Music Legends – Eagles Special Edition

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Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 Preflight ................................................................................................................................ 7 Take Off ............................................................................................................................. 23 Ascent ................................................................................................................................... 33 First Turbulence .......................................................................................................... 39 Ascent to Superstardom ......................................................................................... 49 World Domination ................................................................................................... 57 Slow Descent .................................................................................................................. 71 Grounded .......................................................................................................................... 79 Outro .................................................................................................................................... 85 Track-by-Track Analysis ........................................................................................ 87

Introduction

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ne of the biggest new acts of the 1970s was The Eagles, the one group who best personified country/rock, a musical style born during the 1960s that had lost much of its commercial appeal by the start of the 1980s. The Eagles were undoubtedly the brand leaders of country/rock, which, as the name implies, was a mixture of rock and country music.

Clearly, it was possible that rock musicians could play country music and that country pickers could play mainstream rock, and in fact, both categories were present at various points during the eight years that the group was active.

They debuted in early 1972, the first big act on a new label, Asylum Records, launched by an ambitious young agent named David Geffen. He was by then already a mogul of rock management, heavily involved in the Geffen & Roberts partnership that managed many of the big American streetcredible acts of the time, including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (individually and collectively), Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro and others. But the artist behind whom The Eagles assembled, Linda Ronstadt, was not a Geffen & Roberts client.

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Ronstadt had enjoyed minor fame in the late 1960s as the focal point and lead vocalist of The Stone Poneys, a folk styled trio whose biggest hit came in 1967 with their version of ‘Different Song’, written by erstwhile Monkee Michael Nesmith, which made the US Top 20. Subsequent follow-up singles failed to repeat that success and by 1969 Ronstadt was a solo artist; although, in truth, she wasn’t doing too well in commercial terms, with LPs like 1969’s ‘Hand Sown, Home Grown’ or 1970’s ‘Silk Purse’. In 1971, she recruited a backing band which included guitarist Glenn Frey, drummer Don Henley, guitarist Bernie Leadon and bass player Randy Meisner, all who were also impressive singers.

Linda Ronstadt’s eponymous third solo album appeared in the spring of 1972, produced by John Boylan, whose early career as a musician included a group among whose other members were his brother Terence, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (later of Steely Dan) and noted actor Chevy Chase. John Boylan’s previous production credits had included a couple of albums by The Association and a solo album by a member of that group, Russ Giguere, two albums by Rick Nelson (1967’s ‘Another Side of Rick’ and 1968’s ‘Perspective’) and an eponymous album by a relatively obscure country/rock group known as Uncle Jim’s Music.

This last group included Jim Ed Norman, whose name will appear later in this book. Not a vast amount of experience, it might be said, but Boylan had later produced the first (and best) Boston album, Commander Cody, Charlie Daniels, The Dillards, Pure Prairie League, Roger McGuinn, The Little River Band, among others, so several notables thought he was good at his job. But perhaps his biggest achievement was in assembling The Eagles.

As Bernie Leadon later remarked: ‘John Boylan sat down one day, figured out our capabilities, and came to the conclusion that, on paper, it would be difficult to put together a better band – so we decided to try it out.’

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Preflight

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he four original members of The Eagles had all recorded separately before they joined together in what was to become the biggest act in which any of them would ever participate. Arguably, the two original Eagles who had the biggest reputations were also the first two members to leave the group, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner.

Bernie Leadon, born in 1947 in Minneapolis, came from a bluegrass background. The first significant group he joined was the wonderfully named Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, based in San Diego, California. An earlier member of this band was Chris Hillman (mandolin), who later achieved considerable fame as a founding member of The Byrds. He played on the one album the group made, ‘Bluegrass Favourites’, along with Kenny Wertz (banjo, who was replaced by Leadon when Wertz left for duty in the USAF) and Larry Murray (dobro). This is a very obscure album because, according to Hillman, it was made in four hours for Crown Records, which created dirt cheap albums for sale in supermarkets. After several months with the Barkers, Leadon moved to Florida, before returning to Los Angeles in 1967, where 7

he joined his ex-Barkers colleague Larry Murray in Hearts & Flowers, an early country/rock trio who made two albums for Capitol Records in 1967 and 1968. Leadon appeared on the second album, entitled ‘Of Horses, Kids and Forgotten Women’. Perhaps due to this curious title, it was not a commercial success, although another potential drawback was that it included a version of the somewhat stomach-churning song, ‘Two Little Boys’, the song written about the American Civil War which gave Rolf Harris the 1969 Christmas Number One in Britain. What a dreadful way to finish a great decade! As someone has remarked, perhaps Harris heard the song on that Hearts & Flowers album.

When Hearts & Flowers folded, Leadon and bass player David Jackson joined Dillard & Clark. The group consisted of banjo man Doug Dillard (formerly of The Dillards) and singer/ songwriter Gene Clark (formerly of The Byrds), along with another ex-Byrd, drummer Michael Clarke, who appeared on their debut LP, ‘The Fantastic Voyage of Dillard & Clark’, and some of their second (and final) LP, ‘Through the Morning, Through the Night’. At that point, Leadon joined Linda Ronstadt & the Corvettes, a group which lasted for much of 1969, with a rhythm section of John Ware (drums) and John London (bass), who had both previously worked with Michael Nesmith, and with two erstwhile members of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, singer/guitarists Jeff Hanna and Chris Darrow. But when Hanna left to rejoin the NGDB, his replacement was Bernie Leadon.

After The Corvettes, Leadon joined The Flying Burrito Brothers, appearing on that group’s second LP, ‘Burrito De Luxe’, along with Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons, Michael Clarke and pedal steel star Sneaky Pete Kleinow, who recently passed away. After Parsons left and was replaced by Rick Roberts, Leadon was on the group’s eponymous third album, released in 1971; but soon after its emergence, the group folded, which was when Leadon rejoined Linda Ronstadt.

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EAGLES – YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE Limited Edition On Clear Vinyl

On Monday 25 April 1994, after a fourteen year hiatus, the Eagles were re-united at Burbank for the recording of an acoustic MTV special which spawned the ‘Hell Freezes Over’ album. That album has since gone on to achieve legendary status.

However, what is often overlooked, is the fact that the Eagles had also agreed to perform a second night on Tuesday 26 April which was filmed and scheduled for radio broadcast. This limited edition vinyl album showcases that legendary broadcast.

Side A 1. Peaceful Easy Feeling 2. Best of My Love 3. Tequila Sunrise 4. Heartache Tonight 5. One of These Nights Side B 1. Hotel California 2. Wasted Time 3. Take It Easy 4. Desperado

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Bass player Randy Meisner, a man with an astonishingly wide vocal range, had also worked in several notable acts before John Boylan recommended him to Linda Ronstadt. Boylan had come across Meisner when the latter was working with Rick Nelson, for whom Boylan had produced a couple of albums. Meisner, born in Nebraska in 1947, had been a musician for some time by then. The Dynamics, a Nebraska band of which he was a member, played in a talent contest in Colorado, as Meisner recalled: ‘Yes, we did a Battle of the Bands, and I joined up with The Soul Survivors, a Denver band who were doing pretty well.’

The Soul Survivors included guitarist Allen Kemp and drummer Pat Shanahan. They changed the group’s name to The Poor and headed for Los Angeles, California: ‘We signed a contract with Charlie Greene and Brian Stone and made a couple of records, but nothing happened.’ Worth noting here that Greene & Stone had been highly successful managing Sonny & Cher, but perhaps less so looking after Buffalo Springfield, which included three singer/songwriters and a bass player from Canada named Bruce Palmer, with an unfortunate penchant for attracting the law due to his apparently insatiable appetite for marijuana. The three singer/songwriters were, of course, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay. Buffalo Springfield (named after a steam roller, by the way) inevitably imploded, not least due to the conflict over songwriting, which was how Randy Meisner got his next bass playing job.

Stills and Young both embarked on solo careers, as well as participating in the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young supergroup, but there was less interest in Furay, who had formed a new group named Poco with Jim Messina. Messina had joined Buffalo Springfield during its death throes. Poco was looking for more members, and the ex-Springfield road manager, Miles Thomas, who had also worked for The Poor, suggested Meisner. He got the job. Ironically, the other two original Poco members, drummer 11

George Grantham and pedal steel virtuoso Rusty Young, were from a rival Colorado band, Boenzye Cryque, although this was a coincidence, as Meisner confirmed: ‘Yes, but I’d never met them before. I didn’t live in Colorado for long. We just played clubs around there to make money to survive.’ Meisner’s time with Poco was brief. ‘Everything was working fairly smoothly until we got into the studio. Jimmy and Richie had been making records longer than the rest of us. I demanded to be in there for the final mix and was told I couldn’t be there, so I left.’ When the debut Poco album, ‘Pickin’ Up the Pieces’, was released, Meisner was omitted from the group photo on the cover, which included Furay, Messina, Grantham, Young and a dog – perhaps a distant relative of the horse which appeared on the sleeve of ‘The Notorious Byrd Brothers’ by The Byrds, on which appeared Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke, and a horse. Some suggested it represented David Crosby, who had recently been thrown out of the group by McGuinn and Hillman. The petty stupidity and childishness displayed by some musicians hardly bears thinking about… The pictures of individual musicians on the back of the ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ sleeve lists Furay, Messina, Young and Grantham and, almost as an afterthought, ‘Supporting vocals & bass: Randy Meisner.’ You can imagine how rejected he must have felt: ‘I was getting ready to move back to Nebraska, and I think I was told about the job in Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon band by Miles Thomas again, and then I got Allen Kemp and Pat Shanahan, the guys I came with to L.A., and formed the band for Rick.’

John Boylan suggests a somewhat different scenario. Boylan wrote a song called ‘Suzanne On a Sunday Morning’, which was a minor hit when recorded by Rick Nelson for Decca in 1967. Comments Boylan, ‘After the single charted, the record company got excited. They wanted Koppelman & Rubin (who were managing Boylan) to finish [producing] the album. They 12

eaGLES – DARK DESERt HIGHWAYS 6 CD Set

This powerful six CD anthology brings together four of the very best live broadcasts by the Eagles spanning the two decades from 1974 to 1994. Featured here are all the hits from this amazingly creative period when Eagles produced some of the most legendary music in the history of rock including ‘Desperado’, ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and the immortal ‘Hotel California’.

DISC ONE – LIVE NYC 1974 – BEACON THEATRE, NEW YORK 1. Peaceful Easy Feeling 2. Already Gone 3. Good Day In Hell 4. Silver Threads and Golden Needles 5. Desperado 6. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore 7. Midnight Flyer 8. Twenty One 9. Ol’ 55 10. Your Bright Baby Blues 11. Looking Into You 12. James Dean 13. Doolin’ Dalton/Desperado Reprise 14. Take It Easy DISC TWO – HOTEL CALIFORNIA IN CONCERT – HOUSTON, 6 NOVEMBER 1976 (PART 1) 1. Hotel California 2. Lyin’ Eyes 3. Wasted Time 4. Take It to the Limit 5. Desperado 6. Midnight Flyer 7. Turn to Stone 8. Already Gone 9. One of These Nights DISC THREE – HOTEL CALIFORNIA IN CONCERT – HOUSTON, 6 NOVEMBER 1976 (PART 2) 1. Funk #49 2. Good Day In Hell 3. Rocky Mountain Way 4. Witchy Woman 5. James Dean 6. The Best of My Love 7. Walk Away 8. Tequila Sunrise DISC FOUR – YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE – THE EXTRA NIGHT AT BURBANK, 26 APRIL 1994 (PART 1) 1. Peaceful Easy Feeling 2. Best of My Love 3. Tequila Sunrise 4. Help Me Thru the Night 5. The Heart of the Matter 6. Love Will Keep Us Alive 7. Learn to Be Still 8. Hotel California 9. Wasted Time 10. Wasted Time (Reprise) 11. Lover’s Moon DISC FIVE – YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE – THE EXTRA NIGHT AT BURBANK, 26 APRIL 1994 (PART 2) 1. Pretty Maids All In a Row 2. The Girl from Yesterday 3. New York Minute 4. The Last Resort 5. Take It Easy 6. One of These Nights 7. In the City 8. Heartache Tonight 9. Get Over It 10. Desperado DISC SIX – LOST RADIO WAVES – ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA, 6 APRIL 1974 1. James Dean 2. Blackberry Blossom 3. Midnight Flyer 4. Already Gone 5. Take It Easy

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were working on somebody else, so they sent me instead. Rick did not mind because I was the one who wrote the song. Rick and I became pals. When I met him he was the epitome of a 1950s star who was set in his ways and directionless. One of Rick’s biggest problems was that he did not have a band. I had to use session players on the albums I did with Rick. When I was able, the first thing I did was hire the Stone Canyon Band. I got Randy Meisner, who had just left Poco. “She Belongs to Me”, written by Dylan, was the first Stone Canyon band single, and a US Top 40 hit. I played on that. It took a year to get that going because Koppelman & Rubin held the power. I quit working for them in 1968 because I could not have any control over what I was doing.’

Meisner told Pete Frame: ‘Rick had seen Poco playing at The Troubadour and that had given him the idea of getting a new group together. I played on “Rick Nelson in Concert”, came over to Europe to do a military tour, and when we got back, I quit,

Click the above photo for a video link Journalist Chris Charlesworth describes the Eagles meeting at The Troubadour Club.

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because I didn’t feel I was getting any opportunity to express myself. So I quit and returned to Nebraska for eight months. Then, Allen Kemp called me and said that a couple of people had tried out unsatisfactorily for the Stone Canyon Band, so I went back to L.A. and rejoined Rick for another six months or so, before John Boylan, who produced both Rick and Linda Ronstadt, got me to fill in on one of Linda’s gigs in San Francisco. Her regular bass player couldn’t make it, and that’s where Glenn and I met and discovered that we got on pretty well playing together.’ To complete this picture, the drummer in Ronstadt’s band was Don Henley; the guitar and bass players were brothers Richard and Mike Bowden, but both left Ronstadt to form a band with Sneaky Pete Kleinow called Cold Steel, which didn’t last long. The Bowden brothers and Kleinow appeared on the ‘Linda Ronstadt’ album, as did Meisner, Leadon, Frey and Henley, although a lengthy perusal of the credits suggests that while one or more of the future Eagles performed on nine of the ten tracks on the album, no single track features all four together.

The previous pairing of Glenn Frey and Don Henley was, in truth, less spectacular than that of Leadon or Meisner, which suggests that they were late developers, as they soon became the leaders of The Eagles. Singer/guitarist Frey (pronounced ‘fry’) was born in 1948 in Detroit, and he first achieved minor celebrity in 1968, when he was involved in the first US Top 20 hit by Bob Seger, ‘Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man’. In fact, the single was credited to The Bob Seger System, and more than a decade later, Frey also guested on a couple more hits by Seger, 1980’s ‘Fire Lake’ (on which Don Henley also helped out) and 1982’s ‘Shame On the Moon’. Frey explained: ‘Actually, we were really good friends when we were both living in Detroit, which was when I was about 18. He was a little older than I was. He was managed by the guy who ran this string of clubs in Detroit called The Hideouts.

The big ambition for a local band in Detroit at a high school 15

level was to get to play one of these three clubs in the suburbs called The Hideouts. Finally, we auditioned and got a job at one of those clubs and then I met Bob Seger. He kind of liked me, I guess, and he let me watch him record. He even let me play on a couple of songs and sing a little background vocals, which was what I did on “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man”, although you can’t hear much acoustic guitar in that record, they mixed it down.’ During the mid-1960s, according to one source, Frey played in Detroit bands The Mushrooms – a group which recorded a single, ‘Such a Lovely Child’ (a song written by Seger), for a label launched

by Seger’s manager, Punch Andrews – and The Underdogs, and also played in Bo Diddley’s backing band. By 1970, he was in Los Angeles, where he had moved in search of a girl: ‘She was a singer who sang with a couple of other girls in Detroit. They went out to California to make their way in the music industry before I did. After returning to Detroit for a while and writing to my girlfriend, I decided I wanted to move out there and be with her.

Probably, the most interesting thing about that situation was that I met John David Souther on the first day I was in Los Angeles, because he was going out with my girlfriend’s sister. So the first night I was in L.A., I met J.D. and that was the start of a lifelong friendship.’

More to the point, it was the start of a short-lived act known as Longbranch Pennywhistle, a name which some may suspect has sexual connotations. They managed to get signed at a small label, Amos Records, which had been launched by Jimmy Bowen.

Bowen, who was born in New Mexico, had formed a group in the 1950s with Buddy Knox called The Rhythm Orchids. Knox and Bowen were featured on the same million selling 1957 single produced by Norman Petty, who famously produced much of Buddy Holly’s best work. Knox’s ‘Party Doll’ topped the US chart, while Bowen’s ‘I’m Stickin’ with You’ simultaneously made the US Top 20. Bowen moved into production and was responsible for 16

EAGLES – ON AIR 1974–’76

Limited Edition On Purple Vinyl This limited edition vinyl album brings together the very best of the live broadcasts by the Eagles from 1974–’76. Side 1 opens with the legendary broadcast from the Beacon Theatre New York on 13 April 1974 and features special guests Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt. Side 2 is taken is drawn from 1976 when the Eagles were approaching their creative peak. Joe Walsh had joined the band and the result is a more rock orientated experience. This legendary live FM broadcast took on 6 November 1976 from The Summit in Houston shortly before the release of the ‘Hotel California’ album which appeared on 8 December 1976.

