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Super
Rock’s Tribute to the Eagles Without
doubt, the Eagles are perhaps the premier recording and performing rock
groups in this country and maybe the world. This statement is made valid
and reinforced with some recent facts. First of all, the Eagles' most
recent album, Hotel California; entered the Billboard charts at number
four with a silver bullet; and the record shipped “platinum”. To be
shipped “platinum” a record must sell a million units right off the
bat. That's without any real promotion, advertisements or airplay.
Shipping "platinum" is not an easy nut to crack, and this
helps illustrate just how popular the Eagles really are. Another example
is on the Eagles' most recent tour, the group performed before more than
400,000 people and grossed an impressive $2.8 million. That's quite an
achievement for a bunch of laid-back rock and rollers from California. The Eagles are so extremely popular for several reasons. The first and most obvious being the Eagles’ ability to be commercially acceptable without sacrificing artistic vision. Other reasons could be their visual appeal, five well scrubbed, sun-tanned men all decked out in tailored blue jeans, t-shirts and Adidas tennies. But underneath all the good looks, the fine floating harmonies and irresistible guitar hooks Is something more important. This important element is their undying devotion to discipline, hard work and professionalism. Guitarist Glenn Frey once remarked to Robert Grossweiner several years back: “We (the Eagles) all wanted to be rockstars. There is no dead weight in the Eagles. I mean we are not carrying around someone's best friend or roommate.” So
without any excess baggage or hangers-on, the Eagles aimed for the top
of the rock pile. The Eagles aim was sturdy, well-balanced, creative and
disciplined and like a fine marksman, the Eagles hit their mark and
scored dead center. The
Eagles as a group began in 1971, but the story that lead to the Eagles
was underway long before their arrival on the rock scene. So find those
rose colored glasses, and let's take a fond glance backward into the
thrilling and wondrous days of yesteryear. The
Byrds (Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Mike Clarke; Chris Hillman, and David
Crosby) started it all the way back in 1965. And it has persisted
through until today, the intrepid travelers from L.A., with their music
for all the world to see, their adventures and misdeeds through the
badlands and the cosmos. I can remember well the beautiful strains of Mr.
Tambourine Man over the radio, as I tried to understand the strange
words (penned by Dylan) underneath all that beautiful sound. I didn't
know who they were or where they came from, or that all that particular
sound was an electric twelve-string guitar. I just knew it was
exquisite. And that sound is still beautiful today (when you get the
chance check out The Byrds records in the local cut-out bins; you'll
find a gold mine of brilliant music.) Playing
that twelve-string guitar and leading the Byrds was Jim (now Roger)
McGuinn (he now leads
Thunderbyrd). McGuinn once made a statement about the Byrds’ music
that was strange in the early Sixties and still is in the Seventies.
Here's what McGuinn said: “I think the difference is in the
mechanical sounds of our time. Like the sound of the airplane in
the Forties was a rrrrooooaaaaahhhhhh sound and (Frank) Sinatra and
other people sang like that with other sorts of overtones. Now we’ve
got the
krrriiisssshhhh jet sound, and kids singing
up there now. It’s
the mechanical sounds of the era: the sounds are different and so the
music is different.” The
music of the Byrds was internationally popular and profoundly
influential. Labeled Folk Rock the sound was made up of twelve-string
guitar symphonies, cascading diamond-sharp guitar notes intertwined with
cathedral-like vocal harmonies. The only element really missing in the
Byrds’ sound was true compassion and emotion. Love songs were a scarce
commodity; that grew even more scarce when Gene Clark, the group’s
only romantic, left the band. McGuinn and the other Byrds had a
fascination for technique and cool precision; their songs have a feeling
of aloofness and remoteness. And out of the Byrds and their friends in
other bands would develop the L.A. Sound. The
L.A. Sound as it has been called over the years lies somewhere between
folk, country and rock, incorporating some of the best things (and
consequently the worst) of all these styles. The music has been around
in various incarnations since the first Byrds began twelve years ago in
L.A., and it has expressed
the lifestyle. of its performers all along the way. There have been a
lot of groups who have been classified in this music along the way, the
Buffalo Springfield with all their frustrations and egos, Poco (with
ex-Springfield members Jim Messina,
Richie Furay and soon-to-be Eagle Randy
Meisner) with all their exuberance, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and
Young (ex-members from the Byrds, Hollies and Springfield) and the
Flying Burrito Brothers (ex-Byrds Chris Hillman and the late Gram
Parsons) with all their changes. It has changed from the electric folk
music of the Byrds to the more country-oriented music (this due to
innovations of Gram Parsons) played by groups today like the Chris
Hillman Band, Fools Gold, Firefall and so many others. But none play
this country-tinged music quite like the Eagles. Glenn
Frey came to California at 19. He was born and raised in Detroit and was
turned onto rock by Bob Seger (Frey sang background vocals on Seger’s
hit single Heavy Music). Once
in California Frey met up with John David Souther and formed the folk
duo Longbranch-Pennywhistle. The Pennywhistles were an acoustic act that
lasted three years and went nowhere fast. During this time Frey also
backed up Linda Ronstadt at various times; while backing up Ronstadt,
Frey met Meisner. Randy
Meisner was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He’s played rock and roll
from early high school onward. Meisner came to L.A. with a rock group
called the Poor who stayed that way. While there Meisner met Richie
Furay of the Springfield. When both groups disbanded Furay and Meisner
and Jim Messina formed Poco. A year later Meisner quit out of resultant
boredom. This led him to join Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band, but
promptly left Nelson for greener pastures-the pastures being Nebraska.
