Chapter Eight—The New Eagles

The moment Joe Walsh joined them, the Eagles were, in effect, an entirely new band. They’d already rejected their identity as a country rock band with the addition of Don Felder’s rock guitar playing, but Walsh turned them whole hog into a rock ‘n’ roll outfit. Because Walsh understood the full spectrum of rock dynamics, what he added in terms of rock took nothing away from the band’s softer, more melodic side. In fact, side two of James Gang Rides Again and virtually all of were every bit as softly melodic as the Eagles.

The exchange was perfect for both sides. The thing lacking in Walsh’s formula were the intricate close harmonies that the Eagles provided his material, while Walsh added a toughness and purpose to the Eagle’s ensemble sound that provided the band with a decided direction at a time when they were looking for new purpose.

In a strange way Walsh was the embodiment of the image the Eagles had been trying to project all along. For several albums they had preferred the image of tough macho nihilists, men with big hearts who didn’t really care about anything except the most basic truths. The trouble was that the Eagles, especially conceptualizers Frey and Henley, were worried about projecting the image properly—you could tell by their insistence on it, and their defensiveness.

Denizens of Hollywood, the Eagles were cardboard cowboys who couldn’t figure out how to make an image three-dimensional. Meanwhile Walsh had pursued a parallel course to the Eagles with much less fanfare but more a resounding effect. He had left the James Gang at the height of that band’s popularity without so much as batting an eye, proving his contempt for the pomp and flash that was just a little too appealing for the Eagles to totally reject. What’s more, Walsh left The James Gang to pursue a musical concept that was totally compatible with the Eagles aesthetic—remember, he was talking about stage presence as a musical rather than visual quality even before the Eagles were a band—and Walsh paid for it by being completely misunderstood. Walsh cared about the kind of life he was leading first ("we’re not starving, so, we’re better off than most" was one particularly revelatory comment made during his James Gang stint) and had no use for the niceties of show-biz. Of course Walsh paid for these values by being overlooked, scorned and misinterpreted. The renegade lifestyle is only glamorous on the movie posters.

In light of Walsh’s immense qualifications for the band it might not seem odd that he affected the Eagles so profoundly. His joining was a colossal risk which proved successful enough to enhance manager Irving Azoff’s reputation for entrepeneurial wizardry. The Eagles were at the absolute pinnacle of their popularity and yet were able to wholeheartedly accept a new member who radically transformed their sound and took them in a direction away from their proven commercial strength.

Naturally there was plenty of skepticism surrounding Walsh. Late in 1975 when Bernie Leadon quit, Walsh was formally asked to fill in on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, but almost as soon as he joined people began to say he was leaving the band. Azoff enforced a press blackout at the time to prevent the story from being played up, but the tensions surrounding Leadon’s departure weighed heavily on Walsh and the rest of the band. Fans of the Eagles’ laid back image, who generally liked Leadon better than the others anyway, resented Walsh and sent hate mail to the group.

"I don’t care if they don’t think ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ can find happiness together," Henley later said. "We knew a year before Bernie left the Eagles that Joe was gonna replace him. Bernie wasn’t happy touring. We knew he was gonna leave. We checked around, and there was only one guitar player for the Eagles. We did it and we knew it was right."

Eagles concerts at this point were really schizophrenic affairs. The band would do a few old style Eagles numbers, then introduce Walsh, who would lead them in a James Gang or Barnstorm number that invariably jumped the energy level of the concert, then just as suddenly, left off with some softer Eagles stuff. There were Eagles fans who didn’t know where Walsh was coming from or why, and there were smaller but more vocal numbers of Walsh fans who sat on their hands through the Eagles numbers waiting for their favorite to take it away.

"The only people who thought it would work was us," said Walsh. People all just said ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ The band can rock, which is something they desperately wanted to prove to everybody. It’s been nice showing everyone that it did work. Everyone holds up his own end. That’s all I ever wanted in a band. In fact, if the Eagles were any happier we would probably break up."