Side A 1. Peaceful Easy Feelin 2. Good Day In Hell 3. Desperado (feat. Linda Ronstadt) 4. James Dean 5. Take It Easy (feat. Jackson Browne & Linda Ronstadt) The Beacon Theatre, New York, 13 April 1974

Side B 1. Hotel California 2. Lyin Eyes 3. Take It to the Limit 4. Tequila Sunrise The Summit, Houston, 6 November 1976

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innumerable hit singles by a bewildering variety of artists, from Frank Sinatra to Hank Williams Jr.; by 1969, he was running Amos Records with Kenny Rogers, whom he had befriended when he produced the group Rogers fronted, The First Edition, to considerable success.

We’ll get back to Amos Records, but before that, the ‘Longbranch Pennywhistle’ album largely flattered to deceive. My personal view is that despite starring two of the bigger country/ rock artists of the 1970s, the album is far more notable for the musicians who played on it than for the music it contained.

Credited as ‘Our heavy helpers’ are guitarists James Burton and Ry Cooder, Larry Knechtel (piano), Buddy Emmons (pedal steel), Doug Kershaw on violin and a rhythm section of Joe Osborn and Jim Gordon. These pickers are world famous today, although some of them were less celebrated in 1969, when ‘Longbranch Pennywhistle’ appeared. Of the ten songs, Souther wrote six and Frey two. One they co-wrote together and one was by James Taylor. The problem was that, in all honesty, the album really wasn’t much more than satisfactory, and made few waves. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t appear to have been released in CD format – or maybe Frey and/or Souther have suppressed its digitalization.

As promised, let’s get back to Amos Records. Another release on the label was the soundtrack to the cult movie Vanishing Point, which is available on DVD and is essential viewing, not least because the artists involved with the music, which was supervised

by Jimmy Bowen, and included Jerry Reed, Bob Segarini, The Doug Dillard Expedition, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends (which included Rita Coolidge) and David Gates, the main member of Bread), Mountain, Big Mama Thornton and Kim Carnes (as half of Kim & Dave). In the movie, but not on the soundtrack album, Longbranch Pennywhistle performs a song titled ‘I Can’t Believe It’, which isn’t apparently on any album. Bizarre or what?

So Longbranch Pennywhistle faded into obscurity, but not before 19

Frey and Souther had moved into an apartment in an area of Los Angeles known as Echo Park, which is a few miles southeast of Hollywood. The flat upstairs was inhabited by Jackson Browne, as a result of which they met David Geffen, who was about to launch Asylum Records. Soon after that, Frey joined Linda Ronstadt’s band – Ronstadt and Souther were an item about this time.

Coincidentally, a third album released by Amos Records was ‘Shiloh’, which was the Texas band in which Don Henley played.

Born in 1947, Henley’s first musical adventures were with a Dixieland jazz band when he was a teenager, but ‘then it was rock ‘n’ roll from then on out.’ His interest in rock music supposedly began when he saw The Byrds and heard The Dillards, but he notes, ‘They inspired me, yeah, but I actually got into rock ‘n’ roll when my mother went to the record store one day and bought me a copy of “Hound Dog”.’ Henley grew up in Linden, Texas, a small town which has been likened to the place portrayed in the movie The Last Picture Show. He told Pete Frame, ‘All you can do in a place like that is dream. There wasn’t anything to do but sit and watch the sun sink in the west. I used to watch it and say “Boy, the sun’s going down in California. Some day, I’m going to go there.”’

Henley’s first band of note was called Felicity, but that wasn’t its original name. ‘When surfing was popular and The Beach Boys and cars and things like that, we were called The Four Speeds.

That got shortened to The Speeds, but we figured that was a little risqué, so we changed the name to Felicity, which eventually became Shiloh. It was basically the same people, people I grew up with in my home town.’ Those people were Richard and Mike Bowden (see above), who later played in the same Linda Ronstadt backing group in which the four original Eagles also played, plus pedal steel virtuoso Al Perkins, who went on to have hundreds of credits on albums, including The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, The Souther Hillman Furay Band 20

and loads more, and finally keyboard player Jim Ed Norman, who was a member of Uncle Jim’s Music, an obscure group who were produced by John Boylan. Later, Jim Ed Norman would be involved with The Eagles. Everything connects with everything else, you see.

The eponymous Shiloh album was produced by Kenny Rogers and of its ten songs, three were written by Henley, two by Norman, and two by Richard Bowden. It’s probably marginally superior to the Longbranch Pennywhistle album, but was about as unsuccessful. Henley: ‘It was done through Kenny Rogers, who we met in Texas in ’68 or ’69 when he was the leader of The First Edition, and he took an interest in us. We kept in touch by phone, and finally moved to L.A., and he produced the album for us, the one on Amos, because he was affiliated with Jimmy Bowen, who was the president of Amos at the time. It’s an awful album, don’t buy it!’ Shiloh split up not long after Al Perkins was invited to join the Flying Burrito Brothers in April of 1971, replacing Sneaky Pete, although Henley adds: ‘That’s not totally the reason we split up. We weren’t getting any work, we didn’t have any management to speak of, the record company wasn’t doing much – everything was wrong. So Al left first, then I met Glenn and I left, and it fell apart after that.’ Glenn Frey notes: ‘Don was the lead singer, so when he left, that was when the band probably broke up.’

Henley: ‘I’d seen Glenn and John David a couple of times at the Amos Records office, and we just mumbled hello to each other in passing. Then I was hanging around The Troubadour, which was the place to hang around – that was where all the musicians and people like that went to drink and talk to each other. I’d seen Glenn in there several times, and one night he said “Come on over and sit down and have a beer”. He was miserable and I was miserable. He and John David weren’t able to play any music because of some kind of legal hassle with Amos Records; Al Perkins had just left Shiloh, so I was a bit down, and we sat and 21

talked for a while. He told me that Linda Ronstadt was going on the road and she needed a drummer, and he asked me if I wanted to make two hundred bucks a week and I said “Sure” and that’s how it all started.’

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Take Off

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ne important matter that had to be quickly decided was a name for the new band. Don Henley explained: ‘For a lot of reasons, it was really difficult to find a name that didn’t sound ridiculous. At the time, everything was “strawberry this” and “electric that”, but we wanted something simple that sounded American, something that was easy to remember and with a little spiritual value. Someone was reading a book about Hopi Indian mythology, and in it, the eagle was the bird that carried man’s aspirations and flew closest to the sun. It also sounded very American, because there are football teams and street gangs…’ Joe Walsh chipped in, ‘Dollar bills!’ Henlley: ‘Yeah, we get a lot of free publicity from the government, actually, so that’s the reason! It covered a lot of territory, it was a name that was all–encompassing. And it worked, I guess.’

Of course, some may suggest other possible reasons for the choice of name – in fact, there had been numerous groups named after birds in the years since the 1950s, when rock ‘n’ roll first annoyed parents, and even before that. Dozens of black vocal groups, who often sang unaccompanied, were named after avian 23

species, from The Crows, whose 1954 hit ‘Gee’ is an early doowop classic, to The Flamingos, who not only recorded a far more convincing version of the Pat Boone million seller, ‘I’ll Be Home’ (the Boone single became the signature tune of servicemen who were posted abroad), but also cut the unforgettable 1959 version of ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’, to The Penguins, who scored in 1954 with ‘Earth Angel’. Even the fantastic Coasters called themselves The Robins before Leiber & Stoller wrote and produced hits for them like ‘Searchin’’, ‘Yakety Yak’, ‘Poison Ivy’ and all the other classics. Then, in the 1960s, one of the most important American bands was The Byrds, who were the musical forefathers of The Eagles… The next thing to worry about was the all-important debut album. The new group needed a producer who would be able to guide them through the recording sessions. Their choice was Glyn Johns, a producer/engineer who had worked with a galaxy of stars, including The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Traffic, Joe Cocker and Georgie Fame, as well as The Beatles – he worked on the ‘Let It Be’ album – and The Small Faces. But most of his early work was as engineer, alongside producers like George Martin, Andrew Loog Oldham, Shel Talmy and Denny Cordell. After having been involved with so many happening acts in the first half of the 1960s, Johns was eager to make the move into production, and his chance came in 1968 with the thenunknown Steve Miller Band, for whom he eventually produced four albums. Johns was also the engineer on the ground-breaking first Led Zeppelin album in 1969, and in 1970, mixed Joe Cocker’s unforgettable ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ extravaganza.

Randy Meisner recalled that The Eagles were sent by David Geffen to play a month of gigs at a small club in Aspen, Colorado: ‘We did four sets a night, playing as many originals as we’d written – to work them up for the album – and filled out with loads of Chuck Berry, some Neil Young, and other things from the groups we’d played in. It tightened us up, and we learned how to play 24

with each other, and then we went to a club in Boulder, which is where Glyn Johns came to see us.’ Bernie Leadon explained to Pete Frame: ‘We wanted a producer who could handle the folkie stuff and the rock ‘n’ roll, and we wanted the best person we could find, so names like Glyn Johns, Tom Dowd, Bill Halverson, Ted Templeman came to mind, people with a history of producing the same range of music as we were into, and Glyn was the first choice. We eventually came to England and cut the album in three weeks – he’s the hardest working son of a bitch I’ve ever met, never lets up for a moment. He’s a perfectionist, and as well as being a producer, he’s one of the best engineers in the world.’

Glyn Johns remembered: ‘David Geffen, who was their manger, approached me to produce them, and I went to see them play in Boulder, Colorado, where I didn’t think a great deal of them.

Eventually, I was convinced to go back and see them again, and when I had spent a couple of days in a rehearsal studio with them,

Click the above photo for a video link Musician Geoff Smiles explains the impact of David Geffen on the Eagles.

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and realized that there was much more potential there than I’d seen onstage. We started recording quite soon after that second meeting. I brought them to England, we worked at Olympic Studios, and we made the album very quickly, in less than three weeks. I don’t think I’d been so excited since probably Led Zeppelin. They were amazing, but they didn’t really know what they had. The night I saw them playing in Boulder, they were playing rock ‘n’ roll, Chuck Berry, but sort of badly, and you had Bernie Leadon on one side, a great country player, and Glenn Frey on the other, rock ‘n’ roll from Detroit – they were pulling the rhythm section in two, which wasn’t very good at all. They hadn’t defined their position as a harmony band particularly well. They were singing harmony together, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as it became. Their writing was fairly obvious, and I liked them as people, which was the main thing that made me go back, and it wasn’t until I saw them in rehearsal, without a PA, and without all the bad sound, that I realized their quality. Bernie and Frey picked up acoustic guitars during a break, and they played a song that Randy had written, a ballad – just two acoustics and the four of them singing. And that was it – they just didn’t realize how good they were at that. Glenn Frey wanted it to be a rock ‘n’ roll band and of course that’s what it became when I stopped producing them. He and I fought like cats and dogs all the time – we never liked each other very much and I refused to accept him as the leader of the band, because I didn’t think he was. In my view, each member was as important as the next. I don’t think I really gave him enough credit, because he’s actually a bloody good musician.

Anyway, I made that album, and I made it with a very clear idea of the sound I wanted to get from them and the way I wanted to do it, and although they didn’t let me know at the time, they didn’t like it very much – they didn’t seem to be over-enamoured with what was going on. I couldn’t even get them excited on any of the playbacks. We finished the record and played it back, and they 27

still weren’t jumping up and down, which I just put down to them being insecure, which they were then. They actually didn’t like the record very much, until, of course, it became successful; then they started to love it. But Frey had his direction for the band, and knew what he wanted to do with it, while the others felt they were being squashed, and eventually became so squashed that Randy and Bernie left the band.’

That, of course, wasn’t until some time later, and we’ll come to it in time, but first, the story of the debut album. Perhaps surprisingly, in view of what would happen later, the ten songs on the LP were not all composed by group members. Why was that?

Henley: ‘We weren’t very prolific at the time. I had just finished an album that took all my songs away and Glenn had used up most of the material he had. Actually, I would say we were still learning to write, and we felt it was safer, rather than write a few good songs and a few bad ones, just for the sake of having all our songs on the album, we felt it was much smarter to pick some of our favourite songs and put them on the album. As it happened, I think that was a wise decision.’

The debut album, simply titled ‘Eagles’, was released in June, 1972, and in the same month, the group’s first single, ‘Take It Easy’, appeared and quickly charted. This song, which remains one of the group’s signature tunes, is a brilliant piece of work, and gave the then-unknown quartet a flying start. The song was written

by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, who explained how it came about: ‘Jackson used to play “Take It Easy” in Echo Park, when he lived in the apartment below John David and me, and we could hear him playing it through the floor. When it came time for him to start doing his first album, he just wasn’t playing that song any more for some reason. He said he thought it wasn’t really finished, and asked me if I would finish it for him. It didn’t take me long to say yes! In just a couple of sittings, probably two or three hours altogether, we finished it. There’s a lot more Jackson Browne 28

in that song than there is me.’ Why the mention of Winslow, Arizona? ‘Jackson actually blew up his car in Winslow, Arizona.

We were very much into going to the desert, which was a big thing in ’71, ’72, something we did every couple of months. Jackson bought some old kind of jalopy that looked real cool, and headed out towards Arizona, where it blew up. A lot of people get stranded there, it’s famous for that. The thing about hitch-hiking actually happened – I was actually stranded in Santa Maria, California, and girls, and guys with girls, and girls with girls, would just pull on to the entrance of this freeway and slow down long enough to look at me, and keep on going. This happened for about eight hours one night, trying to get back from San Francisco to L.A. Jackson and I were both talking about breakdowns and hitchhiking, and what happens when you’re stranded.’

The flip side of ‘Take It Easy’ has to be one of the rarest tracks

by The Eagles. This Frey/ Henley song, ‘Get You in the Mood’, has yet to appear on an Eagles album. Apparently, it was supposed to be on a bonus disc in the boxed set which was released in 2000, but it wasn’t. Frey revealed why it wasn’t included on the debut LP: ‘It was on the album originally, when the album didn’t have “Nightingale”. What happened was that we got back to Los Angeles, and between David Geffen and us, we decided that having just one Henley vocal on that first album was not right, so we decided to cut Jackson Browne’s “Nightingale”.’

Jackson Browne, who is a hallowed singer/songwriter, made three exquisite albums: ‘Jackson Browne’ (aka ‘Saturate Before Using’), ‘For Everyman’ and ‘Late for the Sky’, in 1972, 1973 and 1974, respectively, but they didn’t sell as well as they deserved to (top 60, Top 50 and Top 20), so there was a two year gap before ‘The Pretender’ in 1976, which went Top 10 and, like its two predecessors, went platinum. However, the highlight of that album was probably the title track, which was far inferior in my estimation to earlier songs like ‘Rock Me On the Water’, ‘My 29

Opening Farewell’, ‘I Thought I Was a Child’, and particularly the brilliant ‘These Days’. ‘Nightingale’ does not appear to be included on any Jackson Browne album before 1992, although his version of ‘Take It Easy’ is on ‘For Everyman’. ‘Nightingale’ brought the first side of the album to a strong conclusion, just as ‘Take It Easy’ had kicked it off.

The second track on the album, ‘Witchy Woman’, was cowritten by Don Henley and Bernie Leadon, and has a swamp/rock feel. Before the inclusion of ‘Nightingale’, this was the only Don Henley lead vocal on the album, from which it was the second excerpted single. Although this track was in fact the first US Top 10 single for The Eagles, it is not generally regarded as a particular milestone for them. Its flipside, ‘Earlybird’, was written by Leadon and Randy Meisner, and Leadon’s banjo picking provides a permanent backdrop as occasional avian sound effects are heard on what is a reasonable piece of work Leadon’s third song on the album, ‘Train Leaves Here This Mornin’’, was co-written with a musician who was far better known than any of The Eagles at the time, Byrds founding member Gene Clark, with whom Leadon had worked in the (Doug) Dillard & (Gene) Clark group. The song appears on their 1968 debut album, ‘The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark’. The third hit single from ‘Eagles’, ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’, was written by Jack Tempchin, who would later cowrite ‘Already Gone’, the opening song on the third Eagles album, ‘On the Border’, and would also write several hits for Glenn Frey’s solo career, including ‘You Belong to the City’ and ‘Smuggler’s Blues’. ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’, which peaked just outside the Top 20 of the US singles chart, was exquisitely written and performed, while its flipside, Randy Meisner’s ‘Tryin’’, a much more up-tempo item, was the final track on the original album. Three other tracks completed this opening LP, one more by Meisner, ‘Take the Devil’, which for my money is the weakest track on a very strong album, and two by Frey, the very Detroit-sounding rocker, ‘Chug All 30

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Night’, and the contrastingly gentle ‘Most of Us Are Sad’. Lest anyone doubts it, ‘Eagles’ was a marvellous debut album, which spent just under a year in the US chart, peaking just outside the Top 20 and being certified gold.