No sooner was he there when he left for L.A. again; this time he met
Frey and Henley. Don Henley grew up in Linden, Texas, and began playing music in the South. He lumbered his way through the usual amount of groups until he got into Shiloh, which lasted five years. In search of fame and fortune Shiloh
came to L.A. and bombed and fell apart. Henley met Frey in the
Troubadour bar-both were asked to back up Ronstadt. They immediately
conspired to form the Eagles. Twisted
tales have it that Frey and Henley met Bernie Leadon on a drunken night
while they were carousing through Uncle Walt’s Disneyland. Leadon has
a long musical history before the Eagles. Leadon was born in
Minneapolis, but grew up in San Diego where he played bluegrass music
and knew Chris Hillman and the late Clarence White (both Byrds). In the
Sixties Leadon formed Hearts and Flowers, who released one album for
Capitol. Next he joined Doug Dillard and ex-Byrd Gene Clark in a trio.
That particular group faded fast after two records. Not being the kind
of guy to give up, Leadon next joined Parsons’ and Hillman’s Flying
Burrito Brothers. From there Leadon met up with Frey, Henley, and
Meisner. The
Eagles, financed by David Geffen, paid their dues in various bars in
Colorado. They came back beaming with self-confidence and ready to slay
the rock and roll crowds. The new group few to England to record their
debut album The Eagles with producer Glyn Johns. The album went off like a
rocket. This was due to the hit single Take
It Easy. The song had powerful lyrics, but almost gentle reassuring
music. Two other singles were hits, the irresistible Peaceful Easy Feeling and the slightly overbearing Witchy
Woman. All that happened in 1972. As
the Eagles got more popular they also became more ambitious, but they
also became more obsessed with desolation and doom and “hangin’ on
to my peace of mind” in the face of such threats. These
disparate strains all converge in Desperado,
the group’s second and most important effort, the one that forged the
persona they still maintain. Though its songs followed a loosely
sequential pattern this was less a rock opera than a rock movie, a drama
of defeat by a sympathetic, cautionary but carefully detached observer.
The central figures of Desperado
were the Doolin-Dalton gang, a troupe of outlaws and born losers who
existed partly in western folklore (the whole thing was based upon a
real story) and partly in the most morally barren outposts of modern
California. So the most contemporary references to faithless or faceless
women, to drugs (Oh, Peyote!)
and to liquor (Tequila Sunrise)
were part of the same aimless desperation of which the real Doolin-Dalton
gang had gotten themselves sandbagged: The itch for any action, any
sensation, any contact was finally reduced to the itch, even a hopeless
one. Desperado was a long
search in a world of listless, pleasureless hedonism, and as such it
touched a very raw nerve in the band’s rapidly expanding audience. Drummer
Henley explains his view of Desperado:
“We didn’t necessarily mean outlaws, but living on the road like
this is living outside the laws of normality. We don’t live a normal
life where you get up, every morning and drive to the office. But the
album is also about a kid growing up, trying to find his place, that
awkward what-to-do adolescence stage.”
Frey articulates this: “When a kid sees a guitar in a shop
window today, he sees it the same way the outlaw in the Old West saw the
gun. It’s the mark of a new kind of man, a way he can make a fortune
and a name for himself while thumbing his nose at the things society
wants him to be.” Maybe
there was nowhere to go beyond Desperado;
maybe the group saw this as the most accurate possible vision of their
world, or at least the most scathing one they could abide. In any case,
the next album, On the Border,
reverted back to the formula of the first one, with every cut a
potential hit and no overriding vision or structure. On
the Border contains some of the Eagles’ best songs, songs that do
follow through on Desperado’s
themes even as they separate out and sometimes almost caricature them. There
is some romantic confusion-Already
Gone is a flip, abrupt kiss-off; You
Never Cry Like A Lover, a gentle plea that someone “try a little
harder”; and the same fatalism (My
Man an ode’ to the late Gram Parsons, by Leadon, describes his
demise as having been both premature and inevitable.) There was also a
tribute to the late film star and legendary rebel, James Dean. Frey says
this about that song: “James Dean was the first’ rock and roll
casualty (Dean was killed in a car accident while racing his sports car
“Spyder”.) He's the guy
who trademarked blue jeans, white shirts, and a light spring jacket.
