Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III by The Stone Poneys

Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III is the third and final studio album by The Stone Poneys, released in April 1968. Singer Linda Ronstadt would release her first solo album the following year. While ostensibly a Stone Poneys album, Vol. III represents a transition and a shift in focus from the first two releases by the band, formed in 1965 as a harmony group with Ronstadt as an occasional soloist, to the singer's solo career. Billing Ronstadt as the lead singer (in concert bookings as well as on the third album) was demanded by Capitol Records executives and encouraged by producer Nik Venet, who all saw her potential as a solo artist with the recording and subsequent success of "Different Drum," a single from the previous album. The song, 'featuring Linda Ronstadt', was backed by outside musicians instead of her bandmates Kenny Edwards and Bobby Kimmel – creating tensions in the band that would worsen, irrevocably damaging morale. Edwards quit the group during the recording sessions for their third album, following a brief tour in early 1968; and Kimmel would leave later that year.The new direction meant augmenting the trio with extra musicians, and downplaying Edwards' and Kimmel's songwriting contributions in favor of new repertoire in a different musical style. Rather than the folk rock of the first two Stone Poneys albums, most of the songs on Vol. III are in the country rock style that would mark Ronstadt's subsequent work. This is particularly true of the two songs released as singles, "Some of Shelly's Blues" and "Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water". All three band members were pictured on the covers of the first two albums, while only Ronstadt appears on this front cover. The back cover photo shows her among a group of friends and neighbors (including musicologist Charles Seeger and singer-songwriter Tim Buckley) in front of the house on Hart Avenue in Santa Monica, California, that was a communal residence for some of them, including Ronstadt (Seeger and Buckley lived nearby).