An Eagle in the making: The album that turned Timothy Schmit from a folkie to a rock ‘n’ roller
Timothy Schmit may well have originally fashioned the phrase, “I’m just happy to be here”. Such was his approach to playing bass for the Eagles.
In fact, when in the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles about his thoughts on the band, he said as much: “I was just really happy to be there.”
The easy-going guy didn’t just play bass. At the same time, he was a prodigious and accomplished harmony singer. His skill helped the band Poco Poco eventually establish a template for the sound we now refer to as Americana. A key foundation of Americana is, as we know, folk music.
However, the Americana genre takes the best of folk, all acoustic twang and roots-oriented melodies, and fuses the sound with the fierce skip and hop of rock and roll. There are plenty of examples of this out there – forget Schmit’s time, how about MJ Lenderman’s 2024 release, Manning Fireworks, that ends with an eight-minute folk-rock drone epic? Or the recent record from his previous band, Wednesday, which tangles the fire of rock with the musings of folk?
Most musicians remember the first time they really heard this interaction. It represents a change from a whimsical ideal to a realistic one, like finally finding merit in the bleary intensity of a city after breathing in the fresh air of suburbia for so long. The first album that made Schmit susceptible to rock n roll in this way was an early record from The Beach Boys.
The album he chose, funnily enough, wasn’t all that respected in the music community. For starters, it was made in one hell of a rush. The Beach Boys’ sophomore album, Surfin’ USA, was pretty much made with speed, and speed alone, in mind.
Put simply, the band needed to build on the momentum that came from landing their second single, ‘Surfin’ Safari’, in the top 20 in 1962. Mike Love was only 22 when the sophomore album, Surfin’ USA, was released. There wasn’t a single Wilson brother who was over the age of 20. Carl Wilson was all of 16 years of age. Schmit didn’t care about all of this. He just liked that it sounded, and felt, electric.
Schmit said of the Beach Boys’ Surfin’ USA, “When this came out, my folk music friends and I decided it was time to get a drummer and go electric. That decision was largely based on albums like this.” We need only to listen to the first, and titular, track to understand what he meant: the monster earworm acts out a ferocious call-and-response rock that stops and starts to heighten a frenzying momentum.
Schmit’s love for The Beach Boys makes total sense when you clock his vocals. Tracks like ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ and ‘I Don’t Want to Hear Anymore’ show him front and centre, belting out those silky high notes. There’s a definite echo of that Beach Boys-style harmony going on, just with a fresh Eagles spin. Sure, he may have joined the band later on, technically a “replacement” – but let’s have it right, he didn’t just fill a gap. He brought something properly special to the table.
