The Eagles collaboration album that got lost to history: “Making it on our terms”
No music fan is ever truly prepared for their favourite act to break up. A planned retirement might be easier to accept, but when a band falls apart due to one bad gig or a disappointing album, it can feel like a sudden shock—knowing they’ll never play together again. Though the Eagles stepped away before the 1980s even began, each member still had the opportunity to explore new ground in their solo careers.
Granted, not every band member was created equal in that regard. Randy Meisner may have got a head start on his solo career when he quit the band midway through the tour for Hotel California, but hearing his version of country rock was always going to pale in comparison to what Joe Walsh was doing when he came out with songs like ‘Life’s Been Good’ during his downtime.
If there was anyone fans were keeping their eyes on, though, it was Don Henley. After all, he had become the mouthpiece of the band by the time they reached the end, and listening to tunes like ‘Dirty Laundry’ and ‘The Boys of Summer’, he had the word ‘superstar’ written all over him from the minute he opened his mouth. But that was only one of the captains of the good ship Eagles.
Glenn Frey may not have had the soaring voice that Henley did, but his way around a hook was what gave him a better shot at a solo career when making tracks like ‘The Heat Is On’. Even though a lot of his tracks managed to get traction on the radio, it didn’t help that Henley was skyrocketing and Frey was getting played on the same radio stations that would much rather play the old Eagles hits.
Then again, none of the fallout of the band happened between Frey and Henley. Sure, they had their differences as any other duo would, but listening back to some of their solo tracks, it wasn’t hard to imagine Frey lending a line to one of Henley’s tracks or ‘Golden Throat’ to provide some backing vocals on his old friend’s album. So when the idea of making an album together came up, Frey was at least open to the idea.
Despite the wounds from that fateful night in Long Beach being still fresh, Frey was ready to get back together with Henley to write some tunes by the mid-1980s, saying, “[Don and I] might be doing an album together, and the combination could be pretty interesting. It’s good we’re both having hits and making it on our terms.”
So what happened? The idea of having the country-rock dynamic duo back could have been fantastic, but it’s easier said than done. Looking at the logistics, Frey had already rejected the idea of Eagles reforming for the first US Festival in 1983 with a firm middle finger, so the idea of him and Henley getting together to write some tunes would have only added more fuel to the fire of a potential reunion.
That may have taken a bit more time once the band reconvened for Travis Tritt’s version of ‘Take It Easy’, but getting them together in the glory years of MTV would have been fantastic. ‘A Month of Sundays’ already feels like an Eagles song that wound up on a Henley solo album, but the idea of Frey coming in to collaborate on songs like ‘The End of the Innocence’ is still one of classic rock’s biggest ‘what-if’ scenarios.
