Music Banter - View Single Post - Trollheart's Album Discography Reviews: The Eagles

Trollheart · 04-11-2022, 10:34 AM

Yeah yeah you all hate them. Big deal. Suck it. I don't. And whether you love them or hate them, it's churlish (churlish, I say!) to deny the impact these guys have had on the music scene. Certainly not a bona fide country band, they've nevertheless reached across the, uh, lack of a divide to manage to appeal to a wide spectrum of the record-buying public. I bet something like one in every ten people has Hotel California in their collection, even if they refuse to admit it.

Anyway, deal with it. We're doing their - rather short, given their career - discography, and this is another we're doing chronologically. So we kick off with their debut.

And this is it.

The Eagles (1972)

Seldom does a debut album have such an immediate impact. Well, nowadays, sure, but back in the seventies it was not that often that an artiste's first album would yield two hit singles and lift them just short of the top twenty. But the multi-harmony vocal talents of the Eagles, and their crossover from country and folk to rock of a sort, with mixed in pop overtones, was something if not unique at the time then certainly unusual. The sharing out of the vocal duties on this and other albums also meant that, though people would come to know Glenn Frey and Don Henley as the singers behind most of the big hits (kind of in the same way Roger Hodgson would be known to the uninitiated as the voice of Supertramp) they would also hear Bernie Leadon sing and Randy Meisner would take the vocals on one of their big hits, so that probably not since the days of CSNY really had a band so varied a vocal load. You can hear it on this album: everyone sings, and not just the once for those who would become other than the usual singers, ie Henley and Frey.

Now, there's no getting away from the elephant in the room: it'll crush you if you ignore it, so let's not do that. Let's stand and face it, and hope we don't get squashed. The Eagles never really were country, not in the sense that your Townes Van Zandts, your Willie Nelsons or your Hank Williamses were. This was a new kind of country, perhaps the first real pop country (it couldn't quite be called country rock, though on occasions it does certainly rock, but I don't think it's fair to describe it as such) and certainly some sort of crossover between folk, country and popular music, which in itself I guess allowed a new (at the time) generation of listeners “get into" country, or think they were. No doubt, if they had mentioned it down the Shotgun and Daughter or the Bear and Wolf, they would have been laughed out of the pub by those who listened to “real country music”. We have to be honest about this: very little if any of the Eagles' lyrics address what you would think of as staple country themes - farms being repossessed, cheatin' lovers (well, maybe that, but then, that's ubiquitous in all music, isn't it?) or goin' out huntin'. There were no songs referencing the Civil War, nothing about gold mines or moonshine, and nary a song to be had about banks or foreclosures. Not that I know much about country music, but it seems these subjects do tend to crop up in a lot of that genre's music.

So this would probably be the music the young 'uns were listening to as they cruised the boulevards of San Francisco and LA, hundreds of miles from anything vaguely rural, and maybe wore Stetsons and shouted “Yee-hah!” and thought they were cowboys. While the older generation shook their heads sadly and derided this as being nothing like country music. Even my hero, Tom Waits, once remarked of them caustically “The Eagles ain't country. They don't have shit on their boots!” How right he was. None of these guys were brought up singing the old ballads of Merle or Hank; they played in rock bands, though Henley was associated with country luminary Kenny Rogers at one point. But then again, what does that say, really?

Anyhoo, that's the elephant shooed out of the room. Nobody should think that I mistakenly believe the Eagles to be country, not real country. At best, they could possibly be described as country-lite, but that didn't stop them tapping into the zeitgeist and creating a slew of hits that endure even today, more than forty years after they were formed. A lot of people hate the Eagles, and it's easy to see why: it's like they pretend to be something they're not. But if you can get past that, there's a whole lot of really good music just a-waitin' over the border, or something.

Love them or hate them, it's highly likely you know the opener, one of their big hit singles, and “Take it Easy” gets things going in a real breezy, uptempo groove with just maximum cool factor (for the time) as the guitars ramp up and the first voice we hear is that of the late Glenn Frey, the song co-written by Jackson Browne, one of two he contributes to the album, although I don't know if “Nightingale” is a cover of one of his or one he wrote for the Eagles. The spirit of freedom is invoked in the first lines of “Take it Easy” as Frey sings “I'm runnin' down the road, tryin' to loosen my load, I got seven women on my mind...” Yeah. Veiled misogyny or at least a healthy disrespect for women would come through in a lot of these guys' songs, like “Lyin' Eyes”, “Already Gone” and of course “New Kid in Town”. There's no getting away from that, and again it's something we have to face: the Eagles, an all-male band, had little if anything good to say about women.

