The Eagles, The #10 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"So much talent in this group..."

"The Eagles are one of the best bands ever."

"Every note, and I mean every note, and their harmony, was pure perfection."

"The Eagles are one of the legendary bands."

"Their music was immortal.  Pure perfection."

"There is not an Eagles song that I don't like.  A band with songs that are timeless."

"What a legendary band."

"Absolutely the BEST band ever!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️"

"Their songs are so relevant.  They will be relevant 100 years from now, and relevant 500 years from now."

"One of the greatest bands I ever heard."

"The voices are so perfect.  I do not think there has ever been better harmony."

"Some of the greatest songwriting ever."

"These guys are and will forever be number one for their music thru the years."

"These guys are timeless. They are truly a national treasure. Their music is part of my life."

"Great voices, excellent musicians."

"It is truly impressive the talent in this band. They could all sing. One of the Top 3 bands of all time. Maybe top 2."

"Best harmonies ever, hands down."

"There is no one like the Eagles.  Love their music."

"Pure magic."

"The Eagles are timeless.  My parents loved them, I love them, and my kids love them."

"The vocals are awesome.  Truly timeless music."

"Such talent throughout."

"Deep meditations, wonderful visions, and incredible music."

"The best group ever."

"The key to the Eagles success is their songwriting. They went beyond words that rhymed...and carefully selected words that mirrored real life. Greatest band ever...thanks guys."

"Such depth in their music."

"If someone asks you 'What's harmony?', play them the Eagles."

"The Eagles and their songs and creations are awesome!!"

Their harmonies and professionalism are virtually unsurpassed in music.  Music critics, jealous of their tremendous success, have never understood the tremendous appeal and respect from music fans around the world, but in the long run, it is those critics who have had to wear egg on their faces for all these years!

In 1971, Linda Ronstadt recruited Glenn Frey and Don Henley, both of whom had moved to Los Angeles, for her backing band.  Texas native Henley recorded an album with his band Shiloh, while Frey formed the group Longbranch Pennywhistle upon settling.  Both were signed to Amos Records and met a year earlier at The Troubadour in L.A.  Bassist Randy Meisner, a member of Ricky Nelson's band, the Stone Canyon Band, and guitarist Bernie Leadon, a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, joined Ronstadt on a summer tour to promote her album Silk Purse.  The only time all four played together was for a July concert at Disneyland, but all played on Ronstadt's debut album.

While on tour, and with Ronstadt's complete blessing, Frey and Henley formed their own group, bringing both Leadon and Meisner with them.  So respected were they at musicians that they were signed to a recording contract in September by Asylum Records.  Label head David Geffen had just formed the company and suggested they go to Aspen, Colorado to rehearse.  In October, the group performed for the first time at The Gallery in Aspen known as Teen King and the Emergencies.  Geffen and partner Eliot Roberts managed the group in their early years, with the band soon deciding on the name Eagles.

 

The group was fortunate to be produced by respected Glyn Johns (who had worked with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin previously) on their self-titled debut album in 1972.  The Eagles and music fans hit it off from the beginning with a song co-written by Frey and Jackson Browne, who were neighbors in Laurel Canyon.  Browne had begun the lyrics but was stuck after writing the line "I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona."  His neighbor upstairs just happened to be Frey, who was looking for songs to complete an album with the Eagles.

Frey finished the verse, and Browne completed the song.  "We gave Glenn a nickname, The Lone Arranger," Henley told Cameron Crowe in 2003.  "He had a vision about how our voices could blend and how to arrange the vocals and, in many cases, the tracks," Don continued.  "He also had a knack for remembering and choosing good songs.  Jackson had shelved 'Take It Easy' because he couldn't complete it, but it was Glenn who remembered the song from some time earlier and asked Jackson about it one day."

In hindsight, it is ridiculous that Billboard magazine showed a peak at #12 (although it did reach #8 in much smarter Canada), since it is now known as one of The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*.

Leadon wrote this song while with the Flying Burrito Brothers and he took it with him to the Eagles.  Henley helped him finish it, and "Witchy Woman" also reached #8 in Canada and #9 in the U.S.

 

San Diego singer/songwriter Jack Tempchin wrote this song circa 1969.  He had played a gig in nearby El Centro and was waiting for a waitress he was interested in.  She never came back, so to kill the time, Tempchin picked up his guitar and starting writing the lyrics on the back of one of his flyers.

Tempchin continued to develop the song and moved to Los Angeles, where he frequented the famous Troubadour club.  Tempchin was staying with Browne one day when Frey came downstairs and heard Tempchin playing the song.  Jack recorded a cassette for Frey, who came back the following day with a demo he recorded with his aspiring band which had been backing Ronstadt - the band that became the Eagles.

"Take It Easy" and the beautiful "Peaceful Easy Feeling", neither of which made the Top 10 at the time ("Peaceful Easy Feeling" had an absurd peak of only #22), are both solid members of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.

 

The Netherlands' musical tastes have always been ahead of the rest of the world when it came to recognizing the greatness of the Eagles.  Desperado rose to #5 on the Album charts there.  The Eagles toured with Yes to promote their work.  Two more of those underrated songs are included on the album Desperado.  This song is one of two songs that Henley and Frey wrote in their first week of songwriting together.  "Tequila Sunrise" stalled at #64.

