The Eagles album Don Henley was scared of: “We were amazed”
Any kid looking to break into the music industry will have a bit of apprehension before diving in. It’s one thing to be able to play an instrument well or sing like a bird, but when the suits are watching, there’s no telling what someone is going to sound like with the sweat beating down on them. Don Henley was already in great shape going into the Eagles’ debut album, but once he got out on the road, he learned to become terrified of what he had just produced.
Then again, any rock star would be more than happy to be in Henley’s position after 1972. The Eagles had been slowly building momentum in the California scene in different acts, but once Henley connected with Glenn Frey and decided to start a new project, things were bound to start moving fast.
After picking up Bernie Leadon from The Flyin’ Burrito Brothers and Randy Meisner from Poco, their first record under Asylum with Glyn Johns was bound to be a watershed moment in country rock. Despite not going all that smoothly, Johns worked them into decent shape and produced breezy rock and roll on tracks like ‘Take It Easy’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’.
While the singing duties were split up across each song, Henley was the star of the show the minute ‘Witchy Woman’ came out. Whereas Frey’s voice was just the right style of laid-back, Henley had pure gold inside his throat when he sang, and as soon as everyone else heard what they could do, they immediately flocked to hear what they had in the can next.
Once the record spawned three hit singles, though, Henley remembered getting a little bit uncomfortable, telling Rolling Stone, “Having three hit singles on our very first album scared us a little bit. It’s not as if we weren’t grateful or excited about it. We were amazed, actually. But at the same time, we didn’t want to become just another Top 40 hit machine.”
So, to break out of the rut of being a radio-rock act, Frey and Henley envisioned their next album as a concept based around the gunslingers who had been reading out. Although Desperado is received warmly by fans these days, it became one of the biggest sophomore slumps that anyone had ever attempted, with virtually no hit singles finding their way onto the hit parade.
Granted, having that underrated record in their catalogue actually showed fans a lot more about who Henley and the rest of the Eagles were as people. They weren’t designed to be pop starlets, and every time someone picked up an Eagles album from then onward were going to be getting a careful look at what the state of America was in.
Across projects like Hotel California, Henley went from a humble songwriter to a natural poet behind the microphone, dealing with issues about how the planet is being treated and how people are starting to lose parts of human nature that they once took for granted. No one expected that from the kids standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but even after running away from their fame, the Eagles were still far too good to be kept off the radio.
