Meisner, Leadon, Frey, Felder, Henley

Reading more about the wild music/drugs/sex and post-Manson paranoid fueled Malibu and Laurel Canyon and Sunset Blvd and Troubadour music scene of the early seventies in Los Angeles. It is fascinating.

It is amazing how much the artist’s songs and albums were like snapshots and or lie detector tests of what was going on with their lives. You can taste the jealous infighting, cocaine and unchecked egomania in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Déjà vu” as well as the hint of San Francisco and Berkeley where it was recorded and where they lived.

Horribly-underrated-guitar great, Ry Cooder, talks about how you can hear a room in songs. It’s also true about personalities and the era.

And, as a result, you can taste the simplicity, wholesomeness and relief to be away from that insanity in Neil Young’s “Harvest.” Did you know Linda Rondstadt and James Taylor sang on Young’s “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold”? Two of my favorite songs. If I did know, I had forgotten. How awesome is that?

In Joni Mitchell’s “River” you can smell the burning candles, fresh cut flowers and lingering pot in her foggy, rustic, stain glass Laurel Canyon rich hippie house.

And, as a result, you can sense the panic to try and rise to the incredible talent all around them in the Eagles first three albums.

It’s like each early Eagle song is a different wardrobe some insecure actor is trying on to try and look the part of his role. Should I put on this Crosby-like buckskin San Francisco hippie jacket? Or how about this rancher/poet Neil Young denim or flannel shirt? Or should I try being a little more guitar-god-rocker-like with a football jersey and cowboy boots like Stephen Stills? Or how about this classy Englishman intellectual fancy white cotton shirt and vest like Graham Nash? Beard? Mustache? Long hair? Perm? Tan? Pale? How much turquoise jewelry is too much?

For me the classic Eagles lineup will always be the one on “One of These Nights.” Although the album doesn’t have take-over-the-world hits like “Hotel California” and “Life in the Fast Lane” – a line originated by Glenn Frey, by the way - it was their strongest chemistry. Randy Meisner’s “Take it to the Limit” was the best selling Eagles song until “Hotel California.”

In my opinion, at that “One of These Nights” time, the ranking of the Eagles talent as singers musicians and song writers went Meisner, Leadon, Felder, Henley, Meisner again and then Frey. (Yes, I put Frey sixth in a five-man band. You can’t underestimate the power of Frey’s ruthless drive and ambition, but drive and ambition don’t equate to talent) Felder was better on guitar than Henley and Frey were combined on their instruments.

Although Henley got better on drums.

And I love Joe Walsh, “Turn to Stone” is one of my favorite guitar-hero-chord rock songs, but I never liked Walsh for the Eagles. I tried to like him as an Eagle, but I never did. And Henley took a long time to find his individual songwriting chops.

Don Henley’s lyrics, like his voice, have always been world class, but musically, he needed a lot of help. His first solo album, “I Can’t Stand Still” got hammered by the critics as way too self indulgent and, like Henley himself, too intense. Music critics suck, but, this time they were right. (But I still liked it)

And Frey’s “No Fun Aloud” – the title a clear swipe at the wildly intense Henley – was cute and I liked it at the time, but it clearly showed how much Frey needed Jackson Browne, J.D Souther, Henley and Jack Tempchin to write a good song; as he needed Henley, Souther, Meisner and Leadon to harmonize on the songs; and how he also needed the guitar chops of Leadon and Felder to play a song. “Smuggler’s Blues”? Really? Frey’s solo albums are a testament as to what can happen on an album when an over-bearing drug-addled egomaniac is surrounded by yes men who won’t tell him the Emperor has no chops. Like a David Crosby-wannabe.

(Like Frey, Crosby was the least talented person in his band, and it clearly pissed him off also)

Even from my distant vantage point, I knew Frey was not nearly as good on guitar as he thought he was. And his Jack Nicholson-sounding voice is good at best. In an interview, Henley said the Eagles first broke up because somebody thought they were all things to all people. Gosh, I wonder who that was a swipe at, excuse my preposition?

At my last Eagles concert few years ago in San Diego – at Qualcom Stadium – it was almost sad how everyone in that stadium could see Frey still thought he was the leader of the band, but we could see how far he had fallen, especially when he sang the-wildly-mediocre-at-best “Girl From Yesterday.” Yes, Frey can still bring it with “Take it Easy” and “Already Gone” two great songs thanks to him. But in historic football terms, Meisner’s “Take it to the Limit” is the 1969 Green Bay Packers. “Girl From Yesterday” is the 2009 Detroit Lions.

A few years after that, Henley, Frey and their nasty, bald troll manager, Irving “asshole” Azoff’s bloated millionaire egos officially killed the Eagles when they fired “Hotel California” author Don Felder. That is when the Eagles finally became everything I hate about music: an overly-marketed plastic-sounding washed up brand name money making machine with no soul, not unlike the current Van Halen.

As far as I am concerned, no offense to the non-offensive Timothy B. Schmidt, and the mad genius, The Bomber, Joe Walsh, the current Eagles might as well wear Kiss makeup.

Thus concludes another chapter in my schizophrenic and complicated love/hate relationship with the Eagles. It is eerily similar - frustrated sexual aspect aside - to the emotions I have about the women I dated back then. Like that sadistic, spoiled bitch I took to an outdoor Eagles concert in the day who then dumped me that same night for our high school’s handsome rival quarterback.

Should get past it, but somehow I can’t. It’s too much a part of my history and makeup. .Just like the early Seventies itself, when that LA music scene was good, it was great, but when it sucked, it really sucked and it sucked hard.

Unlike my girlfriends back then, but that is a whole other topic for a different time . . .