Vol. III

Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III is the third and final album by The Stone Poneys. Linda Ronstadt would release her first solo album the following year. The volume number is a reference to this being the third album by the band, though with a Roman numeral rather than the Arabic numeral used on the previous album. While all three bandmembers are shown on the covers of the first two albums, only Linda Ronstadt appears on the front cover of this album, while the back cover photo depicts a large group of people surrounding Ronstadt in front of a house in Tucson, Arizona. As on the second album (though with a few exceptions in that case), Linda Ronstadt sings lead vocals on all tracks. While ostensibly a Stone Poneys album, Vol. III represents a transition between the work of this band and Linda Ronstadt's solo career. Many of the songs are in more of a country-rock style that would mark her most popular work in later years, rather than the folk-rock music of the first two Stone Poneys albums. This is particularly true of the two songs that were released as singles from this album, "Some of Shelly's Blues" and "Up to My Neck in High Muddy Water"; the latter song reached #93 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.