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Ascent

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ith three US Top 20 singles and a hit album under their collective belt, The Eagles needed to consolidate their breakthrough, and in June 1973, they returned to England where they had recorded their debut album. At some point during the early stages of their career, probably when they were back in England to record their second album, The Eagles played live for at least a couple of TV shows in England and Holland, and this may have been when Glenn Frey, and to a lesser extent, Don Henley, began to assume leadership of the group.

Both Leadon and Meisner had been in bands in which they were sidemen rather than decision makers, while Frey favoured the harder Detroit rocker approach over the more polite and laidback attitude of the country pickers. Frey was probably the most ambitious of the original Eagles, and he was probably closer to Jackson Browne and John David Souther, who were major movers and shakers in the Hollyweird country/rock culture. Frey certainly was and is a better front man than the others.

By all accounts, the decision-makers about the direction of the second album were Frey and Henley, and while ‘Desperado’ was 33

widely praised by critics when it came out, and has subsequently been recognised as a mini-masterpiece, it was a commercial disappointment. Sure, it eventually went gold and spent around 17 months in the US album chart, but it peaked outside the Top 40.

Almost certainly, the reason for this was that neither of the two singles released from the album, ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and ‘Outlaw Man’, made the US Top 50, and thus attracted less radio play for the album. In fact, like other concept albums, it is designed to be heard from start to finish without cherry-picking single tracks.

Glyn Johns, who again produced the album, recalled, ‘I actually thought “Desperado” was going to be a monster hit album, and it really should have been. It’s disgraceful that it wasn’t, it should have taken the world by storm. It has become a milestone, and I’m very proud of it, but it’s very strange that it wasn’t a hit at the time.

Although there is a very good reason for that, and that was that the record company was not on the case. David Geffen had just taken

Click the above photo for a video link Musician Geoff Smiles discusses the Eagles’ early sound.

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over Elektra (as well as Asylum), and he was more involved with signing Bob Dylan.’ This refers to a time when Bob Dylan was in dispute with CBS Records, to which he had been signed since the early 1960s, and Geffen persuaded him to let Asylum release his 1974 studio album, ‘Planet Waves’, and also the double live album on which he was backed by The Band, ‘Before the Flood’.

The Frey/Henley concept for the album was that the outlaws of the 1960s and 1970s were musicians, who, like the gunfighters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, formed into gangs.

‘Desperado’ attempted, with some success, to explore this idea.

Perhaps their only mistake was not releasing the title track as a single, which might have made a world of difference. ‘Desperado’ is the first great song written by the Henley/Frey combination, and a measure of its quality is that the song has also been recorded by, among others, Linda Ronstadt, The Carpenters, Judy Collins and Kenny Rogers. However, this song does not start the album, which again might have been a miscalculation.

The opening track is ‘Doolin-Dalton’, a song written by Frey, John David Souther, Henley and Jackson Browne. It is based on the real life exploits of a gang that operated in the Wild West during the last decade of the 19th century. Bill Doolin and Bob and Emmett Dalton were responsible for a number of high profile train robberies, although their exploits do not seem to have crossed the Atlantic in the same way as those of Frank and Jesse James. It could be said, with some justification, that numerous musicians had written and recorded songs about The James Gang, and a song about the less celebrated Doolin-Dalton bunch had more justification than merely going over a somewhat hackneyed subject.

Lyrically, the words ‘duelin’’ and ‘Doolin’ are used together effectively, although it seems most likely that this was a happy accident rather than anything planned. A promotional film was made to promote the album, and the back page of the CD booklet for this album uses a still from the film showing (left to right) 35

Jackson Browne, Bernie Leadon, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner, Don Henley and John David Souther playing the parts of the ‘deceased’ Doolin-Dalton gang. They are watched by various friends and employees, also in cowboy costume in the guise of a posse, with Glyn Johns as ‘sheriff’ on the extreme right of the picture. This was some indication of how seriously The Eagles treated the concept of the album, but at least one song, ‘James Dean’, which had originally been planned for ‘Desperado’ was not included, appearing instead on the band’s next album, ‘On the Border’. Frey explained: ‘Originally, when we first got all in a room, got crazy and started talking about this whole outlaw thing, we had actually thought of an album that might be the story of many different desperadoes in different periods of time. “Doolin-Dalton” would have been just one song in a series; “James Dean” would have been another. We started both those songs on the same evening.

I’m trying to think if there isn’t another one. We’d have probably written a gangster song about Baby Face Nelson or someone! It ultimately turned out to be “Desperado”.’

The ‘Doolin-Dalton’ songs appears three times on the ‘Desperado’ album, first as the full song, later as a 48 second instrumental and finally as a reprise combined with the title track. ‘Doolin-Dalton’ was followed by Bernie Leadon’s ‘Twenty-One’, a superior piece of bluegrass that lyrically celebrates coming of age. ‘Twenty-One’ also appeared as the B-side of the first single from the album, Henley & Frey’s ‘Tequila Sunrise’, an easy-paced song which would eventually be regarded as a typical early Eagles classic, although, as already mentioned, it peaked well outside the US Top 50. ‘Out of Control’ is a song credited to Henley, Frey and Tommy Nixon, who had played in a band on the same circuit as Shiloh, and who later worked for The Eagles and became very friendly with Frey.

This song was almost heavy metal, and, bizarrely, its vocals sound something like Slade’s Noddy Holder. The full length version of ‘Desperado’ ended the first side of the original album, and is a 36

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masterpiece, remaining one of the group’s most enduring recorded performances. Next on the album was ‘Certain Kind of Fool’, a writing collaboration between Randy Meisner, Henley and Frey, which is OK, nothing more, and appeared as the B-side of the next Eagles single. ‘Certain Kind of Fool’ runs into a brief bluegrass instrumental version of ‘Doolin-Dalton’, a bridge into ‘Outlaw Man’, a song composed by Asylum label stablemate David Blue, a New York-born singer/songwriter who made several albums – both as David Blue and as S. David Cohen (his real name) – which were critically praised, but none of which sold very well. There’s a picture of David Blue on the front sleeve of his great friend Bob Dylan’s ‘Basement Tapes’, but he unfortunately died prematurely in 1982 at the age of only 41, although it is to be hoped that the final few years of his life were made more comfortable due to The Eagles including their version of ‘Outlaw Man’ on the ‘Desperado’ album, and also releasing the song as the second single from the album.

Although it peaked slightly higher than ‘Tequila Sunrise’, it still failed to reach the US Top 40. Perhaps one of the more underrated tracks on the album follows, a rare compositional collaboration by all the members of the quartet. ‘Saturday Night’ could be regarded as a lament to the passage of time, and perhaps the reverse side of the coin explored in ‘Twenty-One’, and features the wonderful vocal harmonies for which The Eagles became deservedly famous.

Bernie Leadon’s ‘Bitter Creek’ is a very mellow slow-paced ballad, and perhaps this was the major problem for the album’s commercial fate – it arguably includes too many slow tracks, and things hardly changed with the final reprise of ‘Doolin-Dalton’/‘Desperado’.

Beautifully played and sung, like most of the rest of the album, it was eventually praised for its excellence, but it has to be said that ‘Desperado’ seemed to be designed more for dopesmoking hippies than for average Joes. Thirty five years on, it still sounds like a classic, even if the whole album somehow seems greater than the sum of its parts.

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First Turbulence

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n early 1974, The Eagles were working on their third LP, and there had been a definite cooling off in the relationship between some group members and Glyn Johns. The producer had agreed to do a third album with the group despite the fact that he was continually arguing with Glenn Frey. Much of the dispute revolved around Johns trying to convince the quartet to continue in the musical vein of ‘Desperado’, with its gentle country/rock direction, while Frey was more interested in fronting a hard rocking white R&B combo, with harmonies to die for, as well as instrumental force. Johns completed two tracks for the third album, which eventually resulted in ‘On the Border’ in the spring of 1974. After completing the Henley/J.D. Souther ballad, ‘You Never Cry Like a Lover’, and the Henley/Frey/ Souther composition, ‘Best of My Love’, The Eagles wanted to try another producer, and they chose Bill Szymczyk (please note that his surname contains no vowels, and is pronounced ‘Simzick’), apparently on the recommendation of Joe Walsh, who had worked successfully with Szymczyk both in The James Gang and in Walsh’s subsequent career. Additionally, Walsh was also 39

managed by the same company which managed The Eagles, with whom he had become friendly. When he chewed the fat with the band and heard that Frey and Henley felt that a tougher sound was required, Szymczyk was an obvious choice.

Szymczyk recalled the circumstances: ‘The Eagles had cut their first two albums in England with Glyn Johns, and they were well into the third one, which became “On the Border”. They had done about ten tracks, but they decided they weren’t happy with what was happening, so they quit recording, came back to the States and went on tour for the summer, or something like that, while they were looking for another producer. By happenstance, their manager was Irving Azoff, who was just getting under way on his own, but another act he had was Joe Walsh, and as a result, Joe wound up opening a couple of dates for The Eagles, or it may have been the other way round – I can’t remember who was the headliner – but they played on the same bill together for a couple of gigs. Joe and I had just finished “The Smoker You Drink” (a Joe Walsh solo album), so after the gig, it was hotel rooms, cassettes, what have you got there, and The Eagles asked who had produced Joe’s album. “Bill Szymczyk.” “Right, let’s get him.” And that’s how it happened – we had a meeting at Chuck’s Steak House, next to the Record Plant (studio) in L.A., and three days later, we were making “On the Border”. Of course, I was scared to death taking over from Glyn. I had met him a few times, and he knew how I felt about him, so I told the band at the meeting that there was only one condition on which I could do the album, and that was that I must call Glyn, and ask him for permission to take over. So I called Glyn up, and he said “Of course, mate, I don’t like them anymore anyway.” So that’s basically what happened, and there’s a little postscript: when we had finished the album, it included two of the tracks that had been done with Glyn, “Best of My Love” and “You Never Cry Like a Lover”, so they kept two of the ten they had started off with. After I had finished with the album, 40

I went to England for some reason or another, and I took a test pressing along, before the record was released, and my wife and I went to Glyn’s house for dinner and everything, after which we played the album. We were about eight bottles of wine into it, and I said to him “Well, how did I do?” and he said “I’m not really sure I like that.” But that was OK.’ Don Henley gave another reason for wanting to change producers – the fact that Glyn Johns insisted on recording in England. ‘That was part of it, plus a little inner turmoil within the band, pressure from different places, it was the culmination of a lot of things.’ Before Szymczyk took over from Johns, The Eagles had carved a significant niche for themselves as leaders of a new wave of Californian country/rock, with two hit albums and a handful of hit singles, but they had yet to reach the Top 20 of the US album chart, and had only released one Top 10 single. However, they needed a fresh impetus, which Szymczyk provided, although the arrival of another group member also helped to give the band a new direction. The new member was lead guitarist Don Felder.

When asked whose idea it was to invite him to join the group, Frey said, ‘I think Felder made his decision. He came in and played guitar so damn good everybody just decided we wanted him. The biggest problem we had was that we couldn’t do double guitar solos and have a rhythm instrument. We were left with bass and drums, which meant that Don and Randy would have to play Cream-style trio, busy rhythm section, in order to do double guitar work, and none of us wanted that. We liked the backbeat all the time, and lots of it, so we really felt we wanted a third guitar player. Our road manager, Tommy Nixon, who helped to write “Out of Control”, used to come onstage and play rhythm guitar on that song, so that Bernie and I could play the harmony solo.’

It is probably true to say that prior to his recruitment into the eyrie, Felder was not a household name. He came from Florida and apparently used to hang out with The Allman Brothers. ‘Yeah, 41

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there were a bunch of people that were in and out of Florida and South Georgia that later became famous or well-known in the music business. All the people that were out of there, like The Allman Brothers, were in a band called The Spotlights, who played all the clubs on Daytona Beach. Butch Trucks, who was in The Allman Brothers, was in another band that played a lot of fraternity parties and stuff around Gainesville and the college area, so there were a lot of people that became well-known later. Bernie Leadon lived there for a while. I ran into him at high school, and we put a band together there for about three years.’ That band was called The Continentals, and Felder also mentioned that in 1962, Stephen Stills was a member of that group. Felder also supposedly taught Tom Petty (another Florida resident) to play songs that had been hits for Gerry & the Pacemakers. Felder continued: ‘After The Continentals, the next thing that happened was Stephen left town and Bernie arrived. Bernie and I put a band together that lasted about three weeks. The new lead singer’s mom was a seamstress, so she made us all these little jackets, and we did a bunch of gigs under the name The Pink Panthers. We later changed the group name, and Bernie was in that band, and a fellow named Tom Law. It was a pretty big band in Florida. It was at the time The Beatles and The Rascals were happening. They were organized and managed out of New York by a guy named Sid Bernstein. When they came through town for a tour, they heard us and we did one of the opening shows for them. He invited us up to New York for a club debut, so we packed everything in our van and drove nonstop to New York, but our debut ended up nowhere, so we turned around and came back to Florida.

‘Bernie got a call from some people in Hearts & Flowers that he knew really well. He was longing to get back to California, so he and I parted at that point, and I organized another band called Flow. We moved to New York and starved to death, did the typical struggling thing in Manhattan. After a year and a half of 43

making an album with Flow, I got really disgruntled and decided to go into hibernation and retreat for a year or two. I moved up around the Boston area, which has the Boston Conservatory, Berklee School of Music and a bunch of freelance studios, did a lot of sessions, and I hung out, played jingles and anything I could here and there to make some bucks and get by. I had stayed in contact with Bernie and he constantly told me I should relocate to Los Angeles, because that seemed to be the prime music area in the United States. I finally took his advice and popped out to L.A., and landed there with about $300 in my pocket, a guitar and one friend. I knew Bernie and that was it. Here we go again for the second time; first it was hitting New York, second it was L.A., just looking to keep plugging away to see what would happen.

Out of that, I ran into a job when I was at a point of sheer, total desperation. It was either handling that job or maybe doing a straight job – which was the absolute last resort. It was with David

Click the above photo for a video link Musician Geoff Smiles describes how Bernie Leadon joined The Eagles.

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Blue, and I took the job for a while.’ Felder played on Blue’s 1975 Asylum album, ‘Comin’ Back for More’ (as did Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and the three original members of the group America).

Felder again: ‘Fortunately, David was under the same management as The Eagles, and they sort of recommended me for that job, which really helped a lot. I got to know them and Graham Nash, and while I was working for David, we were opening for a Crosby & Nash tour. Their guitarist, David Lindley, became ill and was sent home, and I subbed for him for the rest of the tour. Out of the response to that and a few other things, The Eagles called me down to do “Already Gone”, when they were in the middle of recording “On the Border”, and for some reason, they liked that a whole lot and asked me to join the band.’ Felder also played slide guitar on ‘Good Day in Hell’, and thereafter became the fifth member of the band, while David Blue is the same person who wrote ‘Outlaw Man’, which was included on the ‘Desperado’ album.

The album’s opening track, ‘Already Gone’, was certainly in sharp contrast to the mood of the previous album. Written by Jack Tempchin (who had contributed ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ to the debut album) and Vietnam veteran Robb Strandlund, this was a gold-plated rocker, and was released as the first single from the album, peaking just outside the US Top 30, which was a definite commercial improvement on the pair of singles released from ‘Desperado’. Arguably one of the best tracks The Eagles ever released, the guitar work from Frey and Felder behind Frey’s excellent lead vocal made this irresistible. The flip side of the single was Randy Meisner’s ‘Is It True?’, on which the bass player also sang lead, while Frey contributed excellent slide guitar. However, this song, despite its quality, was very much an album track, although none the worse for that. The second single was ‘James Dean’, which, it may be recalled, was originally planned to be included on the ‘Desperado’ album. Written by Jackson Browne, 45

Frey, J.D. Souther and Henley, this was another frantic rocker, with Frey singing lead and Leadon playing slide guitar. It deserved far more than its peak just outside the Top 75 of the US singles chart. It’s a fitting tribute to the great movie star who was said to be ‘mean, moody and magnificent’, but who died in 1955 at the age of 24 in a car crash after only making three Hollywood movies (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant). The flip side of the single was the Henley/Frey song, ‘Good Day in Hell’, the other song on which Felder played slide, while the two songwriters shared lead vocals. Starting like a 12 bar blues, it’s propelled by an insistent shuffle beat, and is recommended. Felder is excellent.

What happened next is curious. With two chart singles, but neither getting very high, the decision was made to release one of the Glyn Johns-produced tracks, ‘Best of My Love’, as a third single. It must have amazed everyone – The Eagles, Glyn Johns, maybe Bill Szymczyk – when it topped the US singles chart at the beginning of March, 1975. Any single that tops a chart must have something going for it, although my personal preference is for the single’s B-side, the group’s sublime cover of ‘Ol’ 55’, the Tom Waits song about leading a parade driving a car of that vintage. Arguably, the best song Waits ever wrote, at least for my money, and Henley’s erstwhile Shiloh colleague; Al Perkins plays lovely pedal steel. ‘Best of My Love’ isn’t at all bad, but isn’t a personal favourite. That’s five good tracks out of six, and some of the other four have their moments.

