Glenn Frey - RIP

This one was hard to write.  I am conflicted.  I don’t care for The Eagles.  The biggest reason for my antipathy is because they remind me of someone I would prefer to forget.  Another reason is Don Henley, the smug, sanctimonious holier-than-thou drummer-turned-frontman.  I dislike everything about him, most especially his vocals.  They are nails on a chalkboard to me.  A long time ago Mojo Nixon did a song about him called Don Henley Must Die.  He hit the nail on the proverbial head.  But to give the Devil his due, Henley actually had the balls to get up onstage at a Mojo Nixon concert in Austin and sang the song with him.  But enough about Don Henley…

But I come not to slam Don Henley [much], but to praise his musical partner, Glenn Frey. This is the source of the conflict - while I don’t care for most of the Eagles’ music, I have always liked Glenn Frey.  He had the best voice in the Eagles.  He didn’t sing lead very often.  He should have – the Eagles’ songs that I do like were sung by him.  He wasn’t a powerhouse singer – for the most part he sang the country-ish ballads.  He was an adept vocal arranger.  According to Henley, “we gave Glenn a nickname, the Lone Arranger.  He had a vision about how our voices could blend and how to arrange the vocals, and, in many cases, the tracks. He also had a knack for remembering and choosing good songs.”   Here I must give credit where it is due – The Last Resort, the last song on Hotel California, is a masterpiece.  Even though Henley sings it, it’s probably the best thing the Eagles ever did.  It was an epic story lamenting man’s ability to destroy his own environment.  Henley had the lyrics and basic chord progressions, and Frey filled in the rest, including the theme of the song and the arrangement.  Frey’s piano and Don Felder’s steel guitar are magical touches.

Showtime did a documentary about the Eagles – History of the Eagles.  When it came out a couple of years ago I wouldn’t watch it.  But last week was an encore presentation.  So I did something I thought I wouldn’t do – I watched it…and I didn’t puke.  I rediscovered what I liked about them when they got a lot of airplay in my house when I was a teenager.

What are those Eagles songs that I like?

Tequila Sunrise [Desperado, 1973] – This is one of the first songs I learned to play. 

Desperado [Desperado, 1973] – Original lead vocals by Don Henley.  This is the first song Henley and Frey wrote together.  Frey should have sung it on the album.  Frey did this one on his Glenn Frey Live album from 1993.

Ol’ 55 [On The Border, 1974] – Written by Tom Waits.  This duet with Henley is perfect for Frey’s voice.  That’s Al Perkins from Stephen Stills’ Manassas on steel guitar.

Lyin’ Eyes [One of These Nights, 1975] – What is understood need not be discussed.  The vocals are perfect.

Outlaw Man [Desperado, 1973] – Lead vocals by Glenn Frey.  Lead guitar and electric piano also by Glenn Frey.  With guitarists like Bernie Leadon, Joe Walsh and Don Felder in the band, Glenn Frey was the invisible guitarist.  Here he shows he can play a pretty solid lead guitar.

After the Thrill Is Gone [One of These Nights, 1975] – This is a Frey/Henley duet.  It’s a good song – shut up!

Heartache Tonight [The Long Run, 1979] – There’s nothing deep here.  Joe Walsh’s slide guitar is perfection. 

New Kid in Town [Hotel California, 1976] – see my comments about Lyin’ Eyes.

King of Hollywood [The Long Run, 1979] – Henley and Frey are singing the lead.  This tale of the decadence of Hollywood bosses is as dark as the Eagles would get.   Each of the three guitarists [Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh] gets a solo.

The Last Resort [Hotel California, 1976] – See my comments above.

What about those solo years?

