Why Glyn Johns almost turned down the Eagles: “I was not at all impressed”
Anyone who listens to the Eagles is normally knocked back by the sheer power of their voices. It’s one thing to be able to play good rock and roll but to perform at the level that they could while having pure gold in their vocal cords is the stuff that most legends can only hope to achieve throughout their career. Despite being one of the biggest acts in the California country-rock scene, legendary producer Glyn Johns was far from raving about them when he heard them play for the first time.
Granted, it’s not like Johns hadn’t seen what greatness looked like before. He had already been one of the engineers when putting together The Beatles’ Let It Be project and was absolutely mortified when Pete Townshend came to him with the demos for songs like ‘Baba O’Riley’ already finished for The Who.
By the time he finished working with The Who and the greatest mid-period albums from The Rolling Stones, Johns was exhausted from rock and roll. So when there was a band that focused on playing acoustic guitars and the occasional flashy riff came to his door, it should have been a slam dunk in theory.
After getting signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records, the group gave a test run of their material to Johns, much to his indifference, stating in History of the Eagles, “They told me to see them perform in Aspen. I was not at all impressed, really. I thought they were confused. Glenn Frey wanted to be in a rock and roll band, and Bernie Leadon is one of the great country guitar players. It didn’t see the appeal, so I passed.”
While any band that gets the producer of Led Zeppelin and The Stones to walk out on them probably would be feeling burnt, this wasn’t the time to stop. This is when the seasoned pros hone their best work, and the Eagles spent the next few days woodshedding their material to convince Johns to see them in a live setting.
Even though it sounded exactly the same, Johns’s ears officially perked up when he heard their a cappella rendition of the song ‘Silver Dagger’, saying, “Then someone said, ‘Oh, why don’t we play Glen that one?’ And there it was, that was the sound.”
Looking back, though, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the main reason that you come to an Eagles record for the harmonies. Considering their pedigree nowadays as one of the leading vocal bands of their era, not showcasing those voices is the equivalent of showcasing Van Halen and making Eddie Van Halen play exclusively acoustic ballads.
Everyone was reasonably happy, but the marriage wasn’t bound to last, either. After only two albums, the group figured that Johns wasn’t pushing them far enough, with Don Henley stating, “At that point, he just wanted mellow people and mellow music, and we weren’t exactly at the same stage in life.” The Eagles eventually found new life after breaking free of Johns on One of These Nights, but those first two albums still serve as the bridge between the classic rock sounds of the early 1970s and the California rock scene of the latter half of the decade.
