Eagles Evolution: the rock show that changed Glenn Frey’s life
Throughout their career, no one was going to be singling out the Eagles for their massive stage presence. Outside of maybe Joe Walsh, every band member usually stood fairly still as they pumped out the classics, to the point where one had to wonder whether they were just animatronics that happened to be super life-like. Glenn Frey was always a rock and roller, though, and seeing The Beatles for the first time was what set him on the path to rock and roll stardom.
Before Frey had even started listening to rock music, a lot of pop music was a wasteland. Sure, artists like Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly were laying down the foundation of what the genre was going to be later, but no one had anything to really latch onto once the 1960s rolled around.
Once The Beatles crashlanded on American shores, the entire country changed overnight. Compared to the raw sexuality of Elvis Presley, seeing the Fab Four on The Ed Sullivan Show felt like getting four versions of ‘The King’ for the price of one, especially when the band kicked into pop staples like ‘She Loves You’.
Seeing the band play on TV may have been one thing, but that wasn’t enough for Frey. He needed to see it live for himself, and he was greeted with a frenzy the minute he got tickets to see them.
Compared to the other huge acts that fill stadiums to this day, Frey had nothing to compare this to, recalling in History of the Eagles, “My aunt took me to see The Beatles at the Olympia. I remember sitting back and watching the girl in front of me fall backwards into my arms, absolutely delirious, crying, ‘Paul Paul’. And I thought, ‘Oh my God.’”
When he left that show, Frey knew exactly what he wanted to be…THEM. After working on his chops on the piano and eventually graduating to the guitar, Frey would start his career onstage playing The Rolling Stones classic, ‘Satisfaction’, before getting the call to work with Bob Seger.
Frey had his sights set on Los Angeles, but it was a much different world than the frenzy that The Beatles had introduced. Everything was all about singer-songwriters now, and Frey was more up to the challenge when working with artists like Jackson Brown and JD Souther when he arrived.
Although it’s easy to see the Eagles branching out of that scene, the attention to detail they put into their songs has come from the Fab Four. Frey had already been brought up listening to Motown, but the art of making a perfect melody on pieces like ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and ‘Desperado’ felt like the happy middle ground between the soulful sounds of R&B, the twang of country music and the counterpoint of The Beatles’ harmonies.
Even when the band harmonised, it’s easy to pinpoint where they took their ideas from, sliding in somewhere between the Everly Brothers and The Beatles in terms of perfect vocal articulation. Frey had already laid down a firm foundation with the Eagles, but his role as one of the fixtures of American music is indebted to the glory days of England’s finest.