But this was the seventies, and such sentiments were almost expected from a rock band, so I doubt anyone at the time gave it much attention. In latter years, no doubt several studies have been made and theses written about the overt mistreatment of the distaff side in the songs of the Eagles. The woman is always a temptress, a cheat, in some cases even a killer and just plain crazy, like in “Hotel California”. There are love songs, sure, but not too many of them. So “Take it Easy” became something of an anthem and a mission statement for “poor guys” pursued by vengeful or too-clingy or just plain inconvenient girlfriends, wives and mistresses, and we all sang out hearts out to the lines “We may lose, and we may win, but we will never be here again!” The powerful multi-vocal comes into effect here already, particularly in the end, where the song goes a little bluegrass, thanks to Bernie Leadon's banjo, and on we go into the similarly misogynistic “Witchy Woman”.

With a sort of Native American rhythm (perhaps suggesting the guy in the song is singing about an “Injun girl”?) it's much slower, darker - whereas you could, if you wanted, take the opener as a lighthearted snook being cocked at relationships that try to tie you down (“Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one says she's a friend of mine”), this is a harsher indictment of womankind - and basically about a witch. Or if not an actual witch, a woman who has, shall we say, powers? “See how high she flies” sings Don Henley, on his first vocal performance, “she got the moon in her eyes.” Sure, Cliff Richard would sing about a “Devil Woman” a few years later, and Country legend Marty Robbins had already done so (same title but not the same song) in the sixties, but these people were not almost synonymous with songs that put down women.

It's a moody, brooding song, and in it the man is warned of the devilment the woman can work on him - “Sparks fly from her fingertips” - and it's clear that she's a figure to be avoided. Salem, huh? That said, it's not a bad song and after “Take it Easy” was the second single, though I believe there are far better tracks here that would have served as well, or better. It does at least give Randy Meisner a chance to bring his sultry bass to the fore, and it drives the rhythm well. Frey is back then behind the mike for the abysmal “Chug all Night”, which is basically a good old boys, rabble-rousin' drinkin' song, and sounds like it. I ran this album previously in my Bitesize journal (much smaller review of course) and there was nothing good I could say about this track then. That hasn't changed. This is garbage. Moving on. Randy Meisner exercises his vocal talents for the first time on the album, and it's a beautiful little ballad which quickly erases the memory of the banality of the previous track, and shows us a glimpse of what the Eagles would be like in their more laidback moments. With echoes of “Best of My Love, “Take It to the Limit” and “The Last Resort”, the song features the close harmony singing of all the quartet, and it has to be said, it's moving and beautiful, and “Most of Us Are Sad” gets us right back on track.

That Jackson Browne song then kicks things back up a gear, and we're back in “Take it Easy” territory with “Nightingale”, rocking along nicely but to be honest it's nothing terribly special. In fairness, I guess it's one track on which there's a positive view of women, even if it is just “Here comes my baby”. I've checked and I see Browne's solo career began the same year as the Eagles', so I have to assume this was written for them, as it's not on his debut solo album and I haven't seen it on any others up to about 1980. I know Henley and Browne were flatmates or at least lived in the same building, so maybe he couldn't use the song, or didn't want to, and gave it to him for use in his band. Whatever, it's not worth exploring too deeply because as I say it's not a great song. What is a great song - almost the standout as far as I'm concerned - is the cover of Dillard and Clark's “Train Leaves Here This Morning”, which gives an idea of how the Eagles' music should have been developing if they wanted to be taken as serious country performers. Course, I'm sure they were much more interested in becoming famous and rich, and who can blame them, so they went more the popular West Coast route. But this is a lovely glimpse into what they could have been.

It lopes along at an unhurried pace and has a real western feel to it, the vocal harmonies really coming into their own on the chorus, and gives Bernie Leadon his first chance to sing lead, which he does extremely well. There wasn't, it would seem, one of these guys who couldn't sing, and sing well. Of course, for those who don't know, Leadon was with Clark in that band and played on as well as co-wrote the song, so it's not so much a cover as one of his own songs brought over to the new band. Great track though. “Take the devil” brings Meisner back into the spotlight, and it's a sharp, tough song on which the guitars really speak and a feeling of desperation permeates the song. It's a mile away from “Take it easy”, the last two songs perhaps categorisable as “serious” Eagles songs, and it also presages the likes of “Bitter Creek” from Desperado. Very powerful, and much more rock than pop, or even country. It's also one of two songs on the album written by Meisner.

