The artist that Don Henley called “American to its core”
Rock and roll has always been the soundtrack of America. Even though the British invasion opened up listeners’ minds to where the genre could go afterwards, the music of Chuck Berry and Little Richard is what excited artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to pick up instruments in the first place. While Don Henley has been well-versed in all varieties of music with the Eagles, he admitted that America’s voice can be traced back to Randy Newman.
When Henley was first starting to discover his passion, he spent his time listening to various country acts on the radio. Tuning into the show The Louisiana Hayride, many of Henley’s fondest memories came from hearing rock and roll for the first time, including one of Elvis Presley’s first broadcasted appearances.
While Henley’s first handful of gigs would be spent playing Dixieland jazz music with his high school buddies, he started to realise that you could make more money singing than just playing music. Becoming the leader of the group Shiloh, Henley eventually moved West from Texas through the help of Kenny Rogers, where he came across a young Glenn Frey while playing in Linda Ronstadt’s backing band.
Even though the country rock singer would become a superstar in her own right, Henley already had a fascination with what he could do with Frey. Electing to leave the band and write their own songs, Henley started to put together an idea for what the Eagles would sound like, carrying on the songwriting tradition that Newman had started.
Never claiming to have the most versatile voice in the world, Newman’s greatest songs usually came from the boundaries he pushed in rock and roll. Growing up in Louisiana, Newman internalised the sounds of various jazz greats as well as classical composers when it came time to write his own material, all while coating it in some of the most sarcastic tales of tragedy in American history like ‘Rednecks’ and ‘Short People’.
Henley would even find his way onto various Newman projects, providing the occasional backing vocal and drum part to aid Newman’s self-proclaimed “wounded water buffalo” voice. While Henley may not have always known the meaning behind every one of Newman’s songs, he knew that he was a musical national treasure.
When inducting him into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Henley thought no one personified their country like Newman, saying, “[In his music], you can hear America, the way it was and the way it is. Randy Newman’s music is American to the core. It’s an unflinching portrait of America in all its sham and all its glory”.
That kind of blunt look at the US is something Henley eventually infused into his own writing, penning songs that took a hard look at how its citizens treated their home on songs like ‘The Last Resort’ and how they mythologise celebrity on ‘Hotel California’. While many fans may know Newman better these days for his soundtracks to family films like Toy Story and Monsters Inc., his back catalogue is a treasure trove into the heart of American music.