When Walsh joined the Eagles they were riding the crest of a Greatest Hits album that had outsold all their previous releases. The compilation of crowd pleasers—"Take It Easy," "Witchy Woman," "Desperado," "Lyin’ Eyes," "Take It To the Limit" etc.—was a neat bit of career consolidation that capped off the first phase of the band’s history, and it helped them coast through the difficult period of Leadon’s departure without relinquishing their strong presence on the record sales charts. But the Greatest Hits album, despite keeping the old fans interested and introducing the group to a lot of new ones, provided a huge difficulty as well. The follow-up record would have to be so much better than anything they’d previously released in order to keep pace with the Greatest Hits sales, yet once again the band would have to worry about not turning their audience off by changing style.

The group was a bit defensive about the Greatest Hits album. "We aren’t really advocates of greatest hits albums," said Henley. "They are more or a ploy by the record company to get free sales. They don’t have to spend any money to make them and they get a lot of money back. We didn’t have anything to do with it. The record company put it out and we couldn’t stop them."

Meanwhile work on the new record was pushed back repeatedly and rumors again began to spread that the band would break up. The reports were so steady that Azoff had to go on the record in 1976 and say, "All reports of an Eagles breakup are totally erroneous and completely unfounded. There is absolutely no substance to any of these rumors. Azoff made the statement following the band’s 24-city U.S. tour in the summer of ‘76, a series of shows they were forced to play, even without a new album, because of their fans’ restlessness. "We couldn’t stay out of the American eye for seven months," Frey explained. "Once you have somebody leave your band you just don’t put out a press release saying Joe Walsh is joining and leave it at that and let the people who bought your record wonder what you’re doing."

The band finished work on Hotel California, the first post-Walsh Eagles record, during the tour. "We had to finish the album during the start of our tour," said Henley. "We played three concerts in three different cities, and then had to get a Lear jet and fly back to Miami and record all night until six o’clock the next morning. Then we had to fly back to the next town and play another concert. That’s the way we finished it. We weren’t even at the studio for the last two mixes, Szymczyk had to mix the last two tracks and bring them out to us, on the road, so we could hear them."

When the record was finally released, the band was able to relax for the first time in years. Hotel California was the breakthrough record the band had been trying to make for some time, and it took the pressure off. Walsh was finally a full-fledged Eagle, the bad taste left after Leadon’s split was gone, and Azoff lifted the press ban that had been imposed since Walsh joined. "I happen to think it’s great press," Azoff offered at the time, "to have people writing about how the Eagles won’t speak the press. I think kids like to read that."

In light of that statement, it’s easy to understand why Frey would say "I think at the time when Bernie was leaving and Joe was joining, if anybody was the manager of the Eagles, they would have shut off the press and said this is a personal thing that we’ve got to work out, and we don’t have any reason to let this go public no matter how obliged somebody might feel they may be owed the information."

Upon the release of Hotel California, of course, the Eagles felt they had plenty to say. One of the most interesting themes the band kept hitting on was how much Walsh had changed the nature of the group. "When Joe arrived," said Henley, "the old songs started sounding different. I think we were tighter and less cluttered on stage."

"This summer it was Joe’s stuff that excited me," added Frey. "It was good to know that after three more Eagles songs we were going to do one of Joe’s. And, of course, the new stuff is always more interesting."

"Joe’s own songs proved to be showstoppers," noted Henley, "and that was a great change for me because we’ve been doing ‘Witchy Woman’ and all that stuff since 1972 and to do new songs was like a shot in the arm for us. We can play that kind of material and always have been able to."

Frey elaborated: "We were kind of reticent to play that music unless we could make it sound great. We didn’t want to make a limp wristed attempt because we didn’t have the right kind of guitar players before. We’ve been working on getting the right guitar lineup for the last three years and now we feel we’ve got it.

