Jack Tempchin: the songwriter responsible for the sound of the Eagles?
Despite never standing as a member, folk rocker Jack Tempchin would gift the Eagles one of their early breakthrough singles and help define the Los Angeles group’s country rock sound.
Don Henley and Glenn Frey’s songwriting chops certainly weren’t lacking, as the‘Hotel California’ mini-epic will attest, but longtime fans will know that the Eagles were more than happy to invite an outside lyricist to help pen their soft rock songbook. Some of their biggest hits, like ‘Best of My Love’ and ‘New Kid in Town’, feature JD Souther’s co-writing credit, Bob Seger lent his services to ‘Heartache Tonight’s chorus, and Jackson Browne teamed up with Frey to craft their ‘Take It Easy’ debut single back in 1972.
That same year saw Tempchin’s credit on a big number from their eponymous debut LP. He’d not long been drifting around the San Diego coffee shop community as a budding folk singer, carrying a $13 Stella guitar bought from a pawn store and a fake poster detailing glowing plaudits from a wholly fabricated rollcall of celebrity fans. The germ of his future Eagles hit was jotted down on the back of the poster, later to take on more life during his communal living with other artists, where a gaze at the window would truly nail the song’s lyrical direction.
Chiefly, the bevvy of hot women that took Tempchin’s fancy in the San Diego area. “We’d sit in front of the picture window and watch the beautiful girls on the bus stop bench and fall in love with them until their bus came,” he recalled to No Depression in 2012.
“We talked in those days about how love never seems to show up until you stop looking for it. But, as young guys, we were unable to stop looking for love, even for one day.”
After a later spot of a young girl with turquoise earrings against dark hair in the city’s old town area, a feverish burst of inspiration in the car park of a Der Wienerschnitzel hot dog chain began to spark ‘Peaceful Easy Listening’ to life. The song’s serene sense of acquiescence in the midst of lyrical passions owed all to the first night’s draft on the back of the poster. He’d been playing a show in El Centro when he thought the waitress was interested in him, and overeagerly declined the lift back to his stay that night.
In a classic case of male misread, the waitress went home without him, and he slept on the cold floor of the coffeehouse. After a natural pang of frustration passed, in came a strange sense of contentment and ‘Qué Será, Será’ inner peace.
It’s a curious clash of lyrical dimensions that would catch Frey’s attention three years later. In 1972, Tempchin had moved to LA to ‘make it’ in the music industry, socially mixing with future Eagles collaborators Browne and Souther and staying at the former’s house. It was here that Frey heard ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’. Tempchin had a habit of tinkering on the piano most nights, and Frey happened to be around when he was playing his work in progress. It was a perfect tune for the Eagles, who’d only formed eight days earlier, and asked if his new band could flesh the piece out.
“The next day, Glenn brought me a cassette of what they had done with it,” Tempchin reflected, “It was so good I couldn’t believe it”.
‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ would be released in December 1972 as the Eagles’ third single and help hone the band’s stolid knack for folksy country stroll that would shine on subsequent records and help propel Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) to ungodly sales. Tempchin would continue to play shows and write songs for other artists, but his and Frey’s artistic and personal friendship always remained. During the Eagles’ hiatus, Tempchin again would co-write some of Frey’s mammoth solo hits of the 1980s, including ‘You Belong to the City’, ‘Smuggler’s Blues’ and ‘True Love’.
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