If the Eagles years were an exercise in “country rock,” then Glenn Frey’s solo years had a more R&B/soul flavor.  No Fun Aloud [1982] was his first post-Eagles album.  Some of the songs sounded like they would be at home on the Eagles’ The Long Run.  The songs vary in styles.  All Those Lies and That Girl were recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and it sounds like it – this is a good thing.  She Can’t Let Go has a Spanish feel to it [GF even plays the guitarron].  But the two singles, I Found Somebody and The One You Love, are a departure in soul territory.  Instead of the guitar, the saxophone is the lead instrument.  Both of these songs point the direction that’s to come.  If you can find the album, get it.  The Allnighter came next [1984].  It sounds like a mid-1980s production, for better or worse.  The hits were Sexy Girl and Smuggler’s Blues.  Sexy Girl comes dangerously close to Hall & Oates territory.  But Smuggler’s Blues heads back to rock and roll territory.  There was a pretty good video that came with it.  Miami Vice was very good to Glenn Frey.  Smuggler’s Blues inspired an entire episode.  You Belong to the City appeared on the soundtrack.  The sax was the hook, but the vocals are some of the best he’s done.  It’s a damn fine song.  Soul Searchin’ came in 1988.  While Don Henley was going for cheesy synthesizers and drum machines on Building the Perfect Beast, Glenn Frey went the other way with real horns and female soul singers.  Soul Searchin’ boasts some good songs [Soul Searchin’, True Love, Some Kind of Blue], but the production sounds extremely dated [those dreaded 1980s again].  Strange Weather [1992] didn’t chart, which is odd because it’s better than the two albums that came before it.  The songs were better, the production was better, Glenn Frey’s singing was till top-notch.  This one’s another one I recommend.  After Hours [2012] was a recording of American standards with one original song [the title track].  I can’t comment on it because I haven’t heard it.

The Eagles Reunion.  Hell indeed froze over when the band decided to get back together in 1994.  The one new song that Glenn Frey sang [The Girl From Yesterday] is a straight up country tune.  As for The Long Road Out of Eden [2007], I have three songs, all sung by Glenn Frey which I checked out after his death.  How Long is a J.D. Souther song they often played live in the early 1970s.  It was a hit on country radio.  No More Cloudy Days is hard to classify.  I think it has the dreaded “adult contemporary” tag.  The most interesting one is the last song on the album – It’s Your World Now.  This one is definitely a country song that has a mariachi feel.  This valedictory is the keeper.

Glenn Frey has been called a lot of things – driven, a perfectionist, a hard worker, corporate, a jerk.  They may have all been true, but in the end it’s the work by which he’ll be judged.  I was reviewing something a wrote about Joe Walsh about four years ago.  When it was time for the Eagles to reunite in 1994, Glenn Frey decreed that if anyone was going to be in the band, they had to be sober.  It was Frey’s kick in the ass that got Joe Walsh sober.  The music listening public can be forever grateful for that.  I may not like the Eagles as a band, but I do like the songs Glenn Frey sang in that band.  Maybe as I age more my feelings toward that particular band may mellow and I’ll appreciate the entire body of work.  For now I’ll content myself with those songs he sang.  This new year has been hell on music legends.  First Lemmy Kilmister, then David Bowie, and now Glenn Frey.  Frey’s passing is the most surprising as I didn’t know he was sick like the other two.  I saw a film clip of an interview with Don Henley not too long ago.  When asked when it would be time for the Eagles to hang it up, he said he would defer that decision to Glenn Frey.  Perhaps his death has made that decision.  I can’t imagine the Eagles without him.

A perfect day, the sun is sinkin' low

As evening falls, the gentle breezes blow

The time we shared went by so fast

Just like a dream, we knew it couldn't last

But I'd do it all again

If I could, somehow

But I must be leavin' soon

It's your world now

It's your world now

My race is run

I'm moving on

Like the setting sun

No sad goodbyes

No tears allowed

You'll be alright

It's your world now

Even when we are apart

You'll always be in my heart

When dark clouds appear in the sky

Remember true love never dies

But first a kiss, one glass of wine

Just one more dance while there's still time

My one last wish: someday, you'll see

How hard I tried and how much you meant to me

It's your world now

Use well the time

Be part of something good

Leave something good behind

The curtain falls

I take my bow

That's how it's meant to be

It's your world now

It's your world now

It's your world now

RIP Glenn Frey.