Perhaps the best of the four is Bernie Leadon’s ‘My Man’, on which the composer sings lead, which is actually the second song on the album inspired by Gram Parsons. Although Henley suggests: ‘Actually, Bernie started writing “My Man” about Duane Allman. He and Duane used to be friends, and every time Duane would see him, he would say, “Hey, my man!” Then Gram died and sort of got written into the song as well; it’s written to both of them.’ The first song about Parsons is in fact ‘Good Day in Hell’.

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Frey explained: ‘That was written while Gram was alive. It just was a very symptomatic scene I saw at Topanga Corral, where there were a couple of girls hanging out with him just because he was Gram Parsons and nobody was telling him he was killing himself.

Nobody was a good enough friend of his to sit him down and say “Hey, you’re very talented and you’re going to waste here. Why don’t you change your way of living and give us all a break?”’

The second of the Glyn Johns-produced tracks is ‘You Never Cry Like a Lover’, which was written by J.D. Souther with Don Henley, who takes the lead vocal, but this is a good album track rather than a hit single. It was followed by the almost obligatory bluegrass track, ‘Midnight Flyer’, on which Randy Meisner sings lead. The song was the work of Nashville songwriter Paul Craft, who also wrote the memorably titled song ‘Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life’, which was a 1976 country chart hit for Bobby Bare. When asked why this album included three ‘outside’ songs written by people who were apparently not within the group’s inner circle (which included Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, etc.), Henley explained: ‘At that point, we weren’t opposed to recording a good song if we found one. We weren’t bent on writing all of our own tunes, because we were still very busy and going through a lot of changes. If we found a song that was better than one we had, if we needed a particular kind of song, and didn’t have that written, then we would go and find it somewhere else, because we had deadlines to meet.’ Oddly enough, the remaining song is the album’s title track, which was written by Henley, Leadon and Frey, a combination which rarely occurred on an Eagles album. There’s very little country about this track, but it has a certain unpredictability which is interesting. Overall, ‘On the Border’ is a personal favourite of the first three Eagles albums, and ranks in my top three. It also did the trick commercially, becoming the first Eagles album to reach the US Top 20 and go gold – which led to two its two predecessors also being certified gold.

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Ascent to Superstardom

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n 21 June, 1975, The Eagles were just one of several major acts who performed at London’s Wembley Stadium before an audience of 100,000, at an event billed as ‘Midsummer Madness.’ The Eagles were certainly not top of the bill, which was headlined by Elton John, who, perhaps unwisely, performed his entire ‘Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy’ album, which had been released only two weeks before, and with which the vast majority of the audience was totally unfamiliar. Elton John hit the stage after The Beach Boys had performed a set of wall-to-wall classic hits that delighted the crowd as the sun was setting on a wonderful summer’s day, and before them, The Eagles had also won over the huge crowd with a set that included songs from their just completed fourth album, ‘One of These Nights’.

This was the album which confirmed that The Eagles were not simply contenders or pretenders, but had actually become the genuine article – one of the biggest bands in the world. Bill Szymczyk was again the producer, and virtually the entire album was comprised of songs written by group members, with the 49

exception of the final track, ‘I Wish You Peace’, which was credited to Bernie Leadon and his girlfriend at the time, Patti Davis. This might have been acceptable, except that Leadon insisted that she be allowed in the recording studio with him, in a manner very similar to that of John Lennon insisting that Yoko Ono should always be with him. Davis, by the way, was the daughter of Ronald Reagan, then governor of California and later president of the United States, although father and daughter didn’t see eye to eye on several significant matters. Don Henley was reputedly furious, and told a reporter that he didn’t think the song was worthy of inclusion on the album, but that he had accepted the track in the interests of internal harmony among band members. While one can see Henley’s point, ‘I Wish You Peace’ can hardly be termed bad – it’s a simple ballad reminiscent of the pre-rock big band vocalists – but perhaps it does seem a little bizarre as the final track of an album by a band making a very strong play for massive commercial success.

In truth, Bernie Leadon was clearly not happy with the way the band’s internal politics were sidelining both him and Randy Meisner. This would be the last studio album by The Eagles in which he participated, although one of his three songwriting credits on the album was for ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’, a curious instrumental lasting over six and a half minutes that, to the surprise of many, later turned up as the theme music for the televised adaptation of the Douglas Adams book, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a fact of which Bill Szymczyk was unaware: ‘And that’s my favourite track on the album – that’s amazing. I’m glad somebody picked up on it. It was a fairly spacey record, and I had quite a bit to do with that, because, by now, everybody knows there was this big rift on the album, and Bernie wanted to do this instrumental. Nobody else in the band was in favour of it, but I thought it was really nice, so we did it. It was a banjo theme and we put strings on it, and some backwards guitar, and some space 50

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sounds and stuff like that. I really enjoyed that cut, but I liked our original title for it better: “Journey of the Sorcerer” seems a little bit wimpy for me, because our working title was “Fellini in Florida”.’

Despite the internal disagreements, Frey maintained that every group member participated in the recording of the track: ‘We all played. Randy played bass, Don played drums, I played acoustic guitar, Bernie played banjo, Felder played all the Martin Denny Echoplex kind of whoop, whoop, whoop.’ David Bromberg, who enjoyed some success in the 1970s with seven US hit albums, although none of which reached the Top 100 of the US chart, played fiddles on the track. Henley added: ‘Those songs, “Journey of the Sorcerer” and “I Wish You Peace”, were Bernie’s songs, and he wanted to do them, so we did those songs. Everybody foresaw down the line an eventual departure by Bernie.’ Szymczyk confirmed: ‘Mr. Natural would go to the beach and leave the rest of us to do the tracks. I remember one instance when we were at the Record Plant in L.A., listening back to some tracks we had done the night before. We were trying to decide which of the bunch of takes we were going to use, and everybody had their opinion. I asked Bernie what he thought, and he got off the couch where he was lying and said “I think I’m going surfing”; and he walked out of the studio and we didn’t see him for three days.’

By this time, Leadon had found himself more and more sidelined by Frey and Henley, not only in decision making, but also musically; his was the major country influence, and when Glyn Johns, his prime musical supporter, had departed, to be replaced by Bill Szymczyk, whose task was to emphasise the group’s rock credentials, it must have become clear to Leadon that his future in the group was limited. There’s an interesting passage in Marc Eliot’s ‘To the Limit – The Untold Story of The Eagles’ (Little Brown, 1997), in which he quotes Randy Meisner on how, during the group’s early years, each of them had a nickname given to them by the others: ‘Mine was Chipmunk or 52

China Doll, ’cause I always smiled. My teeth would stick out and my eyes would slant up. I was also The Cherry On Top, because I had the high, clean voice and The Teflon Throat was another nickname of mine. Henley was Lobster Bat Ears because he got sunburned a lot and his ears really stuck out, Frey was Mandrill Roach, because when he’d have hangovers, his eyes would get so dark, or Sportacus, because of his preoccupation with athletics.

Bernie, who really didn’t do drugs, was Marty Martian, because he was real brighteyed all the time. We’d always think of him with little antennae sticking out, like “My Favourite Martian”.’ Perhaps now it becomes a little clearer why the credit on ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’ reads ‘Strings by The Royal Martian Orchestra’. Although why it also says the track was ‘Recorded “In Root”’ is not known.

Leadon’s third songwriting credit on the album was for ‘Hollywood Waltz’, co-written with his brother, Tom Leadon, who had played in Mudcrutch, the band in which Tom Petty played before forming The Heartbreakers. Here’s what Wikipedia says about Tom: ‘Leadon left Mudcrutch in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles, following in the footsteps of older brother Bernie, who had recently formed the Eagles with Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley. The Eagles were touring at the time in support of their debut LP, “Eagles”, and Tom Leadon guest starred several times with the band, playing electric lead guitar. He also played bass in Linda Ronstadt’s band, and in 1976 joined the countryrock band Silver, who had a Top 40 hit the same year with “Wham-Bam”.’ Another member of Silver was keyboard player Brent Mydland, who went on to join The Grateful Dead, but died of a drug overdose in 1990. Wikipedia again: ‘In 1975 the Eagles recorded one of Tom Leadon’s original songs. Frey and Henley re-wrote most of the lyrics, but preserved Leadon’s original melody and subject matter, including the opening line which was slightly altered from “Springtime in Topanga Canyon” to “Springtime, the acacias are blooming”. They changed the song’s title to “Hollywood 53

Waltz” and released the song on their “One of These Nights” LP. The final version of the song is credited to Tom Leadon, Bernie Leadon, Frey, and Henley. Later that year, Buck Owens released his own version. The song is considered one of the prettiest of the band’s songs, and included an early use of a synthesizer.’ The synth was played by Albhy Galuten, who worked with The Bee Gees on million selling tracks like ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Stayin’ Alive’ on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and who also worked on Eric Clapton’s ‘461 Ocean Boulevard’ and other Clapton albums.

‘Hollywood Waltz’ is indeed a melodic song and possibly could be said to have been the early inspiration for the title song of the next Eagles album, ‘Hotel California’.

However, none of the tracks already mentioned were released as singles, either because they were too long, or were considered unsuitable. Each of the other six tracks on the album were released on singles, three A-sides and three B-sides. The first of these was

Click the above photo for a video link Musician Geoff Smiles explains how Bernie Leadon’s musical style gelled with the Eagles.

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the album’s title track, ‘One of These Nights’, written by Frey and Henley, with Henley’s lead vocal and Don Felder’s lead guitar. It became the group’s second consecutive US Number One single, and their very first UK hit, almost reaching the Top 20. Prior to this, the group’s only UK chart successes had been when ‘On the Border’ made the Top 30 of the album chart for two months in the spring of 1974, and when the ‘Desperado’ album had also charted for two months in 1975, a couple of years after it was released.

Were the Brits slow to catch on? Yes we were! The flip-side of the ‘One of These Nights’ single was ‘Visions’, very much a rock song co-written by Don Felder and Don Henley, on which Felder took lead vocals and lead guitar. Not a masterpiece, but not bad.

Three months after ‘One of These Nights’, the next single was another song written by Henley and Frey, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’, on which Frey sang lead, Bernie Leadon played lead guitar, and Jim Ed Norman, Henley’s erstwhile coleague in Shiloh, played piano. This is a classic ‘cheatin’’ song, and on the back of two chart-topping singles, this almost made it three in a row, and was deservedly a hit. In the UK, it equaled the success of its predecessor by peaking just outside the Top 20, while in the US, it remained at Number Two for two weeks, but just failed to reach the very top. Its flipside, ‘Too Many Hands’, which was co-written by Randy Meisner, who also sings lead, and Don Felder, who shares lead guitar duties with Frey, while Don Henley plays tablas, is in all honesty an album track which should probably not be regarded as anything more.

Three months after ‘Lyin’ Eyes’, a third single was excerpted from the ‘One of These Nights’ album, which in my opinion was superior to both its predecessors. ‘Take It to the Limit’ again featured Randy Meisner’s lead vocals, on a song he co-wrote with Henley and Frey, and on which Jim Ed Norman again plays piano. When this song was performed live, it produced a massive reaction, as Don Henley predicted when The Eagles toured in the UK in 1977: ‘I don’t know about over here in England, but in the 55

United States, Randy always gets about a three minute standing ovation for that, which is the biggest ovation in the set.’ Bill Szymczyk reflected: ‘Recording Randy’s voice when we recorded that song took a bit of time, but his voice was perfectly suited to that. Around that time, I was really influencing The Eagles, insofar as my greatest love in music had been black music and rhythm & blues, and I had been turning those guys on to all these records, especially the ones on the Philadelphia International label. The tune of “Take It to the Limit” is based on “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes – I told them to listen to that record, because it was really good. So Randy started to write a real laid-back three chorded thing, and we put the strings on it. I like that record even though it took a little time for Randy to do it – he’s got a great voice.’ ‘Take It to the Limit’ became the first UK Top 20 single for The Eagles (and wasn’t far from being their first UK Top 10 hit), while in the US, although it charted for nearly six months (far longer than either ‘One of These Nights’ or ‘Lyin’ Eyes’), it just failed to make the Top 3. The B-side of the single, ‘After the Thrill Is Gone’, featured both Frey and Henley, who wrote the song together, as co-lead vocalists, while Don Felder played lead guitar on what is again, like the flipsides of the previous two singles, little more than an acceptable album track. It is worth noting that none of the six tracks released in single form involved Bernie Leadon as a songwriter.

‘One of These Nights’ was the fourth Eagles album, and by far their most successful up to that point in their career, becoming their first to top the US album chart, remaining at Number One for five weeks during a chart residency lasting well over a year, and also becoming their first album to reach the UK Top 10. Despite all the aggravation during the recording of this album, the group was enjoying immense success.

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World Domination

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espite having reached the highest point in their career thus far, with both a chart-topping albums and singles, The Eagles had a major problem at the end of 1975.

Founder member Bernie Leadon was unhappy with several aspects of the band’s progress, and it had become clear during the recording of the ‘One of These Nights’ album that he would not remain a member of the group for much longer. Finding a replacement was actually far less of a problem than it might have seemed, because what seemed to be the perfect replacement, Joe Walsh, was not only available, but was even a client of the same management company as The Eagles.

Don Henley later noted: ‘Everybody foresaw down the line an eventual departure by Bernie. It was in the back of everybody’s mind what to do – would we continue as a four piece or add a fifth piece? We were even doing some stuff with Walsh before Bernie left, and Walsh had jammed with us, even in London here, when we played Wembley Stadium. A few other things had been going on and that relationship had been developing, so when it reached a point where Bernie finally made the last commitment, the obvious, 57

most logical choice that had naturally progressed to that point was Joe.’ Walsh’s career up to that point had been successful, as we shall see, but first, it’s only reasonable to mention what happened to Bernie Leadon after he left The Eagles. His first album on his own account was 1977’s ‘Natural Progressions’, on which he shared billing with Michael Georgiades, a singer/songwriter who had previously worked with Johnny Rivers. The album was produced

by Glyn Johns. In 1985, Leadon joined ex-Burritos colleague Chris Hillman, ubiquitous pedal steel star Al Perkins (previously in Shiloh with Don Henley), Elvis Presley’s bass player Jerry Scheff, and David Mansfield from The Alpha Band in a group with the unlikely name of Ever Call Ready, which released an album on A&M in 1985. In 1987, Leadon joined The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, appearing on two albums, ‘Hold On’ (1987) and ‘Workin’ Band’ (1988), and after a long hiatus, released another solo album, ‘Mirror’, in 2003, which was produced by Ethan Johns, the son of Glyn Johns. In between, he played on scores of albums by all the right sort of people, such as Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris, Stephen Stills, John Hiatt, Nanci Griffith, Green On Red and others, and was also part of the Run C&W group. Run C&W was said to be ‘a novelty country project, but it has nothing to do with the rap group its name comes from; instead, group members Crashen Burns, Wash Burns, Side Burns and Rug Burns transform vintage soul classics into bluegrassstyle twang. The Burns Brothers are of course fictional creations; the group is actually composed of ex-Eagle Bernie Leadon on banjo, exAmazing Rhythm Ace Russell Smith on lead vocals, and Nashville songwriting pros Vince Melamed and Jim Photoglo on various instruments. The group debuted for MCA in 1993 with “Into the Twangy-First Century”, concentrating mostly on humorous rearrangements but also offering the occasional parody, original song and jokey lyrical aside. “Row vs. Wade” followed in 1995, after which the group went their separate ways.’ So Bernie Leadon hasn’t been idle since leaving The Eagles.

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His replacement, Joe Walsh, was born in 1947, in Kansas, to a mother who was a classical pianist and encouraged her son to play musical instruments. Apart from the guitar, Walsh also dabbled with piano, clarinet, trombone and oboe, before joining his first band, The G-Clefs. ‘That was my high school band. We had a drummer, a guitar player and another guitar player. That was the band, and we played all kinds of parties and proms and bar mitzvahs, whatever. I don’t know where the others are these days – they were high school friends.’ Next came The Nomads.

‘Actually, The Nomads were pretty good. We had Beatle jackets and black ties. I played bass in that band and I had my little bass amp with my 12 inch speaker. We did all kinds of English things and Rolling Stones songs and all that. That was it right to the end of high school.’ After that, Walsh attended Kent State University in Ohio. (Neil Young wrote the song ‘Ohio’ about an infamous incident at Kent State. In May, 1970, troops from the

Click the above photo for a video link Music Journalist Joel McIver discusses what Joe Walsh brought to the Eagles.

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Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students and wounded nine others who were protesting about the American invasion of Cambodia. Walsh had attended the university some time before that, of course.)

At the university, he was a member of a band called The Measles. ‘Yeah, The Measles was the college band. I lasted three semesters in college and decided that was it. I happened to stay through the summer playing downtown with The Measles, and two things happened. My girlfriend stopped talking to me and for the first time I was on my own, my parents weren’t supporting me anymore. So there I was, at 18 or 19, just totally self-dependent and made about twenty bucks a night and all the beer you can drink. That lasted for a couple of years – we just played downtown all the time and that way I got to know everybody in Kent.’

