Linda Ronstadt - Feels Like Home (1995)

Feels Like Home is a studio album by American singer Linda Ronstadt released in 1995. It reached #75 and lasted 12 weeks on the Billboard album chart. It received excellent critical reviews upon release. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the disc sold precisely 188,815 copies in the United States. This album is now out of print physically, although it is available digitally and five of its tracks were remixed and subsequently included on Trio II.

A double sided single, Tom Petty's "The Waiting" and "Walk On", was released simultaneously with the album. "Walk On" returned Linda to the Billboard Country Singles chart for the first time as a solo artist (not counting the late 1980s 'Trio' hits) since 1983. The song was previously recorded by Matraca Berg on her 1990 debut album Lying to the Moon.

Adult Contemporary radio picked up the album track "The Blue Train" which reached 31 on that chart and lasted for ten weeks in the chart's Top 40. Album track "Feels Like Home" was incorporated into Randy Newman's musical Randy Newman's Faust, which opened later in 1995, and has been subsequently covered by a number of artists.

Linda Ronstadt's 1995 album, Feels Like Home, was a return to her country-rock roots, resulting in an album much more "down-home" and less glossy than her previous pop albums, Winter Light and Cry Like the Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. Less glossy production isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that the final result is an album that is top-quality but a little bland. Ronstadt's voice is nothing short of stellar, and the songs are fine, but there is a certain immediacy that is lacking in this album, especially toward the end, when it just seems to drift. Then again, with a "down-home" album, that may have been the point. Regardless, this album boasts her usual array of stellar covers, including her fine, mandolin-accompanied take on Tom Petty's "The Waiting," in which Ronstadt's enunciations are highly reminiscent of Petty's. Her rendition of Matraca Berg's "Walk On," complete with Alison Krauss on fiddle, is nothing short of an out-and-out hoedown, and her version of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" is quite enjoyable. Five of these songs -- "High Sierra," "The Blue Train" (the album's first single, which is pure AC), "Feels Like Home," "After the Gold Rush," and "Lover's Return," most of which feature Emmylou Harris -- all resurfaced on the Trio II album. Just like any other Ronstadt set, this is top-quality material, but one can't help but pine for the punch and perfect production of her previous pop packages.