“One of the absolute best”: The singer Don Henley called one of the greatest on the planet
No band is meant to last forever. As much as people like the idea of their favourite bands going on and on, mortality comes for everyone, and even the greatest acts have to find time to bow out gracefully before life starts catching up with them. While Don Henley had to worry about replacing an icon in Glenn Frey, he felt that the group acquired one of the finest singers on the planet when they found someone to fill his shoes.
But out of all the Eagles, Henley would always be considered the prettiest singer. His massive range was one of the main reasons why ‘Hotel California’ and ‘One Of These Nights’ worked so well on the radio, and while Frey’s voice was still good, it didn’t carry as well over an audience as ‘Golden Throat’ did.
Frey did have his own strengths as a singer, though. Listening through some of his fronted songs, his calm demeanour had the ability to tell fans a story every time he got behind the microphone, whether that was droning on about unfaithful women on ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ or looking at the next generation on ‘New Kid in Town’. That kind of storytelling only comes from someone well-versed in country music, and Vince Gill seemed to be the descendant of everything the Eagles worked on.
While the country music revival was still yet to take off by the time the Eagles broke up, Gill was already becoming one of the biggest names in the genre. Outside of writing immaculate songs, he could play like no one else on the scene, always keeping his Fender Telecaster close to him and playing the kind of licks that would make Merle Haggard turn his head.
Henley was already a student of country music and even got his big break from Kenny Rogers, but when Frey passed away in 2016, there was no one else but Gill who could replace him. Though he’s relegated to rhythm guitar at most Eagles shows, he sings like a bird whenever it’s time to play ‘New Kid in Town’.
While Gill had been one of Frey’s best friends when off the road, Henley thought that he hit the jackpot when Gill agreed to join the group, saying, “He and Glenn were good friends, they played golf together. Vince is an avid golfer and Glenn was an avid golfer, so they met that way. We all had admired Vince’s music; he’s one of the best singers on the planet, one of the absolute best singers there is and one of the best guitarists as well.”
That’s not to say that he doesn’t have the opportunity to stretch. Even though Frey was known to play the rhythm guitar right up the middle most of the time, Gill looks like he’s holding back whenever he plays alongside Joe Walsh, almost as if he knows that he could throw down a country solo that will leave everyone’s mouth on the floor in an instant.
Not every Eagles song is meant to rely on virtuosic playing, though, and the greatest strength of having Gill in the band isn’t about him plugging in and playing all of Frey’s parts. It’s about sitting in the song and seeing what he can do to make sure a song that’s been performed a thousand times sounds new again.