Tony's Guitarist Picks - Joe Walsh

Once upon a time long ago and far away in a land called Colorado, a 17-year kid met a girl and fell in love.  She turned that kid on to the Eagles, and by doing so turned him onto a guitarist named Joe Walsh.  He bought Hotel California , The Long Run and But Seriously Folks… and was very impressed by Joe Walsh’s playing.  Yeah, that kid was me.  The hilarity of the song Life’s Been Good [which he once dubbed “an industrial love song”] was refreshing.  It was strange, and I like strange things, so the attraction was instant.  I then got The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get and was floored by Rocky Mountain Way [still am…J].  Having heard this album I wondered “why is this guy in the Eagles?”  Between these four albums I found Joe Walsh’s playing to be impeccable.  Even if he was a bit of a lunatic, his playing was the hook for me.  The love affair with the girl died long ago, but the love affair with the playing of Joe Walsh continues to this day.

What are those things that have endeared me to Joe Walsh’s prowess as a guitar player:

The slide - Joe learned his slide technique from none other than Duane Allman.  Apparently Duane was a good teacher, and Joe was a good learner.  Duane showed him the open E tuning, and gave him one of his glass Coricidin bottles.  Joe's slide playing is flawless.  One needs to look no further than Rocky Mountain Way.  In the most recent issue of Guitar World magazine, he said Rocky Mountain Way was his “Hey, I play slide too!” song.  Indeed he does – he uses both glass and metal, depending on what sound he wants to get for a particular song.  To hear his slide playing [with a glass slide] on the acoustic guitar, look for The Confessor.  Warren Zevon's final work [The Wind] features some of Joe's nastiest playing on Rub Me Raw [where he uses a metal slide].

The talk box - Long before Peter Frampton made himself known with Do You Feel the Way We Do and Show Me the Way, Joe beat him to the punch on Rocky Mountain Way.  The talk box is a Joe Walsh trademark.   Joe revealed recently that it was he who showed Peter Frampton the way on the talk box.

Other effects – Joe Walsh has been a ham radio operator since 1961.  As such, he likes to tinker with electronics.  He’s been known to use a Maestro Echoplex tape-delay unit, Leslie rotating speaker cabinets, or beef-up amps switching to boost gain and treble.

Innate talent – all effects aside, Joe Walsh the guitar player can flat-out wail.  His peers hold him in very high regard:  Jimmy Page: “He has a tremendous feel for the instrument. I’ve loved his style since the early James Gang.” Eric Clapton: “He’s one of the best guitarists to surface in some time. I don’t listen to many records, but I listen to his.” Pete Townshend: “Joe Walsh is a fluid and intelligent player. There’re not many like that around.”

Joe Walsh’s recording career began with The James Gang.  They played in a power-trio format like Cream, Mountain and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.   He did three studio albums and one live album with them before venturing solo.  Joe wanted to do more than just power trio stuff.  Walk Away from Thirds is a great power trio song [Joe is credited with playing “trainwreck” at the end – an apt description].  It’s my favorite James Gang song.  But there were some songs format just wouldn’t work in the power trio format, like Tend My Garden or Ashes, the Rain and I.  The dominant instrument on Tend My Garden is the Hammond B3 organ.  Ashes, the Rain and I is an acoustic song with a string section accompaniment.  So after leaving the James Gang, Joe could indulge himself with stuff outside the power trio format.  He was a multi-instrumentalist who could play piano, Hammond B-3 organ, bass, pedal steel guitar, ARP synthesizer. 

Compared to his work with the James Gang, his first solo album Barnstorm is a fairly quiet affair. Acoustic guitars abound on Barnstorm.  The only raucous track would be the first version of Turn to Stone.  The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get wasn’t quite as quiet as Barnstorm, given that it has both Rocky Mountain Way and Meadows.  So What was a noisier album, but it had its quiet moments.  Joe could write a simple acoustic song like Help Me Thru the Night, or he could come up with a dreamy, ethereal thing like County Fair that has layers of electric guitars.  He produced Souvenirs for Dan Fogelberg in 1974.  This was around the same time he was making So What.  Souvenirs is a fairly pleasant and pretty safe record [emphasis on “pretty”], but Joe plays all over it.  Having heard it I thought it was foreshadowing of things to come in the Eagles.  Of note, amongst all the pretty songs is a very good guitar song called As the Raven Flies.  Carol is a Dan Fogelberg fan.  I heard As the Raven Flies on the radio one time and thought “Hey! Pretty cool song!  Who is it?"  Carol told me “that’s Dan Fogelberg, and by the way that’s Joe Walsh playing guitar.”  Dan Fogelberg’s cool factor went up a couple of notches when she told me that.

