Album Review

Since releasing her previous album, Mad Love, in 1980, Ronstadt's career had taken turns away from the country-rock field she'd engaged in for more than a decade. In 1980-81, she moved into light opera on Broadway (The Pirates of Penzance), and during production of the play had expressed a desire to record an album of standards. In 1981, under producer Jerry Wexler, she recorded the album Keeping Out of Mischief, but dissatisfied with its quality, she had cancelled its release. Although she would later revisit the concept (and most of the attempted songs) for a trilogy of albums with Nelson Riddle, Get Closer was recorded to satisfy her obligations to her label, and found Ronstadt returning to the genres that had resulted in her commercial and critical success throughout the 1970s, and working again with British musician and producer Peter Asher.

The album contained two tracks originally recorded for but never included on previous albums. The first, a re-make of George Jones's ''Sometimes You Just Can't Win,'' was recorded in June 1977 with J. D. Souther on harmony vocals and intended for the album Simple Dreams. The other, a remake of Dolly Parton's 1971 composition ''My Blue Tears,'' was performed with Parton and Emmylou Harris as part of a planned trio album that, because of scheduling and record company conflicts, was never released. The trio's version was originally recorded in January 1978 (Parton, Ronstadt and Harris would eventually record and release the first of two Trio albums in 1987). Also on Get Closer was a duet with James Taylor: a remake of Ike and Tina Turner's ''I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine''. At least 2 songs, ''Tell Him'' and ''Get Closer'', were recorded in 1981. [wikipedia.org]