play music. in, at mind whoever walks goat or a camel or some guy that walks in -- as long as you play really well. it is really inclusive. i don't really know this group of people. tavis: something that comes to mind whenever i think of you and your work, it would be humanity. >> that is a great complement. work, at ther epicenter is an appreciation and reveling in the humanity of other people. tommy why that is so. -- tommy why that is so. so. tell me why that's

>> you just go through your experiences. it whether it is joyful or happy or -- compassion is built in and it has to be. two nights is still not enough. a comeback anytime. always inspired and empowered. i love every time we get a chance to talk. i am so glad you did this. the memoir from linda ronstadt is out now called "simple dreams." >> i remember what i was thinking that day. tavis: what were you thinking? hurt my feelings and i had this reproachful thought in my head. your eyes are so expressive. thank you for doing this. that is our show for tonight.

ask for watching and as always, keep the faith. ♪ ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with acclaimed poet nikki giovanni on her latest column "chasing

utopia: a hybrid." that is next time, we will see you then. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more. pbs. announcer:

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