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

(Continued from Part One)

 

The band released the album One of These Nights in 1975, the album that turned the Eagles into superstars.  The title song gave them another #1 smash in the United States, and word was spreading like wildfire about this one-of-a-kind California group with songs about real life, some of the best lyrics ever written, and those tremendous harmonies.  It reached #3 in New Zealand and 7 in the Netherlands.  Don'tcha just love that symbol beat that Henley plays?

The album topped charts in the U.S. was a solid #2 in Canada, the Netherlands and Norway, and easily made the Top 10 in virtually every country.  It has topped four million in sales in the U.S. alone.  

This classic arose when Henley and Frey were roommates in a house in Trousdale.  "It was built in 1942 by the actress Dorothy Lamour," Henley told Crowe.  He talked more about the house and the background for this song:

              Glenn and I lived at opposite ends of the   

               house and we actually converted a music

               room to a full-on recording studio.  The

             house was located at the highest point on 

               the hill and we had a 360-degree panorama.

               In the daytime, we could see the snowcapped

               peaks to the east and the blue Pacific to the

               west.  At night, the twinkling lights of the city

               below were breathtaking.  The place had a

               couple of nicknames--"the House With the

               Million Dollar View" and "The Eagles Nest"

              of course.  We had some great times up there.

              As for "Lyin' Eyes", Glenn's pretty much

              responsible for that track and for the title, the

               choruses.  I helped out with the verses and

                perhaps with the melody.  It's really Glenn's

                baby.

                   

"Lyin' Eyes", a fellow member of The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*, captured the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and is also one of The Top #2 Songs of the Rock Era* It was so strong that it gave the Eagles a Top 10 hit on three formats (nearly unheard of), #2 Popular, #3 Adult, and #8 Country (also #3 in Ireland and #7 in New Zealand).

The Eagles toured the world in support of the album, which was nominated for Album of the Year.  If you are thinking, "Man, this is just one classic after another!", give yourself extra music expert points.  One of the things the group had going for it was their uncanny, incredible consistency.  More than any other act except perhaps the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Eagles put out one great song after another.  That should be apparent in listening to every song by every artist in this special.  

 There are many great artists in the Rock Era, but they sometimes released singles or in some cases entire albums that were sub-par.  Not so the Eagles.  Their batting average of Top 10 hits to singles released is unsurpassed--more on that later.  The only single in their catalog to highlight Meisner on lead vocals is the wonderful "Take It To The Limit", giving the group three of The Top 500 Songs* on one album.  It was a dual #4 (#4 on both the Adult and Popular charts), and the group's first Gold single.

 

But groups who enjoy great chart success have just as many Top Tracks* as those who don't (the Who, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC, for example).  To be ranked this high, one has to have both--a catalog of huge hits and dozens of great songs never released as singles.  Frey and Henley wrote the lyrics with Don providing the bridge for the ballad "After The Thrill Has Gone".

 Walsh made an early songwriting contribution with "Hollywood Waltz".

Leadon, who preferred the Country Rock sound that the group emphasized in the beginning, left the Eagles after the One of These Nights album.  What happened next was akin to a professional football team scoring a coup with a first round draft pick.  The group chose veteran Joe Walsh, member of the James Gang and a recent successful solo artist, to replace Leadon.  With Walsh, the superstar Eagles soared to even new heights.  Felder assumed the duties of playing banjo, pedal steel and mandolin, something Leadon had specialized in.

To this point, the Eagles had been together a little over four years, but they had already accumulated enough amazing music for a compilation album, and in 1976, the group released Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).  As millions of more people have joined the rank as Eagles fans, the album has achieved legendary status, proof that all those initial low peaks of early Eagles material were way, way too low.

The album sold like hotcakes upon release, leaving befuddled music directors scratching their heads how they could be so wrong.  Believe us, the Eagles have had the last laugh many times over since then.  These MD's, supposed professionals, just didn't get how a group so amazingly talented could escape them.  

The combination of a group's early catalog severely underplayed on the radio and the incredible talent of the Eagles created a situation where music fans around the globe were starving for their music, and Their Greatest Hits continued to sell and sell year after year to the point where it has now sold over 38 million copies in the U.S. and 50 million worldwide.  Only when Thriller sold heavily after the death of Michael Jackson in 2009 did an album finally top the Eagles' compilation.  But the Eagles regained #1 on the all-time list in 2018.

The Eagles scored their second consecutive #1 album with Hotel California, their first with Walsh aboard.  It was and is a work of art, taking a year-and-a-half to finish. 

 

J.D. Souther began this song with the Eagles helping to finish it.  According to Henley, it's about "the fleeting, fickle nature of love and romance."  "It's also about the fleeting nature of fame, especially in the music business," he added.  "We were basically saying, 'Look, we know we're red hot now, but we also know that somebody's going to come along and replace us--both in music and in love.'  We were always doing that double entendre thing, between the music business and personal relationships. 

