Linda Ronstadt through the years: her life in photos

Linda Ronstadt retired from performing more than a decade ago, but her voice will always remain a cornerstone of pop music.

Born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1947, Ronstadt began her professional singing career in the 1960s as a singer with The Stone Poneys. Ronstadt and her band members, Bobby Kimmel And Kenny Edwardsrecorded three albums together before going solo.

Ronstadt became a pop icon in the 1970s, ruling the radio and dethroning rock heavyweights like Elton John And Led Zeppelin on the charts. Her 1974 album, Heart like a wheelbecame her first No. 1 album in the United States, and in 2013 the Library of Congress inducted it into the National Recording Registry.

Throughout the 1980s, Ronstadt expanded into other genres and recorded a country album Dolly Parton And Emmylou Harris and releasing her first collection of traditional Mexican mariachi music. She continued recording throughout the 1990s, but released her last solo album in 2004. Seven years later, she retired from performing after developing progressive supranuclear palsy.

Despite the fact that she can no longer sing, Ronstadt is still grateful to have spent so many years in music. “I just feel like what I have now is gravy. I feel like I was lucky,” she said during a 2013 interview interview with NPR Terry Gross. “I got to make a lot of my dreams come true, and I got to, you know, sing with all these great people like Emmylou and Aaron Neville And Smoky Robinson.”

Keep scrolling for a look back at Ronstadt's life and career over the years: