(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Sat 11 October 2025 19:30, UK
The records that Don Henley gravitated towards never had to be in one distinct category.
Although someone who steered the Eagles through thick and thin would normally be expected to listen to mellow music, Henley was always happy to turn on anything that struck his fancy, whether that was the biggest names in rock and roll or the occasional soul song for the right occasion. But if you’re one of the biggest names in country-rock, chances are you’re going to find yourself going back to the classics.
Then again, Henley knew a lot of the greatest country artists of all time like the back of his hand. He was already listening to country music since he had been listening to rock and roll, and even if he had an affection for bands like The Beatles and Elvis Presley when he was growing up, it wasn’t out of the question to listen to artists like Tammy Wynette and George Jones right alongside the rock stations.
In fact, that was part of the beauty for how the format worked for him at the time. There are many streaming services that will give you playlists based on the kind of music that you like to listen to, but rather than finding four other bands that sound exactly like Led Zeppelin, for instance, Henley was looking for artists that could be a bit more eclectic. On his favourite radio stations, you would get Sam and Dave right alongside Hank Williams, and people wouldn’t bat an eye.
That helped everyone refine their palette a bit more, but there was something about country music that burrowed a hole in Henley’s heart. A lot of the music that he made in his later years ended up sounding quite a bit like the kind of tunes that sound like they belong in an old Western town, but that only came from him listening to Merle Haggard as much as he could.
Although Haggard has certainly earned a spot in country history to stand alongside the legends like Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, the true power he had was in his voice. The baritone that Cash had was never going to be matched, but Henley felt that Haggard was always at his best when he had a few more years of experience under his belt.
When talking about the best period of his heroes, Henley admitted Haggard’s 1980 song ‘Life’s Just Not the Way It Used to Be’ was one of his musical obsessions, saying, “There was another song on there called ‘Life’s Just Not the Way It Used to Be,’ and I must have listened to that song two or three hundred times without stopping, because I just thought it was so brilliant, and the sound of his voice was so resonant.”
And looking at the kind of approach Henley took later in life, that kind of sentiment was a lot more resonant with him later. He seemed to be looking around the modern world and wondering where all the simple aspects of living had gone, and while it was by no means a bad thing to see the world change a little bit, records like Cass County took a good look at the kind of road that the country would be heading down if we didn’t start caring about the real issues with the world.
While it’s easy to pinpoint certain aspects of Henley’s sound based on the kind of guests he features on his records, he doesn’t really need to have Merle Haggard on his tunes for people to understand his influence. It helps to have him physically there in the studio, but the years of country music that he paved the way for is etched into Henley’s work whether he even knows it or not.
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