The Stone Poneys (album)


The Stone Poneys is the debut studio album by the Stone Poneys; other than an early single of "So Fine" that was produced by Mike Curb in 1965, this album marks the first official recordings by Linda Ronstadt. Whether intended or not, the front cover photo appears to show the band as a more modern version of Peter, Paul and Mary with several of the songs sung in the same three-part harmony.

Release data

The album was released in the LP format on Capitol on January 30, 1967, in both monaural and stereophonic editions.
In March 1975, Capitol reissued the album under the name The Stone Poneys Featuring Linda Ronstadt, following the multi-platinum success Linda Ronstadt had in 1974-75 with her #1 album Heart Like a Wheel. Though the original release did not chart, this reissue reached #172 on the Billboard album chart. As a result, this heretofore virtually unknown first album by the Stone Poneys was more widely available in the 1970s and 1980s than the subsequent albums that featured the band's more familiar songs.
The front cover was essentially the same except for a circular area in the upper right hand corner titled "Early Linda!" that had the appearance of a sticker ; while new liner notes on a redesigned back cover mentioned that this was Ronstadt's "first album ever". The song listing in the reissue highlighted Ronstadt's three solo performances on "Just a Little Bit of Rain", "Orion" and "2:10 Train"; she also sang solo on one verse of "Train and the River" that was not so identified.
As with the other two Stone Poneys albums, Capitol reissued this album on CD in 1995. In 2008 – more than 40 years after this album was released – Raven issued a 27-track "two-fer" CD simply called The Stone Poneys, featuring all tracks from this album and also the second Stone Poneys album, Evergreen, Volume 2, plus four tracks from their third album, Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III.

Personnel{{cite web |title=Album Credits |work=Allmusic Credits List |url= |accessdate=2009-04-06}}