Linda Ronstadt had been a member of the folk group the Stone Poneys and they had a top 20 US single with 1967's "Different Drum".

[3] The groups two other members (Kenny Edwards and Bobby Kimmel) left the Stone Poneys shortly afterward for a quieter existence.

[4] Country would be the musical focus for her first two solo albums at Capitol: Hand Sown ... Home Grown (1969) and Silk Purse.

[6] Mazer was part of a group of Nashville session musicians called Area Code 615 which played on Silk Purse.

"It was an unusual sound for the time with an touching emotional quality," Ronstadt later wrote of the recording experience.

[6][7] Other tracks were covers of country songs such as Hank Williams's "Lovesick Blues" and Mel Tillis's "Mental Revenge".

[6][1] Three months after the album's release, Rolling Stone's Alec Dubro reviewed Silk Purse in the magazine's June 25 issue.

"[9] Lester Bangs also reviewed the album in Penthouse, writing: "Linda Ronstadt's vocal style is like her physical presence: brimming with passion and vulnerability, tremulous, yet possessed of a core of absolute strength.

[11] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave Silk Purse three and a half stars and wrote, "perhaps she didn't find her voice, not in the way she would a year later on her eponymous record, but this Nashville excursion had a clarifying effect, whittling down the musical excesses and strengthening her aesthetic while winding up a nifty little record in its own right.

[7] Silk Purse was Ronstadt's first album to make the US Billboard 200 chart, reaching number 103 after ten weeks.