"We’ve faced no greater challenge in our career than surviving the departure of Bernie Leadon and following a "Greatest Hits" album with something better," Frey continued. "It made me feel my butt was on the line. It made me feel that everything I did had to count. But it also made me feel alive. I personally thought that adding Joe Walsh was a dangerous move. Ninety per cent of the people who heard about it couldn’t figure out how it was ever gonna work. We like the advantages of a five-piece band. When we got Felder it allowed me to just play rhythm guitar and still there were two guitar players so we could have two guitar players playing with each other, yet there is still a rhythm instrument playing with the bass and drums. We wanted to keep it a five-piece group instead of going back to four again.

"Besides, Joe was getting tired of being the leader of a group and feeling that he just wanted to be in a group for a change. He wanted to be a participant rather than a chief who hired and fired people. Writing all the songs gets to be a big burden on any solo artist."

Henley pointed out that the change had been in their minds but still was a gamble. "Most of the media suggested he wouldn’t fit because we were a mellower band than anything he’d done before, but I read every review of our last tour and they all said how he didn’t clutter or get in the way of our music and how well we played his music. We did ‘Rocky Mountain Way,’ ‘Turn To Stone’ and ‘Funk 49.’ He’s capable of playing the stuff we do and he’s capable of playing our music. Sure he introduced some harder guitar playing but I think he and Felder played some killer guitar for us all. To me it’s like Duane Allman and Eric Clapton together. We also knew that Joe was so controlled that he could play the ballads with no problem at all ‘and a lot of people doubted that. Also Felder can play the banjo and a mean mandolin so we didn’t lose anything in that area when Bernie left.

"It’s much better than it ever has been," Henley enthused, "everybody is much happier. There’s no struggle, there’s no power struggle, no fighting and none of the problems that used to exist. Everybody is much happier and healthier, and we’re a lot tighter on stage. The band is much better. Everything fits and there’s more precision. We’re not about to change direction, though. We’ll be keeping the best of the old style and not abandoning country rock or whatever you want to call it. We just want to stretch out a little bit. On the tour there was a whole lot of kids who were yelling for Joe and I think there was probably a whole load of them who’d never heard his material either. It was like new songs for them.

Felder also found Walsh’s addition refreshing. At first the prospect of having to go through a personnel change was a little bit unnerving," said the guitarist, "but Joe and I got together and jammed a bit before the final decision. We did a couple of shows together and even did that live album You Can’t Argue With a Sick Mind with him, sort of like a test to see how and if at all we could work together. Getting to know each other. At that point we just had such a good time that there was no question about him being able to, musically or personally in terms of enthusiasm, join this band. Everybody really felt positive when he joined. It took him a little bit of time to fill in various areas of his musical vocabulary that he wasn’t quite as well versed in as others, and it took him a little while to get the hang of singing certain parts that he’d never previously done. He was a bit uncertain about it at first, but everyone felt real confident. When the first little sparks of new enthusiasm, and the first couple of jams that everyone got gassed out about, started happening, it was like when a new band gets together."

Even the normally imperturbable Walsh was brimming with excitement. "Being the boss was a b----," he complained, "having to come up with all of the material and having to show it to all the players. When you are a solo act and the boss, everyone plays the way they think you would want them to. It got to the point where I really started to miss that external input. Everyone being adept at his own instrument really helps this band. I don’t have to show anyone in the Eagles a part.

"I’ve never bad a chance to play with another guitar player like that," he said of Felder, "just couldn’t relate to anyone before. It was always just my own music and whatever I was trying to engage in at the time. With the Eagles I’m not just writing alone and trying to do the same thing over and over. Felder is good. He’s taught me a lot of flat picking, mandolin and pedal steel stuff. We try to stay out of each other’s way on stage. You really have to understand each other’s partner. You almost have to be able to play decent lead guitar to play good rhythm guitar. In this band everyone can handle a lead part—Glenn Frey, too,—and when you can do that you can conceive what is needed for rhythm guitar on a song. It just works out great with three guitars.