Which was where he met Jim Fox, a drummer and vocalist who was the leader of a band known as The James Gang. Walsh recalled: ‘There were all these rival bands. The James Gang was really the rival band in Cleveland, we were down around Akron, and Joey Vitale was in a rival band down in Canton. You know, we really didn’t talk to each other very much. I wasn’t friends with Vitale for a long time because we used to try to steal each other’s gigs and stuff. But The Measles fell apart – one of the guys decided to go in the army for some reason, and the group just fell apart. After a while, Jimmy asked me to join The James Gang up in Cleveland, which I did.’

Bill Szymczyk, who was working as a house producer at ABC Records, had enjoyed some success working with the great B.B. King. Szymczyk, who produced B.B.’s first US Top 20 hit single, ‘The Thrill Is Gone’, in 1969, recalled: ‘All the time I was doing those albums with B.B., I was going out to Cleveland to see some friends of mine who lived there, and I saw this band out there, a three piece band that sounded like a ten piece. I said “Boy, that guitar player’s good”, and it was Joe Walsh playing with The James 60

Gang.’ Walsh: ‘I never played lead up till then. I played rhythm, played organ on “Louie Louie” and sang “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”, that was my highlight of the evening. The James Gang went from five people down to three. It was instantaneous because two guys decided not to come, and we didn’t know that till we showed up at the concert. So we had three people and just decided to go ahead and do it because we’d driven up to Detroit.

We went on as three people and pulled it off pretty good. Over that next year or so, I really got some chops up playing lead guitar.

The school of thought in the bands I’d always been in was that if you played a record note for note, that’s the way to do it, so I never even bothered to improvise or anything.’

Szymczyk: ‘I went back to ABC and told them that I wanted to sign this band. They said “What? Now you want to sign bands?

We’ve got enough on the roster” and I said, “That’s true, but I don’t like any of those acts. Let me have this guy and his band”, so they agreed to sign The James Gang for a $1,700 advance, which was Walsh’s first contract – $1,700 which the three of them split – and we made “Yer Album”, the first James Gang LP.’ Walsh tells the story slightly differently: ‘After I met Jimmy (Fox), Bill Szymczyk met us through a friend. He had just signed up with ABC and wanted to produce a rock ‘n’ roll group. He got us a record contract for $1,700 – that’s what we got – and we bought a van with that money and started playing all over. Over the next year we did that first James Gang album, and that was the first rock album he’d done that got any recognition.’

At which point, the great Pete Townshend (of The Who) entered the picture. Walsh: ‘That was just before our second album, “James Gang Rides Again”. We had played with Pete in Pittsburgh because our manager was the promoter of The Who concert, and he put us on the show. It was a strange combination of things. They happened to come early, one of those few times a band member will go out and see who the act is playing in front of 61

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them. It was the three piece group and we were heavy metal, you know, this and that, and I guess Pete kind of identified, so he took me under his wing there. He invited us to come over to England and play.’ Townshend was a great inspiration to Walsh. ‘Yeah, he was amazing. He really talked to me a lot and helped me and introduced me to a bunch of people. You know we got so much mileage off his saying the nice things he did about The James Gang, especially over here. Now we could come over and play the tour and all, that saved us maybe a year of hard work.’

When his time with The James Gang ended in 1971, Walsh was invited to join Humble Pie, the theoretical supergroup which initially featured Steve Marriott (ex-Small Faces) and Peter Frampton (ex-The Herd), as Frampton’s replacement. ‘Yeah, I got a call from Steve Marriott and almost went, but I couldn’t swing it and my manager wasn’t real happy about it. He didn’t want me to leave The James Gang at all. I was young and didn’t know how to come over here. I didn’t know anything about it and I had to do it all myself and it just didn’t work. Almost though!

Another six months and I quit The James Gang because it had been together for three or four years and I wanted to do something else. I moved to Colorado, went and hung out with Szymczyk.

Right around that period was when I did Barnstorm.’ This was when Walsh started leading his own band, Barnstorm, with his erstwhile rival from another Ohio band, Joe Vitale, on drums and the then unknown Kenny Passarelli on bass. ‘Tommy Bolin, who had played with Kenny at High School, gave me his number. He said “There’s this guy who’s up in Canada. He’s real good, but he’s nuts.” So I called Kenny. He had just got his wisdom teeth extracted, so he didn’t even remember that I called. I had to call him again a week later, and he drove down in his ’37 Chevy with an upright bass in the back seat, non-stop from Vancouver, and said, “Here I am!” I said to him, “This is the drummer. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got.”’

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Despite his success with The James Gang, it was a problem for Walsh to get a record deal for Barnstorm. ‘Yeah, it was. I bumped into a bunch of stuff from leaving The James Gang. It was hard, it took a long time and I didn’t know what I was doing either, half the time.’ Eventually, ‘Barnstorm’ appeared in the autumn of 1972, spending six months in the US album chart but peaking outside the Top 75. It was produced by Szymczyk, who recalled: ‘It was the very first album done at Caribou, which belonged to James Guercio, who was Chicago’s producer and he owned this huge ranch, about eight thousand feet up, near Nederland, Colorado, which is about an hour and a half out of Denver. At that time, he was getting into the movie business, so he wasn’t around the studio at all, which was still being built. So I met him and said, “Look, I’m living round here too, and I’d like to make records here, and I can rent it from you while you make your movie.” It was on the second floor of a barn, and it was so new that the bottom floor still had dirt floors, but if you went up to the second floor, you were in electronics city, with best top of the line equipment.’

During 1973, Szymczyk and Walsh again worked together on a second Barnstorm album with the curious title of ‘The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get’, about which Walsh says: ‘It was something I thought of late at night, and it makes sense if you think about it.’ The album was a significant success, reaching the Top 10 of the US chart and being certified gold. By this time, the group had been augmented by the addition of two keyboard players, as Walsh explained: ‘I didn’t want to play with another guitar player, I didn’t find anyone I could relate to – I was still using Marshall stacks and stuff, and I thought keyboards would be much better.’ The album included a song that was widely regarded as Walsh’s signature tune prior to his joining The Eagles, ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, which was a US Top 30 hit single. ‘I always felt that was special, even before it was complete – we had recorded that before I knew what the words were going to be, but I was very 64

proud of it. The words came about when I got fed up with feeling sorry for myself, and I wanted to justify and feel good about leaving The James Gang, relocating, going for it on a survival basis.

I wanted to say “Hey, whatever this is, I’m positive and I’m proud”, and the words just came out of feeling that way, rather than writing a song out of remorse.’ After a lengthy tour with Barnstorm (330 dates in a year) the band split up.

In 1975, Walsh made what was effectively his first solo album, ‘So What’, on which he used a synthesizer as well as playing guitar. ‘I had one or two rare guitars that I had come across, and I sent one over to Pete Townshend and he liked it a lot. I think he played it on “Who’s Next”. All of a sudden, I got a package at my house, and it was a synthesizer, a kind of “thank you” from Pete, so I plugged it in and stayed in the room for about three weeks straight! I got into synthesizers, and I have subtly used them from “So What” on – not in the context of electronic albums like “Switched On Bach”, but every once in a while underneath the guitars you can hear synthesizer.’ An example on ‘So What’ is the Walsh version of Ravel’s ‘Pavane’. ‘It’s one of my favourite pieces of classical music. Maurice Ravel was an impressionist musician, and “Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty” is part of “The Mother Goose Suite” and I think it’s very haunting. My version is all synthesizer.’

‘So What’ also included help from Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner, and within a year, Walsh had joined them in The Eagles. Walsh met The Eagles when they were being managed by the same company. ‘I met Irving Azoff during the Barnstorm period and expressed to him my concern that I wasn’t getting much help from my management or the record company, although at that point, he was in no position to do anything about it. He was also from the Midwest and liked my music and my general attitude about things, and I told Irving that I wanted him to handle my affairs, so he became my manager. Around that time, I was just fed up with a solo career. Irving met The Eagles, who were 65

kind of disillusioned with their management. They also had some internal friction, and The Eagles asked Irving to represent them.

The guys in The Eagles helped me with “So What”, and I went to some late night jams with them, when they were working on “On the Border”, and just helped out as a guitar player while they were writing some of that. Later, Bernie Leadon decided that he didn’t want to be in the group anymore – they had a kind of stereotype of “sons of the desert”; as the sun goes down over the banana trees and the cactus, you know, and they secretly wanted to rock ‘n’ roll a bit more. We got together and talked about it for quite a while and the chemistry was really there, but they were scared to death to replace anybody in the band, and I was scared to death to join a band, but it worked out.’

Before that, during 1975, Walsh recruited a band of session musicians, some of whom had played on ‘So What’ for the gig at Wembley Stadium on Midsummer’s Day 1975, which eventually produced a live album titled ‘You Can’t Argue with a Sick Mind’, on which Felder, Frey and Henley participated.

Finally, we get to The Eagles and ‘Hotel California’. This was the pinnacle of the group’s career before they broke up (for the first time) in 1981. First, statistics: the album, which was released in the spring of 1976, spent over two years in the US chart, which it topped for eight weeks. It was certified nine times platinum for sales of over nine million copies. It must be mentioned here that earlier in 1976, a compilation titled ‘Eagles/ Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975’ had topped the US chart for five weeks and was certified twelve times platinum, so the group was following up a mega-success. It later became clear that completing this masterwork took a very long time, as producer Szymczyk confirmed: ‘Yeah, it did take a long time. But I have always considered that we went from the “B” list to the “A” list with “One of These Nights” – that was when people began to think, “Oh, these guys are for real, they’re going to be around for a while”, and 66

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after we’d taken six months to do “One of These Nights”, then we took about nine months to a year to make “Hotel California”, and that was with Walsh. I think the expectancy was also exaggerated by the fact that Joe had joined the band – that brought all his fans, who all of a sudden became Eagles fans, and some of them probably weren’t even quite sure who The Eagles were, and thought that The Eagles was Joe’s new band. Even to this day [1980], when they play Cleveland, you might as well bill it as Joe Walsh & the Eagles, because in Cleveland, his home town, he’s still bigger than The Eagles.’

The album included two US Number one singles and a third that went Top 20. The first one was ‘New Kid In Town’, written by J.D. Souther, Henley and Frey, who sang lead. Meisner is credited with something listed as guitarone, while Felder plays lead guitar and Walsh keyboards. Its flip side, ‘Victim of Love’, was written

by Felder, Souther, Henley and Frey. The main side is a pleasant

Click the above photo for a video link Journalist Chris Charlesworth reminisces about ‘Eagles – Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975’.

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enough ballad, and presumably the guitarone does the three note bass riff which occurs in the chorus. My personal view is that this track is not outstanding, although it is meticulously produced and Felder’s guitar is excellent, but Walsh’s keyboards are mixed very low. OK, but no more than that, and definitely not worthy of topping the US chart, although it did. ‘Victim of Love’ is a title that Elton John used for a song of his from around the same time, but the song here is probably superior, in that several Eagles shine – Henley’s archetypal lead vocal is excellent, as are Felder’s lead guitar and Walsh’s slide. For my money, a much better track than the A-side – edgy and uptempo.

After that success – ‘New Kid In Town’ had become only the fourth Eagles single to make the UK chart, and their second UK Top 20 single – the follow-up single was the album’s title track, which is arguably the group’s most enduring song. Credited to Felder, Henley and Frey as songwriters (in that order, although whether the order is significant is not known), the song is an epic which has been interpreted in many ways, although all seem to feel that it concerns the magnetic qualities of The Golden State – as the song’s lyrics note, ‘you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave’. This time, topping the US singles chart was well deserved, and it became the group’s first UK Top 10 single, and may remain their only single to reach that position in the UK. With another great Henley lead vocal, more excellent guitar work from Felder and Walsh, this single deserved to sell a million, which it did. Its flipside, ‘Pretty Maids… All In a Row’, was written by Walsh and his friend Joe Vitale (see above), and is OK. Walsh was also one of the writers of the third single from the album, ‘Life In the Fast Lane’, which he co-wrote with Henley and Frey.

Henley sings lead, Frey plays clarinet, Walsh plays lead guitar on a much more hard rock track, which just failed to make the US Top 10, while the single’s B-side, an epic titled ‘The Last Resort’, is a stately, regretful ballad lasting over seven minutes written by 69

Frey and Henley, with the latter’s impressive lead vocal recounting a story which is maybe about the moral decline of the United States. This perhaps should not have been released in single form, as it brings a splendid album to a dramatic conclusion. Perhaps a more appropriate B-side to ‘Life In the Fast Lane’ might have been ‘Try and Love Again’, the only Randy Meisner song on the album, which seems the least significant song included, although ‘Wasted Time’, apparently the first song written by Henley and Frey for the album, is actually one of the most important songs, as the group seemed to agree, by including an instrumental reprise of the song arranged by Jim Ed Norman as the track following the normal recording of the song. Again sung by Henley, this first appearance of the song makes it seem as regretful as ‘The Last Resort’, although it’s probably about the end of a relationship rather than the decline of a civilization.

Overall, ‘Hotel California’ was the pinnacle of the career of The Eagles, after which another founder member left the group, although it would continue for a little longer, as we shall see.

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Slow Descent

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uch like Bernie Leadon after ‘One of These Nights’, Randy Meisner decided to leave The Eagles after ‘Hotel California’. It was almost certainly a combination of factors. The ‘Hotel California’ tour had been very tiring for all concerned, and as the Henley/Frey axis became more dominant in group politics, Meisner must surely have been feeling more and more excluded from decisions, not least from songwriting – it is undoubtedly true that songwriters make much more money from a song than performers, and Meisner was the least prolific writer in the band. After Leadon’s departure, Meisner no doubt felt more and more isolated, and while he didn’t appear to be on bad terms with Felder and Walsh, they seemed to have more influence with Frey and Henley than he did. The pressure under which he found himself was increased because his voice was put under strain by the high notes he had to reach during ‘Take It to the Limit’, and eventually, despite the obvious fact that he would inevitably be earning less money, he decided to leave, having been apparently sent to Coventry by the other band members. It was a sad end to a very successful period for the band.

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Ironically, when Meisner had left Poco in 1969, he had been replaced by Timothy B. Schmit, who also replaced him in The Eagles. Schmit had started his musical career as part of a folk trio, Tim, Tom & Ron, in the early 1960s, but changed the group name and musical style in 1963 to become The Contenders, a surf group.

When surf music lost its popularity, they added a drummer and became The New Breed, a group that attempted without much success to provide American competition during the so called ‘English invasion’. At the start of the 1970s, they changed the group name to Glad, and made an album which was produced by the late Terry Melcher (look him up in Google, because he had a very interesting history), but Glad got nowhere and Schmit joined Poco in early 1970 and remained with them until he got the call to join The Eagles in the autumn of 1977. Sadly for him, the band was starting to fall apart.

Before we leave Randy Meisner, he embarked on a solo career, although with little success. After an eponymous solo album in 1978, which included ‘Bad Man’, a song written by Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther – the latter contributed backing vocals to three tracks on the album – Meisner’s only songwriting credit on the album was for his solo remake of ‘Take It to the Limit’. 1980 brought ‘One More Song’, an album on which he largely collaborated with singer/songwriters Eric Kaz and Wendy Waldman. The album, which made the Top 50 of the US chart, included two US hit singles, ‘Deep Inside My Heart’ (on which Kim Carnes was backing vocalist) and ‘Hearts On Fire’, while Frey and Henley contributed backing vocals to the album’s title track, which was written by Jack Tempchin. In 1982, he made another album titled ‘Randy Meisner’, which included a US Top 30 single, ‘Never Been In Love’.

In two separate books written about The Eagles and published in 1998, ‘To the Limit – The Untold Story of The Eagles’ by Marc Eliot and ‘The Long Run – The Story of The Eagles’ by Marc 72

Shapiro (Omnibus Press), similar claims are made that at one point during the ‘Hotel California’ tour, after an altercation with Frey and/or Henley, Meisner complained to Walsh and Felder that he was unhappy, and that the suggestion was made that the nucleus of a new band should be Meisner, Walsh and Felder, but it seems unlikely that Walsh could have seriously considered such a combo, as he had been the latest recruit, and was less prone to the domination of the Frey/Henley axis, although Felder might have considered the proposition a little longer.

He didn’t, of course. And the new line-up of Frey, Henley, Felder, Walsh and Schmit started work on their next album. They were on a hiding to nothing, because their attempts to better ‘Hotel California’ were doomed to failure, to some extent because musical tastes had changed in the almost three years which separated the two albums. The Asylum label which had done so well with ‘Hotel California’ was understandably anxious for

Click the above photo for a video link Geoff Smiles explains the difficulty the Eagles found in following ‘Hotel California’.

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new product to sell, but all the group came up with was a 1978 Christmas single, a remake of ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’, a song recorded many years before by Charles Brown, a singing R&B piano player from Texas. Obscure, arguably, but it made the Top 20 of the US singles chart. Brown’s original version had peaked just outside the Top 20 of the US R&B chart and similarly just outside the Top 75 of the US pop chart in 1960, eight years after the last of his previous dozen US R&B hits. But this was only a side show to keep Asylum quiet for a few more months.

