The one musician Don Henley never wanted in the Eagles: “Resentment”
There’s no sense of the Eagles ever continuing on if they didn’t have Don Henley.
While Glenn Frey was told that he needed a band behind him if he had any hope of becoming one of the biggest artists in the world, there’s a good chance that anyone could tell that Henley was going to become one of the biggest names in music from the minute that they heard that golden voice coming out of him. He had the right sound to become a superstar, so it was strange to see that the band had an option to take away his drumsticks for the last time during their career.
Then again, Henley was never supposed to be the most versatile drummer in the world. No matter how hard he hit his snare, he was never going to be competing with John Bonham or anything like that, nor did he really need to. Eagles didn’t need to have that kind of smack behind them, but if they wanted to be a hybrid of different kinds of American music, Henley wanted the chance to have as much power as they could.
That’s half the reason why Joe Walsh became a shot in the arm for the band every single time he played, and when you look at how the rest of the band interacted with each other with him in the band, it’s no secret why he gave the band an edge. Walsh wanted the chance to give their songs a bit more bite, and while he knew when to scale things back when working on a song like ‘Desperado’ or ‘Take it to the Limit’ whenever they played live, ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ was everything one would expect from his songwriting.
Walsh needed to have a lot more punch behind his music, which is half the reason why But Seriously Folks sounded a bit rougher than traditional Eagles fare. He could still make a few songs that resonated with people the same way ‘Pretty Maids All in a Row’ did, but he did have another partner in crime with Joe Vitale laying down the drums on every single one of his solo records.
Since the James Gang was a thing of the past, Vitale was the kind of drummer that Walsh needed to get what he wanted out of the low end. He had the right sense of power and muscle to take the songs to another level every single time he played, and even when the band played their final tours, Don Felder remembered Walsh floating the idea of getting Henley out from behind the drum kit and bringing Vitale into the mix.
Getting asked to step down is never an easy conversation to have, and according to Felder, Henley wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being given less to do during every Eagles show, saying, “Joe Vitale could play better drums than Henley with an arm and a leg cut off. He also played keyboards and was a welcome addition to our stage sound.”
Adding, “For some reason, though, [Henley] saw Joe as a threat, a direct criticism of his competence as a drummer. He knew Joe Walsh wanted Vitale to be a permanent member of the band, and his simmering resentment caused him to flare up over the smallest issues.”
But it’s not like Henley ever needed to worry about his own personal chops as a drummer. He was still one of the most versatile drummers in the rock and roll world, and even if he had someone like Vitale performing alongside him, there was nothing to worry about when he still caught that spotlight during ‘Hotel California’ and played that classic drum fill that launched everyone into the song.
And since Scott F Cargo is doing a fantastic job playing with the group to this day, when Henley takes the spotlight, it was never about Henley trying to get upstaged. He knew what worked best for the band, but it might not have been the right time for Vitale to become a fixture of their live sound when he first joined the party.