 "New Kid In Town" gave the group their third #1 song and pulled off the great feat of going #1 overall and #2 Adult in both the U.S. and Canada (also hitting #6 in Norway and #9 in New Zealand).

 

"New Kid In Town" was the Eagles' second Gold single.  The title song, which sold over two million copies and prominently featured the great guitar work of both Walsh and Felder, has become their signature song.  Henley called it "basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream and about excess in America".  It reached #1 in the U.S. and Canada and Top 10 in virtually every country in the world.  We now know it as The #15 Song of the Rock Era*!

 

Frey got the inspiration for this song when he was riding with a friend to an Eagles poker game.  The friend got in the left lane and was driving super fast.  Frey told him to slow down, to which the friend responded, "Hey, man, it's life in the fast lane."  Frey knew he had the title for a great song.  

"Joe started playing a riff at rehearsal one day, and I said, 'That's "Life In The Fast Lane"", Frey said in the liner notes.  "So we started writing a song about the couple that had everything and did everything — and lost the meaning of everything. Lifestyles of the rich and miserable.  The single "Life In The Fast Lane" reached #11.

 

This gem on the album was a conscious attempt by the Eagles to write blue-eyed Soul, as the genre was called.  "I loved all the records coming out of Philadelphia at that time," Frey told The American Songwriter.  "Don could stand out there all alone and just wail.  We did a big Philly-type production with strings," Glenn remembered.  "Don's singing abilities stretched so many of our boundaries.  He could sing the phone book."

"Wasted Time" is not only a Top Track*, identified by the fact that it was never released as a single, but a legitimate Top 10 song had it been released, making it another of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.

Another tremendous track is "Victim Of Love".  After writing most of the song, the Eagles began recording the song with Felder on lead vocal.  But after several unsuccessful attempts, Henley stepped in and it is his vocal which made the album.  This formed a wedge between Felder and the rest of the group that continued to foment in the years to come.

Meisner wrote and sang lead on "Try And Love Again".

 Walsh sang lead on "Pretty Maids All In A Row"

Hotel California was a #1 album in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Norway and Top 5 in every major market in the world.  Another song on the album which fits both Top Track* and Top Underrated* is this amazing song.  

The Eagles started the song when they first began recording, and Henley finished it seven months later.  

 

Long before what we now recognize as a strong movement the world over to protect our planet, Henley penned timeless and searing lyrics for "The Last Resort".

Frey called it "Henley's opus".  Glenn and Don both expressed great, poignant thoughts about the song.  Glenn Frey:

              One of the primary themes of the song was

              that we keep creating what we’ve been 

              running away from — violence, chaos,

              destruction. We migrated to the East Coast,

              killed a bunch of Indians, and just completely  

              screwed that place up. Then we just kept 

              moving west: “Move those teepees, we got 

              some train tracks coming through here. Get

              outta' the way, boy!” There were some very

              personal references in the song, including a

              girl from Providence, Rhode Island, who Don 

              had dated for some time. She had taken an

              inheritance from her grandfather and moved

              to Aspen, Colorado, in search of a new life.

              Look where Aspen is now. How prophetic is

             “The Last Resort” 28 years after it was

              written? Aspen is a town where the

              billionaires have driven out the millionaires. 

              It was once a great place. Look at Lahaina;

              look at Maui. It’s so commercial. It’s

              everything Hawaii was not supposed to be. 

              Whether we’re carrying the cross or carrying

              the gasoline can, we seem to have a 

             penchant for wrecking beautiful places.

Don Henley:

                I’d been reading articles and doing research

                about the raping and pillaging of the West

                by mining, timber, oil and cattle interests. 

                But I was interested in an even larger scope 

                for the song, so I tried to go “Michener” with 

                it. I remember going out to Malibu and 

               standing on Zuma beach, looking out at the

               ocean. I remember thinking, “this is about as

               far west — with the exception of Alaska — as

               you can go on this continent. This is where 

              Manifest Destiny ends — right here, in the

              middle of all these surfboards and volleyball 

              nets and motor homes.” And then I thought,

              “Nah, we’ve gone right on over and screwed 

               up Hawaii too.”

Here is that timeless song--"The Last Resort".

The incredible album has now topped 26 million in U.S. sales (#3 All-Time) and 40 around the world and won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year for the title song and Best Arrangement for Voices for "New Kid In Town".  In a normal year, it would have easily been Album of the Year but 1977 was no normal year.  It also happened to be the year of release for Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, The #1 Album of the Rock Era*, so this time, the Eagles had to take a backseat, although a very prominent one!

Join us for Part Three!