The band Glenn Frey thought had perfect vocals: “Pristine”
Anyone looking to join the Eagles needed a high singing pedigree. Although the band may have earned their trade on their songwriting and live shows, the main calling card of their sound came from when they would all harmonise together, creating a singular voice that sounded like angels descending from the California sunshine.
While Glenn Frey admitted that their vocal chemistry wasn’t by accident, he believed one local group was impossible to top.
For Frey, great harmony singing wasn’t simply a bonus feature of a band; it was the foundation upon which everything else rested. Before audiences fell in love with the Eagles’ songwriting or musicianship, it was those carefully crafted vocal arrangements that gave the group its distinctive identity and separated them from countless contemporaries.
Then again, the idea of harmony singing wasn’t exclusive to the Eagles in the 1970s. After The Beatles opened up the possibilities of what harmony singing could be in a rock band context, everyone from Simon and Garfunkel to The Beach Boys began inventing new ways to twist the usual rock and roll vocal performance, including uses of different counterpoint to create a musical collage with voices.
The Eagles were far from the first to even bring that sense of California sunshine to the masses. As The Beatles began making strides in the 1960s, The Byrds were their vocal counterpart in America, featuring sublime harmonies from Roger McGuinn. This would also pave the way for the massive harmony lines of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, featuring all three songwriters working off each other in just the right way.
As Frey began learning the trade as a rhythm guitarist, he quickly got his chops up behind the microphone, understanding the importance of voices bouncing off each other. While he would eventually get a chance to showcase his stuff when working alongside country-rock superstar Linda Ronstadt, he thought that one of the best vocal bands on the California scene came from Poco.
A modest country-rock outfit, Poco would always be on the fringes of stardom throughout their career, constantly doing consistent numbers on the charts without breaking any new ground. While Frey would eventually take a few cues from the group when putting together the Eagles, he had no idea if they could top what they were doing vocally.
While putting together the first Eagles album, Frey said that he was always trying to emulate what Poco were doing, telling The Very Best of the Eagles, “Back then, Poco was the band that impressed me most. Their vocals were pristine and perfect. They were the band I wanted to model us after. We loved all the singing bands – The Byrds and The Beach Boys – but to be honest, right then, I had my eye on Poco.”
Frey was starting things off on the right foot, considering that bassist Randy Meisner would be a part of an early version of Poco before joining the group, contributing his signature searing voice and high harmony parts to songs like ‘Witchy Woman’ and ‘Take It To The Limit’. Even when Meisner left after too many infights with the group, Timothy B Schmidt would be brought in from Poco, eventually giving the band one of their last hits with ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’.
Considering how much Frey wanted to emulate the sounds of his contemporaries, it would never sound the same whenever he and Don Henley were writing the songs. Other bands may have been looking to make country rock, but what Frey came up with whenever he sang spoke to the heart of America.
In the end, Frey succeeded in building a band capable of rivalling the vocal groups he grew up admiring. Yet his continued praise for Poco demonstrates the respect musicians often reserve for their peers. While the Eagles became one of the biggest bands in the world, Frey never forgot the group that first showed him just how powerful great harmony singing could be.
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