"Now that we have pretty much played the whole country I am really established as a band member. Putting out Hotel California helped to do that too. Instead of just giving me parts to play, I had a chance to come up with some. I feel like a valid member of the Eagles now."

The change in the group’s sound was apparent from the opening section of the title track, which begins the album. Walsh’s rhythmic concept, so much a part of the James Gang’s hard funk and the sonorous, trance-like rhythm patterns evidenced on Barnstorm and the other solo projects, is the basis of "Hotel California." The phased guitar instrumental that wends through the stately, haunting intro is a Walsh signature, beautifully reminiscent of the opening strains of Barnstorm. Acoustic and electric guitars swell and wane as Bill Szymczyk’s studio effects waltz them through an elaborate dance that winds into the opening verses, builds in intensity through the chorus before quiet restating the theme on the last two verses—and finally climaxes in an exchange of solos between Walsh and Felder that easily surpasses any guitar playing previously heard on Eagles albums. The suspended tension is amazing and the album’s brilliant programming takes full advantage by segueing to the easygoing ballad, "New Kid In Town," again very much a stamp of Walsh’s influence.

Nobody who had previous experience with Eagles music expected what came next on the album the first time they played it. "Life In the Fast Lane" was handed over to Walsh as his hard rock showpiece. "I had an assignment," he said, "I guess you’d call it, to come up with a rocker for the album. I came up with that basic guitar lick and everyone dug it. Don Henley got the melody line and Felder and I took over the guitar department and figured out who would play what lead part. Next, Glenn Frey sat down and figured out what the song was going to be about and did the words. It worked out really well."

The song was about cocaine and its abuses by a tragically hip California couple, but the music here is the real story. It’s Walsh’s hottest moment in the lead guitar chair since he left the James Gang, a blood-boiling charge of power riffing that recapitulates every characteristic lick of Walsh’s career from the shutter chording of "Funk 49" to the four-note melody riffs of "Walk Away." Walsh transformed the Eagles into his band on this song with Felder practically his alter ego on the call and response soloing and the giddying swirl of a guitar part that kicks the song into overdrive on the bridge.

The exchange between Walsh and the Eagles evidenced on these songs was the perfect transaction. Walsh obviously could only go so far with the solo experience because of his uncompromising nature and insistence on a laid back working atmosphere, so the Eagles provided him with a set and comfortable format to work within. With the spotlight removed from his brow Walsh could set about to his business of playing and conceptualizing the music, and the rest of the group provided him with excellent raw material to shape his work. After years of relying on his own expressive but limited vocals he had a multi-harmony that was capable of reproducing any ideas he came up with and meticulous if somewhat over-precise instrumental accompaniment. On the other hand Walsh provided the Eagles with an emotional resonance and passion that had previously been missing from their music. Walsh’s contributions to the rest of the album, though subtle, were significant nonetheless. "I just plugged in as part of the group," he said, "there are little places where I’m shining through, and places where I was playing keyboards and stuff. I had freedom to come up with some arrangements, which I did, and sometimes I was told what to play, which was fine." Walsh played the organ part on "Wasted Time," some mean-sounding slide guitar on "Victim Of Love," the Byrds-like rhythm guitar part on Randy Meisner’s sweet ballad "Try and Love Again" and a masterfully conceptual synthesizer part on the album’s closing production number, "The Last Resort." The one Walsh wrote specifically for the album (along ex-Barnstorm partner Joe Vitale), "Pretty Maids All In A Row," was a ballad in the characteristic Walsh slow style, but you can hear him consciously trying to write an Eagles song in the process. "I think Joe was saving his song," said Frey, "because he knew something like his joining the Eagles was coming up." Frey’s enthusiasm for Walsh’s work on Hotel California was apparent every time he talked about it. "We knew Joe and Felder would get off like bandits playing guitar together, but he’s also an amazing keyboard player. On ‘New Kid In Town’ Joe plays piano and organ. That song could have easily been done like ‘Tequila Sunrise’—predictably."

