Author Andrew Greeley, in his book God in Popular Culture, described Ronstadt as “the most successful and certainly the most durable and most gifted woman Rock singer of her era. Signaling her wide popularity as a concert artist, outside of the singles charts and the recording studio, Dirty Linen magazine describes her as the “first true woman rock ‘n’ roll superstar … (selling) out stadiums with a string of mega-successful albums. Cashbox gave Ronstadt a Special Decade Award, as the top-selling female singer of the 1970s.
Her album covers, posters, magazine covers – her entire rock ‘n’ roll image – were as famous as her music. By the end of the decade, the singer whom the Chicago Sun Times described as the “Dean of the 1970s school of female rock singers became what Redbook called “the most successful female rock star in the world. “Female” was the important qualifier, according to Time magazine, which labeled her “a rarity … to (have survived) … in the shark-infested deeps of rock. Wikipedia Link