(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Tue 20 May 2025 19:30, UK
No one likes the idea of seeing their favourite band replace members of the group. Any band should feel like brothers in arms whenever they’re playing their instruments, so having to let one of them go feels like losing a core piece of their musical DNA. But as far as Don Henley was concerned, he knew how the music business worked, and he figured that it was better to let go of someone if they weren’t pulling their weight in the Eagles.
When the California rockers first started, though, they already had a specific standard to live up to. Everyone needed to look, sing, and play at the top of their game, and it’s not like Henley and Glenn Frey were simple journeymen, either. They had started playing in Linda Ronstadt’s band, and after graciously leaving the group, Ronstadt was the one who first suggested that they start looking for some new blood in bands like The Flying Burrito Brothers.
Although Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner were already big names in the rock and roll scene, there was some innate chemistry that happened whenever they started singing together. It wasn’t exactly Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but when producer Glyn Johns took them aside and heard them in a rehearsal situation, hearing them sing harmonies a cappella was the sound that convinced him to work with them.
And each of them also seemed to bring their own spice to the instrumental side. Leadon was one of the most accomplished country players in the rock scene, and Meisner’s soaring voice was always a great foil to Henley’s rusty edge whenever he sang tracks like ‘Witchy Woman’. All the ingredients were there, but there were moments when their creative direction wasn’t right.
“Some people were replaceable, and life would go on and the band would go on.”
Don Henley
Despite their status as a country rock outfit, Frey wanted to explore new territory, and that wasn’t going to work with Leadon in the group. He lived and breathed country music every time he played, and if the change in direction wasn’t a big enough cue for him to leave, the decision to pour a beer over Frey’s head before a gig probably wouldn’t put him in anyone’s good graces.
When Meisner eventually left after clashing on the song ‘Take It To the Limit’, though, Henley started to realise maybe the band wasn’t meant to be as unified as he thought, saying, “We had been given the impression by our early management that if we didn’t keep the four original members, we wouldn’t have a chance. So we laboured under that fear for a long time. Then we realised after Bernie left, and then Randy [Meisner] left, that some people were replaceable, and life would go on and the band would go on.”
In fact, a lot of the magic of Eagles usually comes back to that partnership between Henley and Frey. In the same way that Lennon and McCartney had each other to bounce off of, the band’s two heavyweights always knew they were the face of the band that could steer them to greater heights, which probably explains why they had the most profitable solo careers after the band broke up if you discount Joe Walsh’s already-lucrative solo outings.
And while Frey is no longer around to bring his stamp to everything when Eagles play live, it’s understandable why Henley would never want to make music again under their band name. The duo’s chemistry was the heart of the band, and while it’s impossible to think of everyone from Don Felder to Joe Walsh to Timothy Schmitt as side members, the chemistry between those at the front was never going to be eclipsed.
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