Jimmy Dean, he’s my first hero, that first angry young man, rebel
without a cause. I had a lot of heroes but James Dean, man, he’s
it!” On
the Border was the also the introduction of Don Felder, who would take over lead
guitar chores. Frey once told David Rensin, “I love to say this-Bernie
and Felder are proud guitar players and to me, and I don’t mean to
make their work comparative, but respectively they’re carrying on the
work of Clarence White and Duane Allman.” With Felder also came a
harder, darker sound which was introduced in the song A
Good Day In Hell. One
Of These Nights, released in the summer of 1975, was the last album made before Bernie
Leadon’s departure from the group. Leadon left early in 1976. From it
came three major hit singles: One
Of These Nights, Lyin’ Eyes
and the magnificent Take It To The
Limit. The record also marked the
emergence of Meisner as a singer of considerable power in the
little-noticed After the Thrill Is
Gone, another double meaning song, about' the numerous problems that
come with success disguised as a love song. With
One of These Nights, the Eagles’ vision of the world has darkened
considerably, becoming progressively tougher, more cynical. The music
and lyrics also reflect a deeper dabbling in the unreal, the mystical,
the result of innumerable late nights of lingering on the edge peering
into the haunting darkness. Through all this barely a shred of innocence
has survived, regardless if the innocence was contrived in the first
place. They have been showing a world where everything is ostensibly
possible and permissible, and which is still a world where mundane
problems remain. 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 doing so they have become one of the most commercially
successful groups in America. When
Leadon left the Eagles a replacement had to be found and they found that
replacement in their close friend and ex-James Gang and whiz-kid
guitarist Joe Walsh. Walsh brought a new dimension to the Eagles with
his fine tempered and fiery guitar playing, but at the same time he
lacks the finer, intricate colorings of Leadon. Walsh is also yet to be
fully absorbed into the group as well; his only contribution to the
Eagles’ newest record Hotel
California was Pretty Maids
All in Row. Though the song is surprisingly low-key and very moving
and suggestive of Neil Young , it does not really fit in with the Eagles
sound. Such criticism, though, is trivial since time will more than
likely erase any problems and Walsh will be a full-fledged Eagle. In
Hotel California many of the images they have been working with over
the last five years recur. Cars and highways, the rock star as outlaw,
confusion between the emotional hold of success and personal
relationships are all reworked to good effect. Cars and highways which
in the past once represented some sort of worthwhile freedom, have
become nothing more than another example of rootlessness where each
turn, onto yet another highway is a nightmare even worse than the last.
What is not explained is whether the nightmares are real of imaginary. Life
in the Fast Lane,
repeats the image in a waking hell that gives a bleak opinion of the
too-good rich life, and represents the hardest rocker the band has
recorded to date, both lyrically and musically. The outlaw rock star and
his confusion between love and the big time is reinterpreted in New
Kid In Town, a fine ballad embellished by a new cynicism that
includes themselves and with a faint dash of irony in the song title.
For while the band has been musically describing California, they have
been actually discussing, themselves. Nobody in the Eagles is a kid
anymore and they’re all aware of the fact. Much
criticism can be hoisted upon the shoulders of the Eagles and they have
received more than their share. The group’s approach is completely
enveloped in legend and myth and, above all, fantasy. The principal
songwriters and group spokesmen Frey arid Henley constantly pepper their
songs with references to desperadoes, outlaws and heroes. They celebrate
the values of the Old West and the frontier with no real sense of irony,
no sense of distance. The Eagles seem to think that if the clock could
just be turned back life would be fine and dandy. They forget that most
of those illustrious outlaws led brief explosive lives and then died in
the dust, alone and painfully. The Eagles are also very sexist, which
the song Wasted Time best
explains. The singer blames a woman because “you can’t hold your
man” while the man in question is the singer who’s been deserted and
left miserable. The Eagles make good music which is no less stylish and intelligent for being straightforward, which is at times the hardest style of all. On Hotel California the Eagles are growing up. They don't seem to like the idea very much (the future is grim for rock and roll adults) so that through all the songs there hovers a question of where do they go from here. They recently answered that question. Typed
by Michelle
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