The one band Don Henley and Glenn Frey called the best singers
The magic that Don Henley and Glenn Frey created with the Eagles wasn’t done by accident.
They had spent time honing their craft with Linda Ronstadt long before they had the idea to go solo, and when they eventually struck out on their own, they weren’t going to rest until everyone could play the best that they could possibly play. But even if Bernie Leadon had some great country licks at his disposal and Joe Walsh gave them the edge later in their career, nothing mattered more than hearing them all sing together.
From the minute that Glyn Johns heard them all harmonising, he knew they had something special no one could put their finger on. Crosby, Stills, and Nash may have also been the kings of harmony around the same time, but Henley and Frey’s ear for arranging went a little bit further. They had studied under some of the best, and when listening to them on the a cappella version of ‘Seven Bridges Road’, it’s hard to think of anyone else out at the time that could have matched them.
The Everly Brothers were obviously one of the first places to start when it came to vocal harmonies in rock, but The Beatles were a big part of Henley and Frey’s lives before they even started a band. They knew that they could make something that affected people on that level, and while they weren’t exactly going to be making overlapping voices like on ‘Because’ right out of the gate, those close harmonies on ‘Witchy Woman’ were the best introduction that they could have asked for.
The Fab Four may have had a firm grip on everything Eagles, but they were all students of American music first and foremost. There wasn’t a song in their repertoire that didn’t feel indebted to everything from rock and roll to the greatest soul voices to sweet sounds of country music, but somewhere in the middle of all this was Brian Wilson’s keen ear for vocal arrangements.
Compared to every other vocal group in the world, Wilson seemed to have a sixth sense for the kind of music people wanted to hear. He didn’t necessarily have to know all the ins and outs of what he was doing, but looking at the way that he built up something like ‘Good Vibrations’ or ‘God Only Knows’, he was operating on the same level as someone like Mozart or Beethoven half the time.
And while Frey was proud of what Eagles accomplished, he knew that no one could touch what Wilson did with The Beach Boys, saying, “The Beach Boys were a huge influence on all of the Eagles; we consider them to be the greatest American vocal band ever. We admire their work and Brian in particular.” If the frontman was a bit more open about his influence, Henley’s admiration was a bit more methodical.
Though he did eventually get starstruck when Wilson signed a record for him, Henley counted the Beach Boys among a long line of influences, saying, “We were fortunate growing up on the Byrds and the Beach Boys and before that the Mills Brothers and the Four Preps and Four Freshman, the people who influenced Brian Wilson.” People like the Four Freshmen may have been the launching pad for Wilson’s career, but no one could deny that what he did went far beyond anything that they were capable of.
Wilson was looking to knock down the barriers of popular music, and even if not every song he sang made the most sense, it was never about trying to make something too cerebral. He was simply having fun making music, and in the process he left behind the kind of songs that anyone could have fallen in love with.