The freshness Walsh brought to the band was an inspiration, as each member’s individual vocal, instrumental and songwriting performance surpassed his former high points. The album was great enough to impress even many of the band’s long-time detractors. The Eagles, who have never really been critical favorites, were recognized across the board as one of the finest American rock bands. Greil Marcus, the west coast critic whose book Mystery Train established him as one of the foremost authorities on American rock bands, hailed Hotel California with these words: "…the Eagles’ new album can stand for the new toughness of music and mind that now seems to be at work in California rock ‘n’ roll." What Marcus and other critics were responding to, in addition to the album’s musical resonance, was the sharpness of the songwriting images. The identity that the band had nurtured over the course of four albums had finally coalesced to the point where the Eagles were taking a stand with their songs that was consistent with their personal backgrounds as well as their philosophy. "It’s the Bicentennial year and this is our Bicentennial statement," said Henley. It’s kind of about the demise of the ‘60s and the decadence and escapism we are experiencing in the ‘70s. The first half of the ‘70s has been a big escape. It’s also about the kind of limbo we’re experiencing in the music business while we’re waiting for the next big surge of inspiration like the Beatles or whatever."

The title track is a brilliant statement about the perils of show biz glamour. The narrator stops for a rest during a long journey and checks into a hotel only to find that it’s conspicuous luxury is a nightmarish trap leading into a Camus-like hell where the guests can never leave. The analogy with a rock band’s progression from idealism to control by the cynical money machine is neatly drawn and adds to the song’s power. The Eagles are at once the poets of Los Angeles and its severest critics. "People who live in Beverly Hills who are rich and beautiful have just as many problems as people over in west L.A. Fortunately we get out of town a lot. We get a different perspective on L.A."

Frey summed up the image in his description of the album cover, a picture of the Beverly Hills Hotel. "It’s the elegance and decadence that is ‘Hotel California.’ Something that at one time was elegant but now is decadent. Just when you think this lobby is beautiful you see the paneling and the cheapest chandeliers in the world next to some nice ones."

Frey proceeded to draw the image further, into "Life In the Fast Lane." "It starts out with a kind of glamour about it. It looks kinda groovy with this couple who love sex. The song starts out where it’s all beautiful, then when you examine it more closely you see the decadence. Sure I like life in the fast lane. It’s very stimulating but you can get trapped in it. You can go on and totally waste away without having accomplished anything."

The sense of balance between the lure of such luxury and the horrible trap it sets runs through the album, informing "Wasted Time" and "The Last Resort." Henley says about the latter song "…man will ultimately destroy heaven if left to his own devices, because he has destroyed every heaven on earth."

And Frey summed up the album by saying "Part of the thing about ‘The Last Resort’ is that there is no more new frontier. You’ve got to make it here. Our job is to take care of this place. ‘Hotel California’ also means to me that we’re working in the junkyard of the U.S. We got a lot of problems in California that typify every problem so in that sense the whole world is like California."

A big part of the spirit of the Eagles was nurtured in the anti-war and protest movements of the late ‘60s, but the group was formed too late to participate directly in these events. By the time the Eagles attained national prominence in the early ‘70s, Richard Nixon had already become involved in the Watergate break-in scandal and subsequent cover-up that would cause him to resign the office of the presidency, so there was no suitable protest available to the group. All that was left was after-the-fact analysis.

During the 1976 Democratic presidential campaign, however, the Eagles had a chance to use their Popularity to support their Political beliefs, and after some deliberation they decided to back California Governor Jerry Brown in his bid for the nomination Their most famous album, Hotel California, was released in 1976, and Don Henley addressed the political issue in interview sessions conducted around the time of the record’s release. "Well, because of our stature and our money or whatever, we got involved in some political things this year; we got involved with Jerry Brown, the Governor of California, who was running for President, and we also got involved with the nuclear initiative to try to stop the building of nuclear power plants. I’ve always been an environmentalist, I’ve always thought of myself as one and I have always cared about the planet, but this year we really went out and did something. We did benefits and tried to do some good work--tried to use our power in a good way. So, in some ways, we all grew up a lot and don’t just write silly little love songs now because there’s more than that happening, you know."

