“Synthesised”: Don Henley on the artist who introduced him to country rock
Rock and roll was never intended to stay in one lane throughout its history. For every artist that tried their best to put together a bluesy rock and roll tune, artists from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin were interested in branching out into other genres and seeing where their muse took them regardless of whether it fit under the traditional ‘rock and roll’ banner. Although the Eagles get the tag of being one of the forebearers of country rock, Don Henley thought this songwriter was the first person to give the genre its proper sound.
Whenever talking about country music and rock blending together, though, it’s easy to see them as one and the same in the early days. The earliest rock and roll song of all time, ‘Rock Around the Clock’, was an extension of rockabilly, which may as well have been labelled as country music with a little bit more swagger behind it.
Even The Beatles weren’t that ashamed to wear country music on their sleeves sometimes. I mean, Ringo Starr always had to have some tunes up his sleeve, and when listening to his original ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ or his interpretation of Carl Perkins’s ‘Honey Don’t’, he certainly knew how to add some twang to his voice.
Let’s not forget The Byrds, too. Henley often cited the American answer to The Beatles as some of the genre’s pioneers, but one person among their ranks stood out above all the rest: Gram Parsons. Outside of Roger McGuinn’s voice and chiming 12-string guitar, Parsons was the one who lived and breathed country music when he started making his own tunes outside of their outfit.
While a lot of what he played wouldn’t get appreciated for a few years, he always had the ability to tug on people’s heartstrings by strumming his acoustic guitar and crooning every word he sang, whether it was interpreting obscure Everly Brothers tunes or his own stuff. Even when he wasn’t shaping his own sound, he was infiltrating rock and roll history by association, like when he started influencing Keith Richards when The Rolling Stones made their country-leaning records.
According to Henley, this was the first time that the California rock scene had truly made country rock, telling Louder, “We were surrounded by all these great songwriters. There was the Laurel Canyon scene, Gram Parsons had introduced country music to rock’n’roll and synthesised that.”
Despite Parsons not living long enough to see the fruits of his labour, the Eagles practically finished what he had started through the rest of the decade. Although records like Desperado leaned a little bit too hard into the cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats angle, some of their more earnest tunes on Hotel California like ‘The Last Resort’ could easily be transformed into country songs if given the proper arrangement.
Country-rock was never a label that fit everyone from the Laurel Canyon scene, but if we’re looking at the moment where country got fused into the genre, Parsons really was ground zero. From albums like Grevious Angel onward, prospective songwriters had a blueprint to draw from, and even if Henley didn’t always follow it, it’s baked into the fabric of the Eagles’ best tunes.
