Linda Ronstadt, Guest Lecturer

Ronstadt, who turns 62 this year, has been making records and winning Grammys (10 so far, 27 nominations overall) since the 1960s. While continuing to record great music -- "Adieu False Heart," her collaboration with with Ann Savoy, was released in 2006 -- Ronstadt no longer tours much. Her wealth of knowledge about the music business, however, is not only deep but richly accessible, as Berklee students learned when Ronstadt held court for two riveting hours.

Ronstadt had plenty to say about issues like adult onset narcissism, as she called it, an ego disorder afflicting many a successful artist (including herself at one point, she confessed). But she also took students on an extraordinary trip down memory lane. Some highlights:

-- Hanging out at the fabled Troubadour Club in West Hollywood in the late '60s, where she communed with other rising stars like Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, and Neil Young.
-- Touring as the opening act for The Doors in the late '60s. Ronstadt was singing lilting folk-rock tunes, she recalled, while Jim Morrison was banging microphones on patrons' skulls.
-- The moment she decided to put away her guitar for good, 40 years ago. She'd just heard Ry Cooder play, and, well...
-- Forming a backup band and taking them on the road, where her musicians had to share hotel rooms to save money. Two roommates/ bandmates soon discovered they liked singing and writing songs together in their off hours. They were Glen Frey and Don Henley, who soon went on to make another, far bigger name for themselves as the Eagles.
-- Why Peter Asher, the wunderkind manager who helped make Ronstadt a superstar in the 70s, was so uniquely suited to that role. Asher, she explained, was an accomplished child actor and pop singer before he reached age 30 and thus understood the industry's artistic side long before he mastered its management and business sides.
-- Why Asher didn't balk (well, not too much) when she announced she wanted to perform Gilbert & Sullivan (on Broadway in "Pirates of Penzance") instead of make another platinum-selling pop record. And why she went from there to big-band arrangements (collaborating with the legendary Nelson Riddle) and then on to mariachi music, which she'd grown up with in Tucson, Arizona and felt she just had to sing.

There was plenty more, including commentary by Massenburg, who collaborated on many of Ronstadt's finest albums and tracks (e.g. "Heart Like A Wheel," "Lush Life," "Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind") over the years. Now living in the Nashville area, Massenburg has also worked extensively with artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Little Feat, Ricky Scaggs, and Lyle Lovett.