Producer Bill Szymczyk said of the ‘The Long Run’ (as the next album was titled) that it was ‘the long one – even though I may be meticulous, for that album, I considered I was working fast and the band was slow. But we started “The Long Run” with the intention of putting out a double album, and as a result, although previously we would sometimes have a track or two left over at the end of an album, for that one, we had six or eight left over, because we were already 18 months into it, and we still hadn’t finished it. If it had been a double LP, we might still be working on it today [1981].

And that kind of process doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for me to do anything else, although I haven’t been working any less. In direct contrast, we knocked out the Eagles live album in a month – the big difference, of course, is that everybody knows the songs up front, and we don’t have to wait two months for somebody to write words for the last chorus of a particular song.’ ‘The Long Run’, it must be said, took far too long for an album of its variable quality, because it was miles behind ‘Hotel California’ in almost every respect. The first single, ‘Heartache Tonight’, was one of only three songs on the album which were of the expected standard, and the single topped the US chart to become their fifth (and last to date) chart-topper. The slightly odd thing about the song was that it was credited to the songwriting quartet of Henley, Frey, Bob Seger and J.D. Souther. Seger and Frey were old friends, and not long after completing ‘The Long Run’, Szymczyk produced tracks 75

by Bob Seger. Frey sings lead on ‘Heartache Tonight’, which was certified gold for a million sales, but it arguably sounds more like a track from a Joe Walsh album – Walsh delivers a slide guitar solo – than one by The Eagles. Its flip side, which also appears on the album, is the very strange and funereally paced ‘Teenage Jail’, written by Henley, Frey and Souther, on which Frey makes funny noises with a synthesizer. Not a highlight. The second single was the title track, ‘The Long Run’, written by Frey and Henley, with the former singing lead, Walsh on slide guitar and Felder on organ.

This is basically an OK pop song, but hardly the title track of an epic album – which was what ‘The Long Run’ was supposed to be. The flip side was again a comparative throwaway. How likely was it that anyone would be interested in a track called ‘The Disco Strangler’, even if it had been written by Felder, Henley and Frey?

That second single made the US Top 10, as did the third single, ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’, the first Eagles single to feature Schmit as lead vocalist. Schmit wrote it with Frey and Henley, and it’s a gentle ballad that arguably goes on a bit too long. Its flipside was another weird one: ‘The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks’ featured backing vocals by The Monstertones, featuring Jimmy Buffett, who had been the opening act for earlier tours by The Eagles. On the LP, ‘Teenage Jail’ runs straight into ‘The Greeks’, the album’s penultimate track, and after two such disasters, many might decide to reject and eject its final track, which would be a mistake, as ‘The Sad Café’, written by Henley, Frey, Walsh and Souther, is much more like earlier triumphs, and is decorated with a lengthy and impressive saxophone solo by David Sanborn. According to Marc Eliot’s book, this excellent song was written about the sad fate of the famous Los Angeles venue, The Troubadour, where The Eagles had effectively formed all those years ago. Henley is quoted as saying that the mention in the song’s lyrics of the tracks being gone refers to the fact that in its glory days, the club on Santa Monica Boulevard was close to railroad tracks which ran along the middle 76

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of the road, but which disappeared in the name of progress. If there had been more songs like ‘The Sad Café’, ‘The Long Run’ could have been a much better album. Which leaves three tracks on the album still to be mentioned: ‘In the City’, was written by Walsh with Barry De Vorzon, a movie soundtrack writer, and was featured in the 1979 feature movie, The Warriors, which, to be quite frank, did not include any name familiar to me in its cast – which may be my problem, of course. ‘King of Hollywood’, written by Henley and Frey, who share lead vocals, lasts over six minutes, and is a musical version of the well-known ‘casting couch’ scenario, in which young starlets were told that they could improve their chances of success by granting sexual favours to the influential people who made the big decisions in the Hollywood movie industry. The track is decorated with three guitar solos, the first by Frey, the second by Felder and the third by Walsh, but in all honesty, this is just another album track. A similar stratagem was used for the remaining track, ‘Those Shoes’, which was written by Felder, Henley and Frey, and appears to be about an exhibitionist; Felder and Walsh both take guitar solos using a ‘talk box’, but ultimately, this gimmick doesn’t rescue the track from mediocrity.

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Grounded

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ill Szymczyk has already mentioned that after the recording marathon of ‘The Long Run’, the assembly of the double album, ‘Eagles Live’, was much more straightforward. The double live album had become a very popular method of completing an act’s commitments to its record label in the 1970s, and for some acts, such as Peter Frampton – although ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ was not necessarily a contractual farewell – the double live album became by far the most successful release. However, this did not happen with The Eagles, although ‘Eagles Live’ remained in the US album chart for six months and was certified platinum. Perhaps it might have done better had not ‘The Long Run’ been such an anti-climax after the massive success of ‘Hotel California’, but it was clear to even fans of the band that The Eagles were falling apart, and a final big pay day with a live album was a better way to break up than simply stopping dead.

Most of the live album was recorded at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium during a week of gigs at the end of July, 1980, which had been specially arranged for that purpose. This was the climax 79

of the tour following ‘The Long Run’, which apparently had been only undertaken to ensure that the final studio album continued to sell. However, when the live album eventually surfaced a few weeks before Christmas 1980, it also included four tracks recorded during the ‘Hotel California’ tour almost four years earlier. The choice of songs was predictable, although two Number One singles, ‘Best of My Love’ and ‘One of These Nights’, were not included.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the emphasis was on songs from ‘The Long Run’ and ‘Hotel California’. The former album provided ‘Heartache Tonight’, ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ and ‘The Long Run’ itself, while ‘Hotel California’’s title track opened the live album, which also included ‘New Kid In Town’, ‘Wasted Time’ and ‘Life In the Fast Lane’. ‘Desperado’ was represented by the title track, an instrumental snatch of the ‘Doolin-Dalton’ reprise and ‘Saturday Night’, the last of which was recorded in 1980, whereas the other two ‘Desperado’ tracks were captured in 1976 at The Forum in L.A., as was a good version of ‘Take It to the Limit’, which therefore features Randy Meisner.

One of the most surprising aspects of ‘Eagles Live’ was that Joe Walsh was so well represented. Apart from ‘Life In the Fast Lane’, which he wrote and on which he played lead guitar, the album also included Walsh’s 1978 solo hit single, ‘Life’s Been Good’, and his 1980 solo hit, ‘All Night Long’, the latter having been featured in the movie, Urban Cowboy, and, with its false ending, recorded at Long Beach Arena in Los Angeles. Probably the main reason for their inclusion, as neither had been previously recorded by The Eagles, was that both songs had been US Top 20 hit singles. A 1980 recording of ‘Take It Easy’, on which the line about ‘Winslow, Arizona’ was changed to ‘Southern California’, ended the album, which included one song which had never previously been recorded

by The Eagles (jointly or individually). This was a classic written by Steve Young, whose website calls ‘Seven Bridges Road’ ‘certainly the most-covered Steve Young song of all’ with covers by, apart from 80

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The Eagles, Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, Iain Matthews and Dolly Parton, among others. The live version by The Eagles was released as a single, which peaked just outside the Top 20 of the US chart in 1980/81, with a flip side of a live version of ‘The Long Run’. This sounds much more like The Eagles in their early days. It has been said that the group was offered $1 million dollars each for two new songs, but this was an offer they clearly decided to decline.

A few extra musicians helped out on the live album, including J.D. Souther (vocals and acoustic guitar), Joe Walsh’s chum Joe Vitale on drums and keyboards, Vince Melamed (keyboards) and saxophonist Phil Kenzie, who plays a long solo on ‘The Long Run’, a song introduced as a ‘tribute to Memphis, Tennessee’.

Walsh is jokingly introduced at one point as ‘the next president of the United States’ – many might say that he would be infinitely preferable to the current incumbent. Overall, ‘Eagles Live’ is a worthwhile double album, although the CD version is perhaps unnecessarily also a double – the total running time is well under 80 minutes, which would certainly fit on a single CD today. Maybe this is irrelevant – The Eagles were an excellent live band, as this album effortlessly demonstrates. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the CD booklet is that no personnel listing is given for The Eagles, which means that Meisner’s involvement as a performer is omitted, although both he and Bernie Leadon receive songwriting credits, as do Jim Ed Norman, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther and Bob Seger. By the time the live album was released, The Eagles as a group no longer existed.

Joe Walsh was already a solo artist with several albums to his credit, and he continued in that vein. Walsh must have by now made well over a dozen solo albums, and the biggest of which is probably 1978’s platinum ‘But Seriously, Folks’ – he’s a card! That album included his original version of ‘Life’s Been Good’, a song which The Eagles later recorded and included on ‘Eagles Live’.

Walsh, of course, has a different status from that of any of his 82

colleagues; he was already internationally famous before joining The Eagles, and was able to resume his solo career without missing a beat. Glenn Frey released three albums during the 1980s. ‘No Fun Aloud’ in 1982, which made the Top 40 of the US album chart, was certified gold, and included three US hit singles in ‘I Found Somebody’ (Top 40), ‘The One You Love’ (Top 20) and ‘All Those Lies’(Top 50). ‘The Allnighter’, in 1984, made the Top 30 of the US album chart and included two US hit singles in ‘Sexy Girl’ (Top 20) and the title track (Top 60). Frey then achieved a far bigger hit single in late 1984 when ‘The Heat Is On’, from the Eddie Murphy movie, Beverly Hills Cop, made the US Top 3. In 1985, he scored two more big US hit singles with songs from the hit TV series, Miami Vice, in ‘Smuggler’s Blues’ (Top 20) and ‘You Belong to the City’ (Top 3). His third solo album, ‘Soul Searchin’’, appeared in 1988, and was a third consecutive US Top 40 success, containing two US hit singles in ‘True Love’ (Top 20) and ‘Livin’ Right’ (Top 100); while in 1991, he added a minor US hit single with ‘Part of Me, Part of You’, which was featured in the movie Thelma & Louise. In 1992 came a minor US hit single, ‘I’ve Got Mine’, and 1993 brought two albums: ‘Strange Weather’, and ‘Live’, which as the title suggests, was a live album recorded in Dublin. Many of the songs on these albums were written by Frey with Jack Tempchin, who had written ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ and co-written ‘Already Gone’ for The Eagles.

Don Henley also started his solo career in 1982 with the US Top 30 album, ‘I Can’t Stand Still’, which included three US hit singles in ‘Johnny Can’t Read’ (Top 50), ‘Dirty Laundry’ (Top 3) and ‘I Can’t Stand Still’ (Top 50), but even before this activity, he had reached the Top 10 of the US singles chart in 1981 with ‘Leather and Lace’, a duet with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. Henley’s 1984 solo album, ‘Building the Perfect Beast’, went double platinum in the USA, peaking in the Top 20 of the album chart and spawning four US hit singles: ‘The Boys of Summer’ 83

(Top 10), ‘All She Wants to Do Is Dance’ (Top 10, with Martha Davis of The Motels and Patty Smyth, who is tennis star John McEnroe’s second wife, and was previously married to New Wave star, Richard Hell, as harmony vocalists), ‘Not Enough Love In the World’ (Top 40) and ‘Sunset Grill’ (Top 30, again with Patty Smyth as harmony vocalist). 1989 brought the double platinum US Top 10 album, ‘The End of the Innocence’, which spent nearly three years in the US album chart, and included five US hit singles: the album’s title track (Top 10), ‘The Last Worthless Evening’ and ‘The Heart of the Matter’ (both Top 30), and ‘How Bad Do You Want It?’ and ‘New York Minute’ (both Top 50). In 1992, he again duetted with Patty Smyth on a million selling US Top 3 hit, ‘Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough’.

Don Felder released a 1983 solo album. ‘Airborne’, while Tim Schmit released three solo albums ‘Tell Me the Truth’ in 1983, ‘Playin’ It Cool’ in 1984 and ‘Timothy B.’ in 1987.

Click the above photo for a video link Music Journalist Joel McIver talks about the album ‘Building the Perfect Beast’.

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Outro

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lthough there was no shortage of offers for The Eagles to reform – they had nine US chart albums to their name, two of which were ‘Greatest Hits’ collections, but all of which were certified either multi-platinum, platinum or gold, and no failures – a reunion was always possible, if perhaps not exactly likely. Marc Eliot’s book suggests that Don Henley felt that Glenn Frey’s movie and TV theme hit singles were compromising the status of The Eagles, and told anyone who asked when The Eagles were reforming ‘When hell freezes over’. Thus ‘Hell Freezes Over’ was indeed the title of the 1994 reunion album by The Eagles. The main selling point was the inclusion of four new songs: ‘Get Over It’ was written by Henley and Frey, ‘The Girl from Yesterday’ by Frey and Tempchin, and ‘Learn to Be Still’ by Henley and Stan Lynch (of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), plus ‘Love Will Keep Us Alive,’ written

by Pete Vale, Jim Capaldi (of Traffic) and Paul Carrack (of Ace and later a solo star). ‘Get Over It’ was released as a single which almost reached the US Top 30, ‘Love Will Keep Us Alive’ topped the Adult Contemporary chart and ‘Learn to Be Still’ 85

was a turntable hit. What had significantly led to the reunion was a highly successful 1993 album titled ‘Common Thread: The Songs of The Eagles’, a collection of cover versions of Eagles songs performed by major country music stars who, it was said, had been strongly influenced by The Eagles, including Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Suzy Bogguss, Trisha Yearwood, Tanya Tucker, Lorrie Morgan and Brooks & Dunn. The album reportedly sold three million copies in six months, and presumably convinced Frey, Henley and Walsh that a reunion was worth doing – Felder and Meisner were most unlikely to object to the idea.

The reunion concert was staged at the Warner Bros. soundstage in Hollywood with an audience invited by MTV. When that passed without too much agro, the group agreed to a tour for which tickets were priced at over $100! Even so, the tour sold out, and ‘Hell Freezes Over’ sold prodigiously. The choice of material was interesting, with ‘Hotel California’ contributing the title track, ‘Wasted Time’, ‘Life in the Fast Lane’, ‘The Last Resort’, and ‘Pretty Maids… All In a Row’, alongside such early hits as ‘Take It Easy’. ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and ‘Desperado’ were revived. ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ was the only song originating from ‘The Long Run’, and the remaining two selections were a Walsh hit, ‘In the City’, and a Henley hit, ‘New York Minute’.

There was another reunion in the 21st Century, but Felder refused to participate. There could be more to come…

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Track-by-Track Analysis

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or lovers of contemporary music the world over, it would be hard to find many people who wouldn’t acknowledge the influence The Eagles have had on popular music. From the early 1970s when their debut album was released, through their troubled late ’70s and beyond, to the mega stadium tours of today, they still exert a presence on popular music that is quite frankly, staggering.

The Eagles are a band that in many ways defines all that was good and bad in the American music business of the ’70s. The legacies of their immense success as both a band and a business still permeate the music business today. Some of its effect has remained positive, other aspects completely disastrous for the struggling musicians of today. The Eagles and bands like them were in many ways the springboard for the almost megalomaniac aspirations of svengalis such as David Geffen, Elliot Roberts and Irving Azoff. It was their actions that in many ways turned the ’70s music business on its head. Some of it for the better, some not.

The band of course became one of the biggest selling bands on the planet and remain so today. Interesting that they only recorded 87

six full albums of studio material between 1972 and 1979 and then, after a gap of fourteen years, less than half an album of new studio material. Rumour has it that much of an album lies in stasis after being recorded in the first years of this century, so it may not take too much longer for the band to release a new studio effort.

All one can hope is that when they do, it attains the standard of albums that were issued in the ’70s and not the rather mediocre efforts that appeared on ‘When Hell Freezes Over’. Sure, it was nice to have new material out after so long, but as is so often the case with bands that issue just one or a few new tracks on a ‘new’ release, they rarely capture a cohesive set of recorded material, and ‘When Hell Freezes Over’ was no exception. Live, the band still certainly deliver the goods. It would be a crowning achievement for them to release a cracking new album that could influence yet another generation of musicians and fans alike. They are more than capable of it, if past efforts are any indication.

Their albums by and large were so good that one certainly umm’s and aaarr’s when listening to them. There won’t be many songs you won’t remember! Let’s take a look…

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Eagles (1 June 1972) Produced and engineered by Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios, London, UK Musicians: Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums, Percussion), Bernie Leadon (Vocals, Guitar, Banjo), Randy Meisner (Vocals, Bass Guitar)

The Eagles’ debut album has become a classic in no uncertain terms and has been cited by a plethora of bands as a primary influence and inspiration in their music. Many would also argue (quite correctly) that The Eagles had taken a lot of ideas from bands suc­h as Poco and The Flying Burrito Brothers – to name a few. This they did, but they had such drive, determination and, at the start, direction, that it’s little wonder they held the mantle of California Rock for so long.

Signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records for $125,000 after an audacious self-introduction, the band were quickly sent out on the road in Colorado to hone their act. Returning to Los Angeles in November 1971, the band were quick to relocate themselves from their dive dwellings to more upscale accommodation. The band had set out to define their brand of rock on their own terms, and on an equal basis within the group. From the start the group was to be a democracy, with all members contributing to the writing on a roughly equal basis. By and large this worked in the beginning. Glenn Frey did, however, assume the majority of the lead vocal tasks, with Don Henley in the background. This however was soon to change.