Whereas Henley had just two lead vocals and one songwriting credit on the debut album, Desperado, which carries an Old West outlaw theme, reflects the time when he hit his stride.  The title song, never released as a single, has become a fan favorite.

 

This song tells the story of the notorious Wild West outlaws known as The Dalton Gang.  The gang included the Dalton Brothers, Bill Doolin, Bittercreek Newcomb and other outlaws that robbed trains beginning in 1888 in what was the Oklahoma Territory.  By 1892, many members had already been killed, and five more, including three of the Dalton brothers, were ambushed and killed in Coffeyville.  

Bill Doolin, Bill Dalton, Newcomb and Charlie Pierce, the last surviving members, recruited seven other criminals to form the Doolin-Dalton Gang with the aim of taking revenge.  The Eagles' song ends here, but by 1898, every member was killed.  Here is "Doolin-Dalton".

Leadon wrote "Bitter Creek" about the outlaw Bittercreek Newcomb referenced above.

(From left--Leadon, Frey, Henley, Meisner, Felder, Szymczyk)

The group had somehow managed to be known as a Country Rock group, when they were anything but.  From the beginning, the Eagles have always been a group that could record both some of the best ballads ever written and do rock & roll as well.  Feeling they needed a new producer to emphasize this diversity, the group turned to Bill Szymczyk, who would produce some of the best albums in music history in the next several years.  

To complement that move, the Eagles invited guitarist Don Felder, a childhood friend of Leadon who had jammed with the group backstage in 1972, to play slide guitar on the song "Good Day In Hell" for their new album.  The Eagles liked what they heard so much that they invited Felder to be in the group the next day.  

The group's friend Tempchin wrote this one as well.  Frey, who teamed with Leadon to offer twin guitar solos, felt Szymczyk gave the group more freedom to develop themselves in their own musical style than Johns did, especially on this song.

 

The Eagles released the fabulous rocker "Already Gone" as the first single from their album On the Border.  It is one of the best examples of their incredible harmonies and, with a peak of #32 on Billboard, is another of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.  Radio music directors didn't quite get it.  But they would very soon.

"You can see the stars and still not see the light."  The Eagles had many great lines and that is certainly one of them.

Although the band was consciously moving in a more Rock direction, their first #1 was one of those great ballads which happened by accident.  "I was playing acoustic guitar one afternoon in Laurel Canyon," Frey told Crowe, "and I was trying to figure out a tuning that [then-girlfriend] Joni Mitchell had shown me a couple of days earlier.  I got lost and ended up with the guitar tuning for what would later turn out to be 'Best Of My Love'."

But after flying to London to record the song, the group was stuck.  "Can you get on a plane?, Henley pleaded to friend J.D. Souther, who had worked with them on "Doolin-Dalton".  "Souther wrote the bridge," Henley told Crowe.  "And it was perfect."  

"Best Of My Love", was a double #1 (#1 on both the Adult and the Popular charts in both the U.S. and Canada in 1975, another of The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*.

 

On The Border was a #3 album in the Netherlands, while radio stations everywhere else in the world were behind the times.  This solid track resulted after Henley, Frey, Browne and Souther saw Tim Hardin at the Troubadour.  When they got home, they picked up their guitars.

 "That's when the idea came together about us doing an album of all the angst-meisters," Frey told Crowe in the liner notes for the compilation The Very Best of the Eagles, with a laugh.  "It was going to be all of the antiheroes.  'James Dean' was going to be one song, and the Doollin-Dalton gang was going to be another." 

"I sat there and listened to the guys talk about James Dean," Henley added.  "They had evidently studied him and knew much more about him than I did," he continued.  "I had seen most of Dean's movies, but I somehow missed the whole icon thing.  The mythology never quite reached my part of East Texas, but I pitched in and ended up with a writing credit--although the song was mostly Jackson's, I think."

When the group came up with Desperado, they decided to make the Wild West the album theme, and "James Dean" was put on the back burner.  But when it came time for the On the Border album, the Eagles revived and finished the song.

 

We also want to feature the group's cover of a Tom Waits song, which label head David Geffen had played for Frey.  Frey enthusiastically took it to the group with his plan for the arrangement.  "I really liked the song," Frey told Crowe.  "It's such a car thing.  Your first car is like your first apartment.  I loved the idea of driving home at sunrise, thinking about what had happened the night before.  Enjoy this outstanding version of "Ol' 55".

 

The lyrics to the title song are about the concern that the U.S. government (Richard Nixon was president at the time) was violating the privacy of American citizens by spying on them.  At the end of the song, you can hear "Say goodnight, Dick," a phrase made popular on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.  Henley said, "We were addressing Nixon [who left office in disgrace after it was clear he was going to be impeached], because at that time it was pretty clear that he was on his way out, so that was our little kiss-off to Tricky Dick."

In 1974, the Eagles played at the California Jam festival, which attracted over 300,000 fans as well as a nationwide television audience which watched on ABC.  Browne filled in for Felder at the festival as Felder was celebrating the birth of his son.

Enjoy the flight of the Eagles in Part Two!