{"id":235271,"date":"2025-09-18T02:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235271\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T02:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:11:10","slug":"on-this-day-in-2024-we-said-goodbye-to-jd-souther-the-pen-behind-your-favorite-linda-rondstadt-and-eagles-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235271\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 2024, We Said Goodbye to JD Souther\u2014the Pen Behind Your Favorite Linda Rondstadt and Eagles Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 17, 2024, was a sad day for the music community. On this date, one year ago, singer and songwriter JD Souther<\/a> passed away at his home in New Mexico. Souther was 78 years old when he died. A cause of death was never provided.<\/p>\n

In addition to Souther\u2019s numerous hits he has written, Souther is credited for helping form what became the Eagles. It is Souther who put together the earliest formation of the iconic group, when he was forming a backing band for Linda Rondstadt. According to Souther, he was dating Ronstadt at the time when he unintentionally formed one of the best rock bands of all time, beginning with Glenn Frey and Don Henley.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy girlfriend then was Linda Ronstadt,\u201d Souther recalls to Songwriter Universe<\/a>. \u201cShe needed a band on the road\u2014Glenn and Don backed her up, and that\u2019s when the Eagles were born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souther also had success as an artist on his own. In 1972, he formed the Souther-Hillman Furay Band, a supergroup of sorts with Souther, The Byrds\u2019 Chris Hillman, and Buffalo Springfield\u2019s Richie Furay.<\/p>\n

JD Souther\u2019s Success as a Songwriter<\/p>\n

JD Souther had numerous songs cut by both Ronstadt and the Eagles. He also had his songs recorded by artists like Bonnie Raitt, and James Taylor, among others, even recording a duet, \u201cHer Town Too\u201d with Taylor. But Souther\u2019s largest musical contributions can be attributed to the Eagles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Souther who had a hand in writing some of the Eagles\u2019 biggest hits<\/a>, including \u201cHeartache Tonight\u201d, \u201cBest Of My Love\u201d, \u201cNew Kid In Town\u201d, and more. Interestingly, Souther was also invited to join the Eagles, an invitation he ultimately declined.<\/p>\n

David Geffen, who signed the Eagles to their first label, Asylum, wanted Souther to join. But for Souther, the lure of being part of a group of talented writers and musicians was not nearly strong enough to entice him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a terrible team player,\u201d Souther tells American Songwriter<\/a>. \u201cGeffen wanted me in the band. We actually rehearsed a set and played it for him. I remember looking down the stage thinking, \u2018Man, this is an awful lot of singers and acoustic guitar players all in the same band.\u2019 I felt, \u2018I\u2019m not necessary here.\u2019 And I don\u2019t really like being told what to do in any sense anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Souther still wrote a lot of songs with both Henley and Frey, a combination that worked well, even though Souther was never part of the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the biggest advantage of writing with somebody else is that it gets finished sooner,\u201d Souther says. \u201cYou\u2019re always pushing each other to do it a little bit better. And there\u2019s also a little implied criticism going back and forth. You want to push the other person to the best thing they\u2019ve got. Because your name is going to be on it, too. So I think it\u2019s one of the reasons why Henley and Frey and I wrote together as well as we could. And we were friends, and also really complete believers in the spirit of collaboration. Almost brothers. But we were very competitive with each other. Intensely so. Almost nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Rick Diamond\/Getty Images for Americana Music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 17, 2024, was a sad day for the music community. On this date, one year ago, singer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,126360,975,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-235271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jd-souther","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115222877598788786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}