“Earlybird” then has him collaborating with Leadon, with the latter taking the vocal this time, and they work well as a team, even if the song is a lightweight bluegrass tune with overtones of the West Coast sound and silly birdsong effects. Great banjo from Leadon gives it an authentic feel, and to be fair it rocks along at a good lick. Probably everyone knows “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, but did you know it was not written by them? No? And you don't care? Well, why are you reading this then? Fuck off and read some other thread. Jack Tempchin, a struggling songwriter and performer, gave the song to Glenn Frey when they met up and he asked if he could develop it further. It subsequently became a big hit for the Eagles. Its easy, finger-clicking beat harks back to the likes of “Take it Easy” but with a slower, more laconic, even lazy beat, and it has a really nice guitar solo in the midsection. Frey sings it of course, and it became another iconic song for the band. Which leaves us with the closer, another Randy Meisner effort, simply called “Tryin'”.

Written and sung by him, it's a fitting closer for a pretty impressive debut album. It's quite short - the shortest track on the album, in fact - but it brings the rock back and almost bookends the album with “Take it Easy”, the basic melody rather similar but more uptempo and with the guitars sharper. It's perhaps a little touching when he sings “I'm gonna make it with my friends.” And he did, of course.

TRACKLISTING

Take it Easy
Witchy Woman
Chug all Night
Most of Us Are Sad
Nightingale
Train Leaves Here This Morning
Take the Devil
Earlybird
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Tryin'

Up to now I've been pretty constant in my damning debut albums with faint praise. I know you can't expect gold too often on your first outing, and I'm prepared to give a band or artiste time to settle in as it were. But here, though it's not gold all the way, this album gets it right far more than it gets it wrong. Three hit singles and a top twenty (nearly) album on your first outing? That's not tryin': that succeedin'!

