When Linda Ronstadt first released her powerhouse cover of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day" in 1976, she didn't just score another radio hit: she shattered the glass ceiling for female frontrunners in rock and roll.
Half a century after taking the music world by storm, the track's infectious energy and timeless groove sound as vibrant today as they did when the song first blasted out of the radio. Five decades on, the tune remains a masterclass in vocal power and a defining song of the decade.
According to Billboard Magazine, "That'll Be the Day" was officially released on August 21, 1976. It just missed cracking the Top 10, peaking at No. 11 two months later, in October.
However, the song's history goes further back than its bicentennial release. "That'll Be the Day" was written by Holly and The Crickets bandmate Jerry Allison twenty years before Ronstadt entered the studio and growled her way through its iconic opening.
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American Songwriter reprinted an interview with the surviving Crickets, where Allison spoke of the song's origins. “Buddy and I were sitting there practicing. We were probably practicing Midnighter songs like ‘Work With Me, Annie,’ or something like that, and we were just sitting there playing," he explained. "[Buddy] said, ‘We ought to write a song,’ and I said, ‘That’ll be the day.’ He said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So we wrote it in about 30 minutes.”
Allison added, "We got a chance to record it in the summer of 1956, and Sonny [Curtis], Don Guess, Buddy, Bob Montgomery, and I went down to Nashville. The producer at the time, if I’m not mistaken, said, ‘That’ll Be the Day’ was ‘the worst song he’d ever heard,’ which really hurt my feelings because it was the first time I’d ever had a song I had written be part of a recording. And then we showed him.” The song eventually hit the top spot on the Billboard charts.
Ronstadt released a rocking version of the '50s classic on her platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning album Hasten Down the Wind. Legendary producer Peter Asher helmed the studio sessions, building on the success of his previous work on Ronstadt’s earlier albums.
In a 2017 interview with Best Classic Bands, Ronstadt praised Asher's leadership. She called him an, "excellent record producer, a great troubleshooter, and he really knew how to organize things and keep things moving and get the best out of the musicians. I did a lot of the arranging myself, and the musicians contributed a tremendous amount to the arrangements. Peter was good at hearing ideas, and he could recognize the better ones and string them together on a thread."
According to Songfacts, Ronstadt’s recording shared one vital element with Buddy Holly's original: both versions were recorded live in the studio. That raw energy ultimately paid off and pushed Ronstadt beyond her country-rock roots, cementing her status as a true rock powerhouse.
"That'll Be the Day" earned Linda Ronstadt her second Grammy Award for Best Pop Female Vocal.
Related: Linda Ronstadt’s Signature Hit Celebrates 49 Years of Country-Pop Perfection
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