Henley pointed out that it was difficult for them to find an appropriate angle for political action. "We are becoming more involved," he said, "but that wasn’t all there was to it." "We are in the middle of the decadent ‘70s," he explained "the 60s are over and the revolution has taken a totally different shape. There’s a certain amount of apathy."

According to Frey "When the Eagles first burst upon the scene in 1972 1 think audiences were very disillusioned behind what happened in 1968 and 1969 in this country. The rock audience in general was interested in escape. But it doesn’t seem that way now. As the band’s getting ready to celebrate its fifth birthday it seems like people are more into wanting to talk to somebody that’s a little bit like them as opposed to somebody who’s completely different, someone who can take them into outer space."

Henley also noted that the Eagles were trying to channel the energy of some of their audience in a positive direction. "Kids are growing up too fast these days," he said. "The first half of the ‘70s has been a big escape. We’ve come to the end of the ‘60s when there were people in the streets and everybody took acid and thought it was gonna change the world. People were in shock that it didn’t really change anything. I’m not saying that people should let go of all their dreams and myths but the ‘70s seem to have a big value gap. You can’t be an angry young man forever."

"In America we have gone through a big period of anti-patriotism. It was considered not chic, it was considered corny to vote, or to care who was president. Everybody said ‘Oh well, it doesn’t make any difference anyway.’ So we’re trying to tell young people not to get so caught up in their own little lives, because we all have to live here together; to try to read and find out what’s going on and try to care about their country, their environment and the planet, and to care about who you let govern your-life."

The band’s support of Jerry Brown for President was in keeping with their identification with California, and perhaps even their antipathy toward the east. "It’s our bicentennial year," said Henley, "the country is 200 years old, so we figured since we are the Eagles and the Eagle is our national symbol, that we were obliged to make some kind of a little bicentennial statement using California as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the whole world, and to try to wake people up and say ‘We’ve been OK so far, for 200 years, but we’re gonna have to change if we’re gonna continue to be around.’"

Even though their intentions were good, the benefits for Brown didn’t go very far towards changing people’s minds. During a Brown benefit concert at the Capital Center in Largo, Maryland, which featured the Eagles, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, the audience members questioned cared a lot more about the music than the $150,000 that had been raised for the campaign that night. Some of the fans didn’t even realize it was a benefit until Brown came onstage at one point to say, "I just came here to listen to the music like the rest of you. I came to Maryland to try to bring a new spirit to this country. Are you ready to help me in this campaign?" Even so, one fan later pointed out that "Even if it was a benefit for Richard Nixon I’d be here."

The Eagles toured rigorously behind the success of Hotel California, drawing rave reviews for the new material and improving constantly as Walsh grew more and more comfortable with his role in the band. The Eagles continued to say great things about Walsh to the press whenever they got the chance. Frey broke from a discussion of press attitudes to the Eagles during one interview to liken their situation to Walsh’s. "Joe Walsh was also very much a victim of typecasting," said Frey. "When we were listening to the first Barnstorm album, and actually watching him make some of So What, we often commented to each other that there was much more to this than we’d heard about. Joe has been very underrated."

Walsh had to live up to his wildman reputation from the hard rocking James Gang, but was loose enough about it to turn it into a joke. "There’s a kind of rowdy side to me," he would laugh, "but I feel a lot more comfortable this way. I used to get crazy a lot, but that was part of the James Gang image. Everybody said I represented rock ‘n’ roll with big amps, and that was kind of unfair. There’s a much more melodic side. I don’t like to smash up hotels anymore. It makes everybody uncomfortable. Henley doesn’t like for me to do that."

