The person who could reduce all Eagles to tears
Most members of the Eagles knew to check their egos at the door every time they went into the studio.
They were in the business to make the best records that they could, and if that meant one musician didn’t get their way or weren’t meant to feature on a particular song, that was simply too damn bad. And while both Glenn Frey and Don Henley did end up winning out more often than not, it’s not like they both didn’t have uphill battles of their own to face before they got into the studio.
After all, both Frey and Henley already had to spend time cutting their teeth before they even had a chance to collaborate together. Frey was already worried that his songs would be terrible before he even started writing, but after some advice from Bob Seger, he knew that it was all about persistence until he eventually hit on tunes that would have been good enough to appear on one of their records.
But when they came in with those winning harmonies and knockout songs, it’s not like the label was clapping their hands and insisting on getting them into the studio. They had a lot more growing up to do, and after going to Aspen, Colorado, to help hone their skills, they came back like a well-oiled machine. The songwriting duo hadn’t started putting music together yet, but there were the genesis of tunes like ‘Desperado’ was already there that were waiting to be uncovered.
Once the label got a meeting with them and Glyn Johns, though, they could have practically been sent to musical heaven. To say that Johns was rock royalty up until that point would have been an understatement. He had worked alongside The Beatles, witnessed the beginnings of Led Zeppelin, and had even started a career making The Who’s and Rolling Stones’ records sound massive, so him taking a chance on a softer rock act was going to be a gamble.
While Johns did hear the magic when those harmonies came in for the first time, it was by no means the most easygoing sessions. He had a primal way of recording that sought to capture the group playing live in the room, and while the band wanted to have more control over the vocals or how much they could hear the drums, Johns was concerned with the bigger picture of what they wanted to say with their records.
Desperado could have been a standard concept record from a band in over their heads, but Henley wasn’t afraid of the moments where Johns would have deep discussions about what they were trying to do, saying, “Glyn made us very aware of all the little personal trips within the band. He’d just stare at you with his big, strong, burning blue eyes and confront you with the man-to-man talk. You couldn’t help but get emotional. We even cried a couple times.”
They may have ultimately led to them letting go of Johns once he started to have more control than they wanted, but it’s not like they were suddenly lost in the woods once he was gone. They knew how to create sonic masterpieces, and when they finally had a say in how every one of their records was supposed to sound, Hotel California was the kind of record that took all of their strengths and turned them into pure radio gold when they hit on tracks like ‘New Kid in Town’ and the title track.
But even if they had a lot more fun when they were on their own, none of them seemed to take Johns’s work for granted, either. They knew they wouldn’t have been half the band they were without Johns guiding them along, but sometimes the biggest mentors aren’t meant to stick around forever.
