The one Eagle that Don Henley said started it all: “He was the spark plug”
It was going to take more than a few good songs that get Don Henley off the ground with the Eagles.
Although there was a lot of ground to be covered once they got the ball rolling, there was no way that any of their classics would have happened if all of them didn’t commit 100% to whatever track they were working on. And while it became abundantly clear that Henley was the surefire frontman that they needed, he was far from the true leader of the band that everyone saw him as.
But, really, who else was going to sing half of the band’s songs? No one was exactly looking to Glenn Frey to be the sole frontman of the group, and while Joe Walsh was a shot in the arm when they first began gaining traction, it’s not like his squawky voice would have worked when singing the lead on ‘Hotel California’. Henley had those bases covered, and if he had that platform, he was going to use it for whatever cause was close to his heart.
Because while Henley did have a fair bit of experience writing, he didn’t want to write the standard love song whenever he made a new tune. Tracks like ‘The Last Resort’ were bold meditations on the way that we treat our planet, and while a lot of the biggest songs in their catalogue do have the same universal feelings that all of us go through, it’s not like people were actively listening to a track like ‘New Kid in Town’ and thinking that they knew the life of a rockstar firsthand.
That kind of writing takes time, and given that Henley’s first composition was ‘Witchy Woman’, it’s not like he was exactly on Bob Dylan’s level or anything. He needed the McCartney to his Lennon in many respects, and Frey turned into his perfect foil whenever they started breaking out the notepads to write a song.
Not all of them were easy to get through, but whenever listening to Frey, he found someone who went beyond being the traditional songwriter. He had the discipline to keep everything as tight as possible whenever a song started, but when he passed away, Henley knew that this was more than a band member passing away. This was a death in the family as far as he was concerned.
Despite all of the disagreements over the years and even a decade of being apart from each other, Henley had nothing but respect for Frey when learning of his passing, saying, “He was like a brother to me; we were family, and like most families, there was some dysfunction. But, the bond we forged 45 years ago was never broken, even during the 14 years that the Eagles were dissolved. Glenn was the one who started it all. He was the spark plug, the man with the plan. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was funny, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven.”
Even though Henley clearly had the better success as a solo artist, Frey was never going to fall back, either. He was always looking at the big picture even outside Eagles, and when working on his own solo records or having various turns on Miami Vice and a bit role in Jerry Maguire, he always had the same magnetic presence that he had whenever he stood at the microphone at any Eagles show.
The California rockers may have been chastised more than a few times for “loitering” onstage, but what Frey was doing didn’t need a bunch of motion to be one of the greatest performances ever. He may have only needed a guitar in his hands, but when they all started singing, the music always spoke for itself.