Meanwhile Walsh’s solo career was on hold. But after he was with the Eagles for about a year Walsh started to talk about doing another solo album. "The main commitment for me," he said in early 1977, "is being in the Eagles. I’ve sort of put my solo career on standby. However, my album is about half done now. It’s not that my solo career isn’t important to me, but I want to hold up my end of the Eagles. I have to pace my solo work just to keep it in its perspective. I did have two years off from all of that responsibility, and I am really looking forward to this album. You’ll see a real progression and real maturity in my writing and singing. I’ve had some really good vocal coaches, you know. But not having to come up with material for two years I just logically have written enough material to fill an album that I am proud of. Whereas a solo act might have to come up with products just because he has to deliver something to his company. Bill Szymczyk will be producing the album, and it’ll be great to work with him again. I will be really proud when my next album comes out."

Of course that wouldn’t keep him from making a few jokes at his own expense. As usual, Walsh had some bizarre album title ideas. "Maybe The Best Things In Life Are Fleas. Or maybe Who Cares? I guess I am committed to come up with something humorous."

Walsh finished the album on April Fool’s Day, 1978, and called it But Seriously, Folks. The cover showed him sitting at a fully set dinner table—at the bottom of a full swimming pool!!! Walsh is puffing up his cheeks, holding his breath, and the dishes and food are floating up from the table. The effect is hilarious. Musically, Walsh lived up to his promise that the album would be a big step forward. His songwriting and playing were as good as ever, but his singing was vastly improved, much more confident.

Musically, But Seriously, Folks was Walsh’s best solo album since Barnstorm, and it was immediately his most successful as well. "Life’s Been Good," which was pre-released on the soundtrack to the film FM, had already been getting a lot of airplay and when the album came out soon became a major hit single in the summer of ‘78, playing on every car radio across the land and winning a lot of new fans to both Walsh and the Eagles.

As in all of Walsh’s best work, the album has a programming logic and coherence that makes you want to play a whole side at a time rather than a specific song. Instead of getting the Eagles to back him Walsh chose some of his old Barnstorm cronies, Joe Vitale on drums and flute, Willie Weeks on bass, Jay Ferguson on piano and guitarist Joey Murcia. The opening track, "Over and Over" starts off with an easy-going, melodic sound and builds to an exultant guitar solo from Walsh. Walsh’s beautiful vocal on the country-rock "Second Hand Store" shows how much his Eagles experience improved his singing, allowing him to use the semi-spoken, unaffected style he’s developed for ballads to its best effect. "Indian Summer," a heartwarming evocation of childhood memories playing in vacant lots and going fishing, offers Walsh an opportunity to flash some golden slide guitar licks. . . Then "At the Station" picks up the tempo to close the first side on a rocking note, Walsh at his carefree best on the infectious rhythm guitar pattern and a lyrical solo.

Walsh’s personal philosophy was never better expressed than on the second side opener, "Tomorrow," which combines the languid feeling of having enough time to put anything off with a note of hope about what can be accomplished tomorrow. The soft, hypnotic rhythm gives the song a lazy siesta attitude that matches the lyric perfectly. After the sonorous piano/organ interlude "Inner Tube" leads into the spacey instrumental "Theme From Boat Weirdos" (with a majestic guitar solo climaxing the tune), the finale, "Life’s Been Good," rips out in hard-edged glory. The good natured contempt Walsh has for his role as rock star is best expressed in this song, where he makes hilarious comments on his own social and economic status. He has a mansion he’s never been to, destroys hotel rooms, owns a Mazerratj that he can’t drive after losing his license, and doesn’t care about anything except having a good time. His final conclusion is that he feels lucky he’s still insane after going through all this stuff, a sentiment most of his fans would heartily agree with. "Life’s Been Good" immediately became one of the high points of Eagles concerts.

Chapter 7   Chapter 9