The drummer Don Henley crowned as the best in the world
When looking at all the fantastic contributions Don Henley made to music, hardly anyone ever talks about his drumming.
Eagles may have been known for those soaring harmonies, and when Henley opened up his mouth, it was among the purest sounds coming out of California, but his first love was trying to beat out little cadences until he found the right sound he heard in his head when he was a kid. And while many teachers of rock and roll could show him the ways of what a drummer was supposed to be, he was more than willing to step aside when someone better was up to the job.
Because when looking at Henley’s track record, he was much more interested in playing drums the same way that Ringo Starr did. After all, he was the drummer that he learned from first before anyone, and while his work with The Beatles was unparalleled, the fact that he only played for the song was the number-one rule for Henley. No song was worth ruining by showing off, and the best moments of his career came from him adding just the right drum fill when the time called for it.
But after making Hotel California and admitting defeat after a gig in Long Beach, none of the Eagles needed to settle for something that was simply good. Henley needed to make sure that he hit hard when he made his first solo outing, and while he had the songs to back him up, some of the biggest names from the session scene weren’t that far behind when he came out with I Can’t Stand Still.
Henley had been friendly with the members of Steely Dan, so he was familiar enough with what people like Bernard Purdie could do behind the kit, but he needed to look beyond the ‘Purdie shuffle’ to get what he wanted. Jim Keltner may have been a perfect choice from that time, but there was hardly any moment when Jeff Porcaro didn’t put his hands in the right place on any session he played.
His style may not have always been right with ‘The Dan’, but hearing him play with Toto is still some of the most rock-steady drumming that anyone has ever laid down. It was clear that he could fly off the handle if the time called for it, but when seeing him up close, Henley figured that he had no business getting behind the kit any time he walked into the room.
‘Golden Throat’ could do alright laying down a decent rhythm, but Porcaro was in a completely different class, saying, “He was one of the most generous, giving people I’ve ever met. When he came to a session, he would light up the room with enthusiasm. He didn’t care if the clock was running late. He didn’t care if he was getting paid. He was there for the music, and he was there with everything he had. And he made you feel like he cared about the music and not just the job. He was one of the best drummers in the world.”
And when listening to how Porcaro sat in on Henley sessions, you can tell when he was free to do whatever he wanted. On a track like ‘Dirty Laundry’, for example, what he was playing was never intended to be anything too off the wall, but for a song that was about the cold-hearted nature of tabloid journalists, he did a perfect job of making the drums sound like a slap in the face every single time he came in.
But that kind of heartbeat is one of the few things that most people don’t realise they need until it’s silenced forever. Porcaro might have passed away in 1992, but even in an age when pop has been taken over by Pro Tools and quantising everything, there’s no way to replace the kind of feel that he had on every record.
