Linda Ronstadt: Performing Is Not My Gift

SHE LOOKS SO darling, standing there on a Santa Barbara, Cal., stage in front of Nelson Riddle and his 43-piece orchestra, ready for the first of two concerts that will be excerpted for an HBO special. She's wearing a white prom dress straight out of the '50s; fluffed-up hair courtesy of the '40s; a wrist bouquet, white pumps and even a little gold ankle bracelet on her left leg. And out of her perfect, ruby-red lips comes a sweet, sad love song, the kind they used to write and sing back in the '40s and before. The kind before rock and roll.