Rating: 9/10

04-11-2022, 10:34 AM	#1 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Trollheart's Album Discography Reviews: The Eagles Yeah yeah you all hate them. Big deal. Suck it. I don't. And whether you love them or hate them, it's churlish (churlish, I say!) to deny the impact these guys have had on the music scene. Certainly not a bona fide country band, they've nevertheless reached across the, uh, lack of a divide to manage to appeal to a wide spectrum of the record-buying public. I bet something like one in every ten people has Hotel California in their collection, even if they refuse to admit it. Anyway, deal with it. We're doing their - rather short, given their career - discography, and this is another we're doing chronologically. So we kick off with their debut. And this is it. The Eagles (1972) Seldom does a debut album have such an immediate impact. Well, nowadays, sure, but back in the seventies it was not that often that an artiste's first album would yield two hit singles and lift them just short of the top twenty. But the multi-harmony vocal talents of the Eagles, and their crossover from country and folk to rock of a sort, with mixed in pop overtones, was something if not unique at the time then certainly unusual. The sharing out of the vocal duties on this and other albums also meant that, though people would come to know Glenn Frey and Don Henley as the singers behind most of the big hits (kind of in the same way Roger Hodgson would be known to the uninitiated as the voice of Supertramp) they would also hear Bernie Leadon sing and Randy Meisner would take the vocals on one of their big hits, so that probably not since the days of CSNY really had a band so varied a vocal load. You can hear it on this album: everyone sings, and not just the once for those who would become other than the usual singers, ie Henley and Frey. Now, there's no getting away from the elephant in the room: it'll crush you if you ignore it, so let's not do that. Let's stand and face it, and hope we don't get squashed. The Eagles never really were country, not in the sense that your Townes Van Zandts, your Willie Nelsons or your Hank Williamses were. This was a new kind of country, perhaps the first real pop country (it couldn't quite be called country rock, though on occasions it does certainly rock, but I don't think it's fair to describe it as such) and certainly some sort of crossover between folk, country and popular music, which in itself I guess allowed a new (at the time) generation of listeners “get into" country, or think they were. No doubt, if they had mentioned it down the Shotgun and Daughter or the Bear and Wolf, they would have been laughed out of the pub by those who listened to “real country music”. We have to be honest about this: very little if any of the Eagles' lyrics address what you would think of as staple country themes - farms being repossessed, cheatin' lovers (well, maybe that, but then, that's ubiquitous in all music, isn't it?) or goin' out huntin'. There were no songs referencing the Civil War, nothing about gold mines or moonshine, and nary a song to be had about banks or foreclosures. Not that I know much about country music, but it seems these subjects do tend to crop up in a lot of that genre's music. So this would probably be the music the young 'uns were listening to as they cruised the boulevards of San Francisco and LA, hundreds of miles from anything vaguely rural, and maybe wore Stetsons and shouted “Yee-hah!” and thought they were cowboys. While the older generation shook their heads sadly and derided this as being nothing like country music. Even my hero, Tom Waits, once remarked of them caustically “The Eagles ain't country. They don't have shit on their boots!” How right he was. None of these guys were brought up singing the old ballads of Merle or Hank; they played in rock bands, though Henley was associated with country luminary Kenny Rogers at one point. But then again, what does that say, really? Anyhoo, that's the elephant shooed out of the room. Nobody should think that I mistakenly believe the Eagles to be country, not real country. At best, they could possibly be described as country-lite, but that didn't stop them tapping into the zeitgeist and creating a slew of hits that endure even today, more than forty years after they were formed. A lot of people hate the Eagles, and it's easy to see why: it's like they pretend to be something they're not. But if you can get past that, there's a whole lot of really good music just a-waitin' over the border, or something. Love them or hate them, it's highly likely you know the opener, one of their big hit singles, and “Take it Easy” gets things going in a real breezy, uptempo groove with just maximum cool factor (for the time) as the guitars ramp up and the first voice we hear is that of the late Glenn Frey, the song co-written by Jackson Browne, one of two he contributes to the album, although I don't know if “Nightingale” is a cover of one of his or one he wrote for the Eagles. The spirit of freedom is invoked in the first lines of “Take it Easy” as Frey sings “I'm runnin' down the road, tryin' to loosen my load, I got seven women on my mind...” Yeah. Veiled misogyny or at least a healthy disrespect for women would come through in a lot of these guys' songs, like “Lyin' Eyes”, “Already Gone” and of course “New Kid in Town”. There's no getting away from that, and again it's something we have to face: the Eagles, an all-male band, had little if anything good to say about women. But this was the seventies, and such sentiments were almost expected from a rock band, so I doubt anyone at the time gave it much attention. In latter years, no doubt several studies have been made and theses written about the overt mistreatment of the distaff side in the songs of the Eagles. The woman is always a temptress, a cheat, in some cases even a killer and just plain crazy, like in “Hotel California”. There are love songs, sure, but not too many of them. So “Take it Easy” became something of an anthem and a mission statement for “poor guys” pursued by vengeful or too-clingy or just plain inconvenient girlfriends, wives and mistresses, and we all sang out hearts out to the lines “We may lose, and we may win, but we will never be here again!” The powerful multi-vocal comes into effect here already, particularly in the end, where the song goes a little bluegrass, thanks to Bernie Leadon's banjo, and on we go into the similarly misogynistic “Witchy Woman”. With a sort of Native American rhythm (perhaps suggesting the guy in the song is singing about an “Injun girl”?) it's much slower, darker - whereas you could, if you wanted, take the opener as a lighthearted snook being cocked at relationships that try to tie you down (“Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one says she's a friend of mine”), this is a harsher indictment of womankind - and basically about a witch. Or if not an actual witch, a woman who has, shall we say, powers? “See how high she flies” sings Don Henley, on his first vocal performance, “she got the moon in her eyes.” Sure, Cliff Richard would sing about a “Devil Woman” a few years later, and Country legend Marty Robbins had already done so (same title but not the same song) in the sixties, but these people were not almost synonymous with songs that put down women. It's a moody, brooding song, and in it the man is warned of the devilment the woman can work on him - “Sparks fly from her fingertips” - and it's clear that she's a figure to be avoided. Salem, huh? That said, it's not a bad song and after “Take it Easy” was the second single, though I believe there are far better tracks here that would have served as well, or better. It does at least give Randy Meisner a chance to bring his sultry bass to the fore, and it drives the rhythm well. Frey is back then behind the mike for the abysmal “Chug all Night”, which is basically a good old boys, rabble-rousin' drinkin' song, and sounds like it. I ran this album previously in my Bitesize journal (much smaller review of course) and there was nothing good I could say about this track then. That hasn't changed. This is garbage. Moving on. Randy Meisner exercises his vocal talents for the first time on the album, and it's a beautiful little ballad which quickly erases the memory of the banality of the previous track, and shows us a glimpse of what the Eagles would be like in their more laidback moments. With echoes of “Best of My Love, “Take It to the Limit” and “The Last Resort”, the song features the close harmony singing of all the quartet, and it has to be said, it's moving and beautiful, and “Most of Us Are Sad” gets us right back on track. That Jackson Browne song then kicks things back up a gear, and we're back in “Take it Easy” territory with “Nightingale”, rocking along nicely but to be honest it's nothing terribly special. In fairness, I guess it's one track on which there's a positive view of women, even if it is just “Here comes my baby”. I've checked and I see Browne's solo career began the same year as the Eagles', so I have to assume this was written for them, as it's not on his debut solo album and I haven't seen it on any others up to about 1980. I know Henley and Browne were flatmates or at least lived in the same building, so maybe he couldn't use the song, or didn't want to, and gave it to him for use in his band. Whatever, it's not worth exploring too deeply because as I say it's not a great song. What is a great song - almost the standout as far as I'm concerned - is the cover of Dillard and Clark's “Train Leaves Here This Morning”, which gives an idea of how the Eagles' music should have been developing if they wanted to be taken as serious country performers. Course, I'm sure they were much more interested in becoming famous and rich, and who can blame them, so they went more the popular West Coast route. But this is a lovely glimpse into what they could have been. It lopes along at an unhurried pace and has a real western feel to it, the vocal harmonies really coming into their own on the chorus, and gives Bernie Leadon his first chance to sing lead, which he does extremely well. There wasn't, it would seem, one of these guys who couldn't sing, and sing well. Of course, for those who don't know, Leadon was with Clark in that band and played on as well as co-wrote the song, so it's not so much a cover as one of his own songs brought over to the new band. Great track though. “Take the devil” brings Meisner back into the spotlight, and it's a sharp, tough song on which the guitars really speak and a feeling of desperation permeates the song. It's a mile away from “Take it easy”, the last two songs perhaps categorisable as “serious” Eagles songs, and it also presages the likes of “Bitter Creek” from Desperado. Very powerful, and much more rock than pop, or even country. It's also one of two songs on the album written by Meisner. “Earlybird” then has him collaborating with Leadon, with the latter taking the vocal this time, and they work well as a team, even if the song is a lightweight bluegrass tune with overtones of the West Coast sound and silly birdsong effects. Great banjo from Leadon gives it an authentic feel, and to be fair it rocks along at a good lick. Probably everyone knows “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, but did you know it was not written by them? No? And you don't care? Well, why are you reading this then? Fuck off and read some other thread. Jack Tempchin, a struggling songwriter and performer, gave the song to Glenn Frey when they met up and he asked if he could develop it further. It subsequently became a big hit for the Eagles. Its easy, finger-clicking beat harks back to the likes of “Take it Easy” but with a slower, more laconic, even lazy beat, and it has a really nice guitar solo in the midsection. Frey sings it of course, and it became another iconic song for the band. Which leaves us with the closer, another Randy Meisner effort, simply called “Tryin'”. Written and sung by him, it's a fitting closer for a pretty impressive debut album. It's quite short - the shortest track on the album, in fact - but it brings the rock back and almost bookends the album with “Take it Easy”, the basic melody rather similar but more uptempo and with the guitars sharper. It's perhaps a little touching when he sings “I'm gonna make it with my friends.” And he did, of course. TRACKLISTING Take it Easy Witchy Woman Chug all Night Most of Us Are Sad Nightingale Train Leaves Here This Morning Take the Devil Earlybird Peaceful Easy Feeling Tryin' Up to now I've been pretty constant in my damning debut albums with faint praise. I know you can't expect gold too often on your first outing, and I'm prepared to give a band or artiste time to settle in as it were. But here, though it's not gold all the way, this album gets it right far more than it gets it wrong. Three hit singles and a top twenty (nearly) album on your first outing? That's not tryin': that succeedin'! Rating: 9/10 __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018