Shortly after returning to the City of Angels the band were flown to London in February 1972 to record what would become the classic debut album.

Completed and set in a lovely gatefold sleeve depicting a desert scene from Joshua Tree National Park, the album was unleashed 89

upon an unsuspecting public on 1 June 1972. The album was a hit and it spawned three great (and lasting) singles.

The album itself peaked at number 22 in October 1972, and Rolling Stone magazine even hailed it as ‘Album of the Year’.

The album was consistently available until the age of the CD. Recently, the re-mastered CD version has been released in a minialbum version. Nice touch, but it would be even better to see all of the studio albums released as expanded editions, with B-sides, outtakes and the odd early live version on a second disc.

Take It Easy (Jackson Browne / Glenn Frey)

What a great opening track this one still is! The recording really encapsulates the essence of the early Eagles sound in one wonderful swoop. Recorded in London (as were all the debut album sessions) with Glen Johns in the producer’s seat. The Eagles of course were relative novices to the professional recording world. Manager David Geffen thought it better to send them off to a location where the band’s usual vices and friends were well out of the way.

Not a bad idea, to create a cohesive recording environment, and all things considered, the band delivered the goods in reasonably short order and with the minimum of fuss – despite there being a personality clash of sorts between producer and band.

‘Take It Easy’ was really a Jackson Browne song that Frey helped polish up in the latter stages, once the song was added to the first album’s recording plans. As the opener of the debut album, this is classic Eagles sound, comprising its rather cool vocal and clever country feel, and it was certainly a good indicator of things to come.

The track was also the first single to be released from the album.

Released to the public on 24 June 1972, it was backed with ‘Get You in the Mood’. It reached number 12 and spent eight weeks in the top forty of the Billboard 100.

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Witchy Woman (Don Henley / Bernie Leadon)

Probably the best track on the album, and certainly suggestive of the future Eagles’ classic sound, ‘Witchy Woman’ was the only song that Don Henley (co)-penned on this debut release, and it was also the debut of his highly distinctive vocal. The track has become a classic Eagles number and today still sounds as fresh as ever.

The composition of this song was a classic case of spontaneous and cohesive writing between Henley and Leadon. Don Henley allegedly penned the lyrics while running a fever. Stuff of legend for sure, it was the start of his highly successful career as a writer.

This was the second single to be issued from the debut album, and it was released on 30 September 1972. Backed with the album track ‘Earlybird’, it spent ten weeks in the charts and reached a peak of number 9.

Chug All Night (Glenn Frey)

Penned by Frey, this is one allegedly written from personal experience. Drinking and playing around with the girls, today it could easily be renamed ‘Shag All Night’ and get away with it!

This is what the early Eagles were good at when they decided to rock it out a little. A nice little number, although it has to be said that compared to other tracks on the album and future offerings, it comes off as mediocre. It does have a nice southern flavour at times though and is a nice album track.

Most of Us Are Sad (Glenn Frey)

The second of two tracks penned solely by Glen Frey, this is a vast improvement on his previous offering. When the band delivered sentimental music (which they became absolute experts at), this 91

was almost certainly the benchmark track. Listen to later offerings like ‘Hole in the World’ and it’s easy to see how much this tune set up a direction that not only was to bring the band millions of fans but also the dollars that went with those sales!

Nightingale (Jackson Browne)

Of the two tracks that Jackson Browne penned for the album, this is certainly the weaker of the two. In saying that, it’s still better than many a track most other artists were delivering at the time.

The Eagles gave it a nice feel, but really this one was never going to be more than just a good album track. With a typical early (high) Eagles vocal sound, this one kicks off quite nicely, however. Lead vocal was sung by Glenn Frey, with high harmonies added by Randy Meisner. The bass, guitars and drums intro shows a style The Eagles were to use to good effect over the years.

Train Leaves Here This Morning (Gene Clark / Bernie Leadon)

Lovely harmonies on this one, even if the track is a little weak. The ingredients are there, that’s for certain, and there are many songs that The Eagles recorded for later albums that probably borrowed more than a little influence from this one. The track had actually been penned years earlier when Bernie Leadon had been with Dillard and Clark. Now Eagle-ised, it was given a new lease of life. Leadon added the vocal. This track, however, just didn’t really have what it needed to make it a classic number. Nice album filler, though.

Take the Devil (Randy Meisner)

Penned by bassist Randy Meisner, this simply executed number comes across really well. Although obviously not really material 92

for a single, it was a brilliant album track and certainly one of the better offerings on the album. This song was a great way for the ex-Poco bassist to show how much he contributed to The Eagles’ sound.

Earlybird (Bernie Leadon / Randy Meisner)

A nice album track that – although it had the signature Eagles sound – weirdly, it didn’t really sound like a typical Eagles number. More like Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with a grungy guitar player! Great little guitar breaks on this one, and overall a nice if not outstanding number. Also released as the B-side to the ‘Witchy Woman’ single.

Peaceful Easy Feeling (Jack Tempchin)

An early example of the type of tune that would make The Eagles multi-million sellers, and in fact this was a tune that has done exactly that! The song was not penned by an Eagle but by Jack Tempchin. Listen to later Eagles numbers and it’s obvious the band members took a lot of leaves from Jack’s book! This was also the last single to be lifted from the album. Released on 3 February 1973, it was backed with ‘Tryin’ and reached a peak position of 22, staying in the charts for six weeks.

Tryin’ (Randy Meisner)

A nice rocky little number to end the album on and the third of three penned by bassist Randy Meisner. It was a nice little album filler and, again, certainly better than many a song their contempories were offering. Also released as the B-side to the ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ single.

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Desperado (17 April 1973) Produced by Glyn Johns and recorded at Island Studios, London, UK Musicians: Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums, Percussion), Bernie Leadon (Vocals, Guitar, Banjo), Randy Meisner (Vocals, Bass Guitar)

With the debut album flying high and selling quite frankly by the truckload, David Geffen was very keen to get moving with album number two. With the sales of the singles alone, the band had already more than paid back their substantial advance!

The band were returned to London and once again, despite the previous friction between some band members and producer Glyn Johns, they entered Island Studios with him to commence the sessions for what would become ‘Desperado’.

Although the band had several singles and a successful album under their collective belts, they did not want to sit around and let this achievement slip through their fingers. They knew the music business was highly competitive and cut-throat, and they wanted to deliver a tight, cohesive album that built on the success they had already garnered. Changes were slowly happening to the band. Frey was slipping (happily) into the lead singer role, and collaboration between him and Don Henley with regards to writing and organisation seemed to happen naturally. This was not to remain so.

One thing they were all united on was ‘building a concept’ for a better album. The original basis for the concept came in the form of songs, initially based around rebels. Some of the Wild West, some not. Henley and Frey delivered the basis for three compositions quite quickly. Initially, it was ‘Desperado’; then ‘Tequila Sunrise’ started to take shape. Along with ‘DoolinDalton’, the band had a good start to album number two.

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The band consisted of four highly focused individuals, and they were going to letting nothing get in their way. Quite a number of songs were put forward, and these were brutally whittled down until a classy, cohesive set of songs remained – all of course within that rebel concept. ‘Desperado’, the album, was soon to become an eleven-track cracker.

In the studio, the band expanded somewhat as well. For the debut release, they were highly conscious of only recording what they could reproduce with the four of them live. This all went out the window with the ‘Desperado’ sessions and actually to very good effect, it has to be said.

While living in London, the band also played a number of live dates and tried several of the forthcoming songs in a live environment. The concept for the cover had also been discussed and whilst in merry Old England, they rented a cowboy backstage film set at Shepperton Film Studios. Along with Jackson Browne and John David Souther, they literally set the stage. The photos of the band (in western attire and looking suitably gritty) that grace their sophomore effort were all taken there. The concept was falling into place. The album did not fare as well as the band’s debut initially, and overall sales were slow. It did, of course, eventually go platinum… and counting! Today it remains one of the more cohesive pieces of work recorded by The Eagles. Not hot on the singles, but a wonderful album to listen to in one hit.

Doolin-Dalton (Glenn Frey / John David Souther / Don Henley / Jackson Browne)

This has become a classic Eagles track and another one that clearly has the Jackson Browne influence. Bruce Springsteen almost certainly borrowed a few ideas from this one when he recorded his best selling ‘The River’ album. A popular live track in the ’70s, it seems to have been dropped in favour of more commercially viable tracks in more recent years. Shame, this is a good one!

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Twenty-One (Bernie Leadon)

A track that has a distinctly country feel to it. With wonderful guitar playing by Bernie Leadon, this is one that any self-respecting hillbilly (especially one from Beverly Hills!) would be proud of. Wonderful playing, and this was as near to real country as The Eagles ever got. It was released as the B-side to the ‘Tequila Sunrise’ single.

Out of Control (Don Henley / Glenn Frey / Tom Nixon)

Segued from the previous track, this one is the first real rocker on the album. However, it does seem a little out of place. The guitar sound is more than a little reminiscent of Elton John’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin’. Good basic rock and roller but not an outstanding track.

Tequila Sunrise (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

A song that was a slow burner for the band and although it took far longer than expected, it became a huge hit. This was the first single (backed with album track ‘Twenty-One’) to be lifted from the band’s second studio offering. Released on 17 April 1973, it didn’t exactly rip the charts apart at the time of issue, but it has certainly remained a strong contender for a signature Eagles number.

Desperado (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

This is probably the best track on the album, and one listen makes that obvious. It shows the confidence of the band, then, to place this within the folds of the album rather than at the start of side one or side two. This has become a stage favourite with the band 97

and fans alike and one the band often ends their concerts with today. Classic Eagles, and one that really shows how important Don Henley’s vocal sound was to the band.

Certain Kind of Fool (Randy Meisner / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

The song has a nice feel to it, even if it tends to plod a little.

Certainly a song that sounds most un-Eagle-like at times. Good album filler or a B-side, which is exactly what it became for the album’s second single.

Doolin-Dalton (Instrumental) (Glenn Frey / John David Souther)

Nice interlude of the opening track. Proof that Bernie Leadon really was a star musician on the banjo.

Outlaw Man (David Blue)

Penned by non-Eagle David Blue, the song works really well. It has a nice grungy guitar sound and a strong vocal. Wonderful guitar solos in this number as well. Randy Meisner’s bass playing also stands out, and this is one of the first indications of the slightly heavier sound The Eagles were to eventually move towards. The second single to be issued from the ‘Desperado’ album. It was backed with ‘Certain Kind of Fool’ and released on 6 August 1973. Failed to chart.

Saturday Night (Randy Meisner / Don Henley / Glenn Frey / Bernie Leadon)

Wonderful playing from Bernie Leadon on this one. Interestingly, the whole album really does display what a brilliant player he was in The Eagles’ early years. The song is a lovely relaxing piece that – unlike many of the contemporary songs around at this time – 98

does not sound contrived. It’s just this sound that the trio America ended up playing to perfection.

Bitter Creek (Bernie Leadon)

One of the stronger tracks on the album. It was never going to make singles material, but as an album track it retains a cool feel.

This would be an interesting number for the band to attempt today, even though Bernie Leadon has long since departed the band. Wonderful harmonies and a simple but rather rousing guitar sound. Cool stuff.

Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise) (Glenn Frey / John David Souther / Don Henley / Jackson Browne)

The band obviously had a lot of confidence in this tune. Actually it works very well and it certainly helps to build the theme/concept feel of the whole album, which really was the name of the game for Henley and Frey at the time. A brilliant end to quite a brilliant album.

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On the Border (22 March 1974) Produced and engineered by Bill Szymczyk at the Record Plant, Los Angeles, California. Early album sessions, which included ‘You Never Cry Like a Lover’ and ‘Best of My Love’ produced and engineered by Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios, London, UK. Musicians: Don Felder (Electric Guitar), Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar, Piano), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums), Bernie Leadon (Vocals, Guitars, Banjo, Steel Guitar), Randy Meisner (Vocals, Bass), Al Perkins (Pedal Steel Guitar on Ol’ 55)

Album number three, and the band were really ready to push ahead with a slightly rockier sound. To achieve this, Don Felder was drafted in as an extra guitarist – originally to beef up the live sound, then inducted into the recording sessions, and finally added as a full time member, a position he was to hold until fired unexpectedly in 2001.

The album recording sessions started out once again in London with producer Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios. But these sessions were fraught with problems, both within the band and with the producer, and after a few months (and only two songs laid down that were considered useable), the band took flight back to Los Angeles. Irving Azoff, the band’s now fledgling manager, promptly introduced them to producer Bill Szymczyk (interestingly, he was the producer who discovered and produced the James Gang and Joe Walsh – future Eagles member!). Szymczyk had a much more laid back style of producing and seemed fine with the rockier direction Henley and Frey were trying to push the band in. The album was released in the spring of 1974 and raced up the charts, finally attaining a number 17 spot. The album quickly attained double platinum status and it also fared well in other countries, particularly in Britain, where it reached number 28. This was their fastest-selling album to date, also attaining the best chart positions to date, as well 101

as shipping millions and generating the band some serious cash.

The sales profile of ‘On the Border’ also generated interest in the band’s earlier efforts, particularly the ‘Desperado’ album, which also started to produce some good numbers. All was far from well and happy within the band, however, as events prior to the recording of the next album, ‘One of These Nights’, would soon show.

Already Gone (Jack Tempchin / R. Strandlund)

An extremely catchy number that sets the album’s pace right from the start. Although not penned by The Eagles, the band really made this song their own. It rocks along and was the second single to be lifted from the album, after ‘James Dean’. Backed with another album track, ‘Is It True?’, it was released on 22 June 1974 and fared somewhat better than the preceding single. It charted for three weeks, reaching a top position of 32. Lead vocal was sung by Glenn Frey and the guitar solos were wonderfully executed by Glenn Frey and Don Felder. The track remains a favourite with fans today.

You Never Cry Like a Lover (John David Souther / Don Henley)

Wonderful guitar playing on this one and a lovely vocal by Don Henley. Two songs in and this album was already sounding stronger than its predecessor. Interesting that ‘Desperado’ has probably stood the test of time better, but individually the songs from ‘On the Border’ really stood out in 1974. This was one of the tracks that survived from the original London recording sessions with Glyn Johns.

Midnight Flyer (P. Craft)

With a lead vocal from bassist Randy Meisner, this really attains that good old country feel. Meisner also plays some wonderful bass 102

in this one. Lovely slide guitar from Glenn Frey. Again penned by a non-Eagle, this would probably have made an excellent single in 1974. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, eat your heart out! This is a very clever mix of country and rock.

My Man (Bernie Leadon)

Penned and sung by Bernie Leadon, along with his beautiful pedal steel guitar contribution, this track really highlights his laid-back talent. Written as a dedication to Gram Parsons, it was a nice softer addition to a rather upbeat album.

On the Border (Don Henley / Bernie Leadon / Glenn Frey)

A Henley vocal and some wonderful guitar playing. The track is a really good number for the album. It was never going to be a single, but it’s a good composition effort from the original band.

Cool track to play very loud!

James Dean (Jackson Browne / Glenn Frey / John David Souther / Don Henley)

A great number to start a vinyl side, this was the first track to be released as a single from ‘On the Border’. Backed with ‘Good Day in Hell’, it hit the streets in the US on 14 August 1974. A good old rocker that has remained a favourite with fans ever since its release. Had this been recorded earlier, it would have been a perfect addition to the ‘Desperado’ album. Lead was sung by Glenn Frey, and the guitar solos were by Bernie Leadon.

Ol’ 55 (Tom Waits)

Interesting to hear a Tom Waits track given an Eagles treatment.

Both Frey and Henley contributed vocals, and the pedal steel 103

guitar was added by non-Eagle Al Perkins. A nice album track, and this became a nice little earner for Tom as the B-side of the band’s number one single!

Is It True?

(Randy Meisner)

Used as the B-side to the ‘Already Gone’ single, this is a nice album track featuring slide guitar from Glenn Frey. In the vocal department, it was reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Not a bad track, but also not one that was ever going to set the world afire in this arrangement. The guitar riff and sound ironically was similar to something future guitar player Joe Walsh was using in his band Barnstorm.

Good Day in Hell (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

B-side to the debut single, ‘James Dean’, this was a good album track that really highlighted the guitar talents of new member Don Felder. Lead vocals were by both Frey and Henley. A nice addition to the album, with a great riff, this is a track the band should rework for modern times.

Best of My Love (Don Henley / Glenn Frey / John David Souther)

The third and final single from the band’s third studio effort.

Backed with ‘Ol’ 55’, it was released on 28 December 1975 and stayed in the charts for fourteen weeks and attained the number one spot! What a start for 1975! Classic Eagles, for sure, this was the second of two tracks to survive from the London recording sessions with Glyn Johns, who must have felt vindicated when he saw it zip to number one!

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One of These Nights (10 June 1975) Produced by Bill Szymczyk and recorded at Criteria Studios, Miami, and The Record Plant, Los Angeles.

