The one genre Glenn Frey always wanted to play: “I loved all those”
When the Eagles first formed, Glenn Frey never wanted to limit himself to one singular genre.
They were an amalgamation of all kinds of musical styles when they started, and while country rock fit the bill most of the time, it wasn’t out of the question for them to make more tunes that had a rock edge to them or maybe throw in a few bluegrass elements in there. Their songs were practically a tribute to all types of American music, and Frey knew that there was room for genres that didn’t exactly fit well with what everyone had known them for.
But let’s dial things back a little bit. It’s not like Eagles were going to suddenly unleash their latest polka album on us or give us some strange goth-metal masterpiece or anything. There were definitely limits to where they could and should go, and when looking through all of their records, they at least knew that a good hook was really all that mattered when working through some of their best songs.
It also helped having someone like Don Henley to watch over everything as well. Henley was the one worrying about what the songs were supposed to sound like and how they were fine-tuning all of their material, and if one of their songs didn’t have what it took to make it on the record, they would throw the thing out and start again. And for a band that had as many classics by the time they hit on Hotel California, what was the harm in fiddling around with a couple of soulful jams as well?
I know that sounds weird coming from Eagles, but they did at least have some logic to this. The California rockers had always been teetering on the edge of yacht rock throughout their career, and since The Doobie Brothers had drafted in Michael McDonald around the same time, it wasn’t out of the question to have someone who could sing so soulfully every single time they reached the microphone.
And let’s not forget where Frey’s roots were. He came from Detroit, the city where making soul music is something that you’re practically born with, but when looking at a song like ‘Wasted Time’, Frey didn’t want to keep going back to the same songs he heard from Motown. No, he had his sights set on Philadelphia, and Henley was the perfect voice to lay that kind of song over.
They wouldn’t have had the guts or the expertise to pull this song off years before, but Frey felt that they were ready by the time they hit Hotel California, saying, “I loved all the records coming out of Philadelphia at that time. I sent for some sheet music so I could learn some of those songs, and I started creating my own musical ideas with that Philly influence. We did a big Philly-type production with strings — definitely not country rock. You’re not going to find that track on a Crosby, Stills & Nash record or Beach Boys record.”
This wasn’t the kind of grand departure that everyone was looking for, though. They weren’t suddenly going to start wearing matching suits and pulling off dance moves just like Sam and Dave did, but the way that they constructed the melody of this song wouldn’t have felt out of place being sung in Philly a decade prior by one of the most well-dressed crooners you have ever seen.
It took a long time before Frey was ready for this kind of song, but he felt that there was a lot more that the band had to offer. Their magnum opus was proof that they weren’t just country rock, and every one of those songs was about trying to mix things up ever so slightly until they had something perfect.
