The 2019 Kennedy Center Honors didn’t just celebrate Linda Ronstadt—they gave America’s greatest vocal chameleon the national embrace she deserved. On December 29, inside the gilded concert hall, a frail but radiant Ronstadt, her once-mighty voice stilled by Parkinson’s, sat beside Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the evening unfolded like a love letter to her six-decade reign. Carrie Underwood ignited the stage with “Blue Bayou,” her crystalline high notes channeling Ronstadt’s 1977 live version, while Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt traded smoky verses on “You’re No Good,” their guitars weaving the same fiery licks from Ronstadt’s 1974 smash.

The crowd erupted when Aaron Neville floated into “Don’t Know Much,” his buttery tenor recreating their Grammy-winning chemistry—yet the night’s most spine-tingling moment came when Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval led a mariachi ensemble through “Cuando Me Enamoro,” honoring Ronstadt’s history-making Canciones de Mi Padre album that brought Mexican music to mainstream U.S. audiences.

Tributes poured in from Dolly Parton (via video) and Glenn Frey’s widow, while Don Henley, her Eagles collaborator, watched with misty eyes. The unspoken gravity hung in the air: This was the first major ceremony since Ronstadt’s 2013 memoir revealed her Parkinson’s diagnosis, and her last public appearance before the pandemic.

When President Obama—who’d awarded her the National Medal of Arts—appeared in the tribute reel calling her “a force of nature,” the room rose in a thunderous standing ovation. The broadcast, delayed until March 2020 due to editing, became an accidental time capsule of pre-COVID unity, with Ronstadt’s cross-cultural anthems (“Desperado,” “Long Long Time,” “Tumbling Dice”) reminding a fractured nation of music’s power to connect.

Backstage, insiders whispered that Ronstadt, ever the perfectionist, had initially resisted the honor, feeling her illness made her “a rusty old car.” But as the mariachis’ final notes rang out, her trembling hands clasped in gratitude, it was clear: This wasn’t just a tribute to a voice. It was a coronation of the woman who taught us all to sing without borders.