Musicians: Don Felder (Vocals, Guitar, Slide Guitar), Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums, Percussion), Bernie Leadon (Vocals, Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, Steel), Randy Meisner (Vocals, Bass Guitar), David Bromberg (Fiddles on ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’), Albhy Galuten (Synthesizer on ‘Hollywood Waltz’), Jim Ed Norman (Piano on ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and ‘Take It to the Limit’), All strings arranged and conducted by Jim Ed Norman

When ‘Best of My Love’ shot the number one spot through the heart in March of 1975, The Eagles and everyone around them knew that this band could have everything – if they played their cards right. The single was rotated continuously on both country and pop radio stations, and it would eventually be nominated for a Grammy in both sectors. Within the band, positions had started to polarize rapidly, and the hit writing team of Frey and Henley had become fast buddies as well. Felder, the new boy, could see where the hits were coming from and seemed more than content to let things roll. Meisner and Leadon, however, were not so amicable that their song writing contributions were often being given the shove. Socially, the camps were moving apart as well. Frey and Henley were certainly the lads about town trying to shag anything that took their fancy and consuming the fruits of success like wild men. And who can blame them? Bernie Leadon had gotten into bed, literally and figuratively, with the then governor’s daughter, Patti Reagan. But both Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner were unhappy with much of the band situation at this time, and it wasn’t long before Leadon would leave the fold.

With the band already a huge success, demands for touring were high. At the same time, writing had to commence for the 105

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new album. During the early part of 1975, all the band members worked hard at getting material together. In the end, over half of the compositions that would be featured on ‘One of These Nights’ would originate from the Henley-Frey collaboration. Soon enough material was ready to be recorded and the band shipped off east to Florida to start work in Miami’s Criteria Studios. With the studio booked, recording still had to be worked around the band’s touring commitments – not an easy task even at the best of times.

Nonetheless, the recording sessions were completed successfully, although this was the last studio effort to feature Bernie Leadon.

Leadon and Meisner had been getting more than a little disgruntled at the rocky direction that Henley and Frey were leading the band in. Leadon was also unhappy with the constant touring, and his departure had been brewing for quite some time. Leadon’s last gig with the band was at Anaheim Stadium, California, and shortly after that, on 20 December 1975, the band announced that he had quit the group. Leadon remained with Asylum for a while and eventually ended up joining the Nitty Gritty Dirt band many years later – the perfect place for his superb playing. With Felder in place, the band really did not suffer (an irony of sorts, as it had been Bernie Leadon who’d introduced him to The Eagles in the first place). However, Henley and Frey still wanted five players. They didn’t have to look far; Joe Walsh had practically been waiting in the wings. It had been a fast eventful ride from the time The Eagles formed in 1971 through to the huge success of ‘One of These Nights’. It was about to become an even more eventful ride. Right to the top!

One of These Nights (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Surely one of the most distinctive tracks ever recorded by The Eagles, this song has everything one could want in a cool song.

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Great lead vocal sung by drummer Henley and great guitar contributions from all the band, in particular new arrival Don Felder. This is certainly a fantastic, hot summer night song. Penned by the now hit-making team of Frey and Henley, this is a brilliant start to an album that for many fans would never be bettered.

The track was also the first single to be lifted from the album.

Backed with ‘Is It True?’ from the previous album, it was released on 14 June 1975 and charted for a stunning 14 weeks, peaking at number one! A sure-fire hit by anyone’s standards.

Too Many Hands (Randy Meisner / Don Felder)

Sung by Randy Meisner, this is actually a very clever number. But one can’t help hearing the gap that was appearing in style when Henley or Frey didn’t contribute to the vocals in a lead role. The track features great guitar from both Felder and Frey and, all in all, this track works very well in the context of the album. The tabla adds a nice effect.

Hollywood Waltz (Bernie Leadon / Tom Leadon / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

A track that has actually sounded better as the years have moved on. It’s one the band still plays live today. Sung by Don Henley, it features some wonderful steel guitar and mandolin playing by Bernie Leadon. Harmonium is played by Glenn Frey, and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear a synthesiser in there – added by nonband member Albhy Galuten.

Journey of the Sorcerer (Bernie Leadon)

Quite possibly the best track Bernie Leadon ever composed, this is a stunning addition to an already classy album. You can really hear the virtuosity in his playing, and the strings add to the already 108

mystical effect he creates. Interestingly, it was this song that became the signature tune for the offbeat, British sci-fi classic, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Lyin’ Eyes (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

The second single from the album and backed with Randy Meisner’s composition, ‘Too Many Hands’, it was released on 27 September 1975 and before Christmas of that year had charted for 11 weeks, reaching its peak at the number 2 spot. Years later, Frey would always dedicate this to his first wife (plaintiff!) when playing it live. I guess the success of this song really made the divorce worthwhile! For her. This song is synonymous with the famous Eagles sound. Piano added by non-Eagle Ed Norman, with lead guitar by Bernie Leadon, and Glenn Frey singing lead.

Take It to the Limit (Randy Meisner / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

A definitive Eagles track that was also released as a single on January 17 1976. Backed with album track ‘After the Thrill Is Gone’, it reached the number 4 position and charted for a cool 14 weeks! A perfect theme song for a bank to advertise their credit cards! This song is probably the best ever vocal from Randy Meisner on an Eagles recording. Piano added by Ed Norman. This is a track that really has become a signature song for California music of the ’70s.

Visions (Don Felder / Don Henley)

A nice little rocker co-composed by Don Felder and Don Henley.

Lead guitar and lead vocal both feature Felder. The band was letting him stretch a little here, and this is a welcome addition to a rather laid back (although very classy) album.

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After the Thrill Is Gone (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Wonderful lead guitar from Don Felder. The track is worth a listen for this alone. Lead vocals are performed by both Henley and Frey.

This would never have made a single, but all in all it’s a nice album track.

I Wish You Peace (Patti Davis / Bernie Leadon)

A controversial song as far as Don Henley was concerned, primarily with the writing credit of Patti Davis (Ronald Reagan’s daughter). A nice, if not outstanding, number to end a strong album. Lead guitar and lead vocal performed by Bernie Leadon, it was his parting wish for the band.

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Hotel California (8 December 1976) Produced by Bill Szymczyk and recorded at Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida and The Record Plant in Los Angeles. Mixed by Bill Szymczyk, Miami.

Musicians: Don Felder (Vocals, Guitar, Slide Guitar), Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums, Percussion), Randy Meisner (Vocals, Bass, Guitarone), Joe Walsh (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards)

With the departure of Bernie Leadon, the band felt that a replacement was necessary, and in came Joe Walsh almost at the drop of his hat. Walsh had hung around The Eagles’ camp for a while and had made no secret that should they need a replacement guitar player, he would be more than up for the job. The choice, to many people, was a controversial one. Walsh – ex-James Gang, Barnstorm and his heavier-leaning solo projects – was certainly a rocker compared to much of the material issued by The Eagles to date. Frey, however, had been keen to rock the band up for a while, and as far as he was concerned, it was a virtual no-brainer to pull in the highly talented Walsh. Rarely has a band had it so easy, upon the departure of a key guitar player, to quickly find a suitable replacement. Walsh’s debut appearance with the band was in January 1976, on the New Zealand, Australia and Japan legs of their world tour. The results live were stunningly good – especially the new guitar interplay between Felder and Walsh. The overall verdict for anyone who saw this part of the tour was that Walsh was good for the band and the band was good for Walsh.

The proof was in the (live) pudding. All they had to try now was a recorded testimony to the fact. That task was still a little way off, however. The band were very busy living the lifestyle of rock and roll excess, in no uncertain terms. They were also picking up nice awards at the Grammy. In February 1976 ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ picked up 111

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a well-deserved award. With the band ‘busy’ and no sight of an album in the immediate future, a step was taken by the label that would ensure that The Eagles became the biggest-selling recording artists in America with the release of ‘Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975’. Marketed in a classic cover, the album went straight to number one in the US and number two in the UK. It became the first RIAA certified platinum album and has literally sold many millions ever since. By the end of the year over five million units had been shifted!

Work on the band’s fifth album, ‘Hotel California’, was started in the summer of 1975, and the band finally entered Criteria Studios in Miami at the tail end of March 1976. Recording, however, was fractured, to say the least. The band were cramming studio days in Miami in between flights back and forth to their touring destinations. Studio life was reasonably easy with the new boy, Walsh, as he had already worked extensively with Bill Szymczyk on his past solo projects. In and out the studio as they were and living a life full of alcohol, drugs and women, the cracks were starting to show behind the scenes. But Henley and Frey in particular revelled in this, and Walsh was no saint either – mind you, he had arguably more experience on the partying scene anyway! Interestingly, Walsh also released a live album in April 1976. Entitled ‘You Can’t Argue with a Sick Mind’, it is actually a bit of a lost gem from the time.

Anyone who likes this period of the Eagles should search it out.

By November 1976 the new album had been completed and packed in a highly distinctive gatefold sleeve. ‘Hotel California’ was released to the public in December 1976, and had already clocked over a million copies in the US on pre-release alone! It flew up to number one in the US and remained in the charts for 107 weeks solid! In the UK it hit number two and just kept on selling… and selling… all over the world. It would exceed sixteen times platinum in reasonably short order! This was the pinnacle of the band’s career as far as recorded material… and they knew it.

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With the album doing all the things that hit-selling albums should, the band embarked on a US tour in March 1977. Little did they know, that for the band and fans alike, the next project was going to be a long time coming.

And all was not happy in the camp. Randy Meisner had been contemplating departure for over a year, and in September 1977 he quit the band.

Hotel California (Don Felder / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Quite possibly the most recognisable song ever to emanate from an American group in the ’70s, this song has succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination or dreams. Today this ode to the dark side of modern life has become as synonymous with America as Levis!

The guitar interplay between Don Felder and Joe Walsh is nothing short of stunning, and with Don Henley’s distinctive – and in this case rather haunting – vocal, the stage was set for a masterpiece.

The single was a monster, and live, this song is still the band’s crowning glory. Hitting number one, the track remained in the charts for fifteen weeks! Classic stuff.

New Kid in Town (John David Souther / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Written as much about The Eagles and their own belief that life at the top of the file would be a short-lived thing. Ironically, in their case, they have remained at the top or very near it for a very long time – especially as far as album sales are concerned! Glen Frey’s lead vocals graced this track to perfection. Released as a single, it hit the number one spot in the US and became a Top 20 hit in the UK. Life in the Fast Lane (Joe Walsh / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

One of the rockiest tracks ever laid down in a studio by the band, 114

this track had a classic Walsh riff and the distinctive Henley vocal.

A great performance by the band, this track has remained an enduring gem throughout the band’s career. Released as a single and backed with ‘Victim of Love’, it became a chart-topping success in its own right, reaching number eleven and charting for the same number of weeks Wasted Time (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

A great way to end side one of the original album, this track was more in the vein of tracks of old by the band. It works really well, however, giving the album part of its balanced feel and overall appeal.

Wasted Time (Reprise) (Don Henley / Glenn Frey / Jim Ed Norman)

And so starts side two. Great stuff in the days of vinyl and 8-track tapes! Nice string arrangement and the perfect way to open (the original) second side.

Victim of Love (Don Felder / John David Souther / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Recorded as a ‘live in the studio’ track, it (allegedly) has no overdubs. The track was used as the B-side to the chart-topping ‘New Kid in Town’ single.

Pretty Maids All in a Row (Joe Walsh / Joe Vitale)

The debut track on vocals for Joe Walsh, there were many in the early days of release that would question his suitability for the job.

This track, however, is quite possibly the best of the relaxed tracks on the album, and his distinctive vocal sound has stood the test of time exceptionally well. The track was also the B-side to the ‘Hotel 115

California’ single, and it must certainly have generated a pile of cash for Joe Walsh and Joe Vitale!

Try and Love Again (Randy Meisner)

This was the first song the band laid down in the studio during the ‘Hotel California’ sessions. With Randy Meisner’s high vocals, it was another track that harked back to the days of old. Running in at over five minutes, this was a trend the band were to continue for many of the album tracks. It works very well as an album track.

The Last Resort (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Another enduring track with Henley on vocals. The track features great pedal steel guitar from Don Felder and synthesisers from Walsh and Henley. The song is a beautiful way to end an absolutely classic album. Also released as the B-side to the ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ single.

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The Long Run (24 September 1979) Produced by Bill Szymczyk and recorded at Bayshore Recording Studios, Coconut Grove, Florida.

Additional recording performed at The Record Plant / Britannia Recording Studios / Love ’n’ Comfort Recording Studios / and One Step Up Recording Studios – all in Los Angeles. Mixed at Bayshore Recording Studios, Coconut Grove, FL by Bill Szymczyk.

Musicians: Don Felder (Guitar, Keyboards), Glenn Frey (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards), Don Henley (Vocals, Drums, Percussion), Timothy B. Schmit (Vocals, Bass), Joe Walsh (Vocals, Guitar), The Monstertones featuring Jimmy Buffett (Vocals on ‘The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks’), David Sanborn (Alto saxophone on ‘The Sad Café’)

Named ‘The Long Run’ for how much time and effort it took to record this album, it’s a surprisingly vibrant effort overall. If anyone had guessed what had been going on behind the scenes while this one was being put together, they would never have imagined the album could have turned out so well. That, if nothing else, is a testimony to the ultimate musical professionalism that The Eagles always maintained. Even when everything was falling apart at the seams!

With the departure of Randy Meisner, the band needed to find a replacement for both his bass playing and his distinctive highregister vocal. Enter Timothy B. Schmit, a highly talented player that had ironically been Randy Meisner’s replacement in Poco when Meisner departed to join the Eagles! Another (bitter) irony for Poco was that The Eagles certainly took the crown for this melodic brand of country-influenced rock. Poco were one of the pioneers of the game, however, and although their music was often brilliant, they never achieved anything like the success The Eagles did. By the end of 1977, Schmit was firmly in place and The Eagles continued to fly.

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Recording sessions for what would become ‘The Long Run’ commenced in March 1978. Little did the band realise they were starting an eighteen-month-long haul that was only going to increase the problems and bitterness already apparent within the band. It was indeed going to be ‘a long run’.

The recording sessions, of course, were interspersed with that usual problem The Eagles brought upon themselves, touring at the same time as recording.

The band also recorded a non-album single in the form of ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’ backed with ‘Funky New Year’.

Released in December 1978, this hit a peak of number eighteen and stayed in the charts for five weeks. Interesting interlude!

Weirdly, ‘The Long Run’ today, through all its fractured recording process and the immense problems the band had enveloped themselves with, stands out as a surprisingly cohesive effort and has stood the test of time rather well.

The Long Run (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

An up-tempo track that has some memorable slide guitar by Joe Walsh. Not a bad track, but this was hardly the best on the album, so why open with it? Still, it has stood the test of time reasonably well. It was released as a single in December 1978 and was back with ‘Disco Strangler’ – a far better tack! The single peaked at number eight and charted for twelve weeks.

I Can’t Tell You Why (Timothy B. Schmit / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

This was Timothy B. Schmit’s debut singing performance with the band, and the song is certainly one of the best on the album.

Again, having that feel of The Eagles of old, it became a hot item upon release as a single. The single was backed with ‘The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks’ and reached number eight in the charts.

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In the City (Joe Walsh / Barry De Vorzon)

More Joe Walsh solo than Eagles, the song is a clear indication of the direction Walsh wished to take. A great track that remains popular today, it is also the most ‘un-Eagles’ track they have ever laid down to tape. One only had to listen to his soon-to-be monster solo hit ‘Life’s Been Good’ to realise Walsh had probably been thinking it was the end of the road with The Eagles. In this song, it was a case of The Eagles backing Joe Walsh!

Disco Strangler (Don Felder / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

With a fantastic riff, this is certainly one that should have been released as an A-side single. It would have been huge! This is one of the lost gems on the album.

King of Hollywood (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

A wonderful track that certainly did not get the credit it deserved upon release. With guitar solos from Frey, Felder and Walsh, it really is a wonderful end track to that original vinyl LP’s side one.

Frey and Henley sing the leads on this one. The track is another one that has stood the test of time well and actually sounds better today.

Heartache Tonight (Don Henley / Glenn Frey / Bob Seger / John David Souther)

With input from Bob Seger and J.D. Souther, the track is a catchy upbeat number. A hugely popular song that became a number one single, charting for thirteen weeks in the US! Classic Eagles.

Those Shoes (Don Felder / Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Sung by Don Henley, this one has that classic Joe Walsh ‘talk box’ 120

effect on guitar. The song actually has a feel that was to appear on Henley’s solo albums a few years later. The track works very well live.

Teenage Jail (Don Henley / Glenn Frey /John David Souther)

Used as the B-side to ‘Heartache Tonight’, this one sounds like The Eagles meet Alice Cooper. An odd track, but surprisingly it does actually work.

The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks (Don Henley / Glenn Frey)

Used as the B-side to ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’. The A-side title really does say it all, because ‘The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks’ is as near to a piece of crap as The Eagles ever recorded.

The Sad Café (Don Henley / Glenn Frey / Joe Walsh / John David Souther)

A wonderful way to end what actually turned out to be sad album, and the track may well have summed up the band’s feeling about themselves. This is a popular live track today.

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