![]() ![]() The four original members-Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner-had all met through Linda Ronstadt, for whom each had worked as back‐up musician at one time or another. They have also along the way gone from their original designation of a “country‐rock” band to one more closely aligned to mainstream rock, California style, smoother than its eastern or English counterparts and highlighted by elegantly polished high harmony singing. Whatever the drawbacks, they are writing about a place that has struck a responsive chord in a lot of people for many different reasons and, in so doing, they have become one of the most commercially successful American rock bands now working, with each of their albums (including “Their Greatest Hits”) selling over a million copies and holding concerts in arenas to accommodate their audiences. In that time, their vision of the world they chose (like so much of the state's population, none of the five men currently in the band is a native) has darkened considerably, becoming progressively tougher, more cynical, and still in many ways irresistible, They have been showing a world where everything is ostensibly possible and permissible, and which is still a world where mundane problems remain. If the American population is inevitably heading south and west, as statistics indicate, the Eagles, in five albums over five years, have been sending out reports of the fantasies and realities that will be found there. It is almost impossible to talk about the Eagles without mentioning California-dream and reality-not just because the state figures in the title of their newest album, “Hotel California,” but because, more than any other group since the early Beach Boys, they ere so firmly rooted in that territory, exploring its myths, way of life, pleasures and perils. It didn’t matter.Somewhere out there is Southern California, as far away as anyone can get in this country from the northeast, both in miles and mores. Don’s singing abilities stretched so many of our boundaries. You’re not going to find that track on a Crosby, Stills & Nash record or Beach Boys record. ![]() ![]() We did a big Philly-type production with strings - definitely not country-rock. He could stand out there all alone and just wail. I sent for some sheet music so I could learn some of those songs, and I started creating my own musical ideas with that Philly influence. As Frey wrote in the liner notes to The Very Best Of The Eagles, “I loved all the records coming out of Philadelphia at that time. Perhaps the most left-field departure of them all was “Wasted Time,” a song where co-writers Glenn Frey and Don Henley dared to display their blue-eyed soul. The album found room for the sinewy mid-tempo groove of the title track, the crunching rock of “Victim Of Love” and “Life In The Fast Lane,” and the epic sweep of “The Last Resort.” But the addition of Joe Walsh on guitar allowed the band to spread its wings, so to speak, on Hotel California. Early hits like “Take It Easy,” “Tequila Sunrise” and “The Best Of My Love” certainly fit the bill. Up to that point in their career, it would have been fair to lump the band within the genre of country-tinged soft rock. ![]()
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