The singer Don Henley knew was “the best” for the Eagles: “Several things prompted us to ask him”
It takes a lot for anyone to fill the shoes of any member of the Eagles.
The entire point of the band was to have every member playing at the best of their ability, and it’s hard to think of anyone who could slide into any of their slots, especially when it came time to flesh out the harmonies on all of their classics. So while Don Henley had his work cut out for him when putting together the band with Glenn Frey, it became even harder when some of the biggest names in the group decided to drop off.
Because when looking at their career, it was always about them using every single member for the right occasion whenever they made a record. It took a small army to make something like Hotel California, and even though Henley felt that the band could do anything on their last few records, they needed that extra push from Joe Walsh to get them into second gear when working on tracks like ‘Life in the Fast Lane’.
But it turns out that when you make a record that great, there’s nowhere left to go but down, and even though The Long Run was a great record, it took a long time before the band was on the same page again. They had a new recruit in Timothy B Schmit on bass, but when looking through their reunions, a lot of them were going to be touch-and-go depending on how everyone was working things out on tour.
Don Felder already said his piece about how the band was dividing up their royalties, but after that sent him packing, Steuart Smith seemed like the perfect fit to replace a legend. No one could have imagined anyone else had the chops to work with Walsh so well, but when Frey passed away, it was bound to get a little bit complicated. He was the one who started it all alongside Henley back in the day, so if they were going to actually replace him, it was going to be a massive task.
And while they did have one of the greatest replacements under their noses when Deacon Frey offered to take the place of his old man, Vince Gill was the one who fit the best when he first started working with them. He could sing just about anything they threw at him, and when he was called on to harmonise, he seemed to fit the job perfectly whenever he hung back on their other songs.
So when asked about whether or not Gill would be a permanent member, Henley felt that there was no sense in them parting, saying, “Several things prompted us to ask him. One thing was that 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.
“Secondly, 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. So we knew that he was one of the only guys who could have stepped into that position and done that.”
That’s a high compliment coming from Henley, but that might actually be selling some of Gill’s talent short as well. He was one of the greatest country players that the world had ever seen, and when you look at the way that he and Walsh play off each other, they are perfectly suited to each other’s playing, to the point where Gill could put on a musical clinic onstage without breaking a sweat.
The idea of making a revamped version of the band without Frey was always going to feel strange, but with Gill at the front, their legacy was never in danger of being tarnished or anything, Gill knew he had a massive task ahead of him, and he was going to do everything he possible could to try and do justice to the song that made him love the band when he was a kid.
