The 1970s singer Don Henley wanted to be remembered: “Seminal”
Being one of the biggest names in rock and roll didn’t come easy for Don Henley.
Some of the biggest hits Eagles ever had would have been enough to scare the hell out of anyone else, and even if he had the tunes to back himself up half the time, it was about trying to share in that musical bliss alongside his bandmates at every opportunity. But the idea of bringing country music into rock and roll wasn’t exactly a new concept by the time that Henley had started writing his first tunes with Glenn Frey.
Let’s face it: rock and roll was always a hybrid of different genres to begin with, and when you think about the origins of the movement, a lot of it came from old country music. Elvis Presley did have his fair share of bluesy rock and roll tunes whenever he sang, but when he wasn’t shaking his hips, a lot of his work with an acoustic guitar always came back to the kind of country tunes that Johnny Cash could have approved of.
And let’s not forget that Ray Charles was also bringing country music into people’s homes with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. The sheer thought of one of the biggest soul artists in the world suddenly pivoting to country music would have been unheard of right now, let alone 50 years ago, but that’s when Henley’s eyes started to open up a little bit. He knew there was something to this new brand of rock and roll, and you could even hear it in the biggest artists of his generation.
You have to remember that The Rolling Stones were diehard country fans, and while Mick Jagger wasn’t going to be shouting the praises of someone like Roy Rogers, he wasn’t half bad at pulling off some of those country ditties that Keith Richards loved so much. But even Keef had a lot of learning to do, and that came from spending his time strumming away on acoustic guitars with Gram Parsons whenever he had the chance.
Parsons was already shaping his legacy as a member of The Byrds, but his work as a solo artist was paving the way for what the Eagles would do. In a just world, his handful of solo albums would have been considered outright classics at the time, but even after not getting the respect that he really deserved, Henley still felt that someone like Parsons deserved to be remembered as one of the greatest country rockers of all time.
He kicked down the doors for everyone else, and Henley felt that there was no way he would be doing what he was doing without Parsons, saying, “You know, Merle [Haggard] and Buck Owens and some of that gang were recording out in Bakersfield, California.”
Adding, “And those people had a big influence on the country-rock movement, which is always credited to Gram Parsons; he’s seen as being the seminal figure in that movement. I know that Mr Parsons was influenced by those same people. And I still am very connected to my hometown.”
And it’s not a stretch to put Parsons in the same conversation as Haggard and Owens. A lot of what he was doing came back to that old-school style of singing country music, and when it came to his own personal knowledge of the genre, he was always singing some of the more obscure songs that could make any jaded rock and roll star want to shed a few tears whenever they heard him.
There was definitely some magic to the way that he was writing his tunes, but sometimes that magic isn’t meant to last for that long. And since all we have left is the music that he made, every single Eagles fan should do themselves a favour and listen to what Sweetheart of the Rodeo was doing years before Henley sang his first take of ‘Witchy Woman’.