I’m very conflicted about Joe Walsh being in the Eagles.  He’s a guitarist I really like in a band that I liked at one time in my life but that I now no longer care for.  After his live You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind, Joe joined them in late 1975.  With his addition just in time for Hotel California, his hard edge made them sound almost lifelike.  His duel with Don Felder on the title track is a career highlight.  There’s some very tasty playing between those two going on there.  The riff from Life in the Fast Lane is his.  Bill Szymczyk produced the Eagles, but the guitars didn't bite like they did on his productions with the James Gang and Joe's solo work.  Perhaps Don Henley and Glenn Frey didn't want to be overshadowed by Joe Walsh and Don Felder [pure speculation on my part], and that's a pity if true.  On The Long Run, the highlights are Joe's.  The most exciting track was his In the City, a song he probably should have kept for himself.  His slide playing on Heartache Tonight is some of the best of his career.  Other than that, The Long Run was a snoozefest.  When the band reunited for Hell Freezes Over, the best sounding song of the bunch was his Help Me Thru the Night.  I think both Henley and Frey knew it too, so there's no wonder why the song was in the telecast but not on the CD.

After the Eagles split up I continued to follow Joe Walsh’s career.  He would put out an album every two years [There Goes the Neighborhood – 1981, You Bought It, You Name It – 1983, The Confessor – 1985].  The tracks that KILO-94 played on the radio [reflected in my list below] were all very good.  The playing was still outstanding, but I noticed he had an annoying habit of putting out albums that had some very good songs while the rest of the songs were “going through the motions” filler.  Little did I know that he was leading the rock-and-roll lifestyle that he depicted in Life’s Been Good to the hilt.  In hindsight, one could plot the quality of his musical output and see a downward trend.  By the time Got Any Gum came out in 1987, there were about three good songs on it. He did two tracks with Steve Winwood in 1986 [Freedom Overspill, Split Decision], one of which he wrote with Winwood.  I thought the pairing of those guys was a good match.  What a pity they didn’t pursue it any further than the record.  When Ordinary Average Guy came out in 1991, I was disappointed because the title demonstrated “truth in advertising.” The album was ordinary, as was the follow-up, Songs for a Dying Planet.

The Eagles reunion in 1994 came not a moment too soon for Joe Walsh.  His last solo album was 1992’s Songs for a Dying Planet, which sounded to me like “Songs for a Dying Career.”  I say that because that was around the time that Joe’s alcoholism brought him to a low point.  He hadn’t done a solo album since then, but later this year he will have his first in 20 years with the release of Analog Man.  Apparently Glenn Frey decreed that if anyone wanted to play in the Eagles again, they had to be sober.  Joe Walsh took that to heart and has been sober ever since.  Having heard him play on Hell Freezes Over, it appears Glenn Frey gave Joe the kick in the ass that he needed.  I hope Analog Man is the re-start of Joe’s solo career.

Joe Walsh factoids:

He attended Albert King’s funeral.  On the way to the funeral, he stopped in a Memphis guitar shop and rented a Gibson SG and an amp.  He used them to play Amazing Grace at Albert’s funeral.

He sold Jimmy Page the 1959 Gibson Les Paul that Jimmy used on every Led Zeppelin record after the first album.

He gave Pete Townshend a Gretsch 6120 guitar and a 3x10 Fender Bandmaster amp.  Pete used this combo to record Who’s Next.

He can play the mandolin, bagpipes, clarinet and the oboe in addition to the piano, Hammond B-3, acoustic and electric guitars, and the bass.

He played on sessions for BB King’s Indianola, Mississippi Seeds album as a rhythm guitarist.

Tony’s iPod Songs: 

Walk Away – Thirds [The James Gang]

Rocky Mountain Way, Wolf, Meadows – The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get

Help Me Thru the Night, Turn To Stone, County Fair – So What

Tend My Garden, The Bomber, Ashes, the Rain and I – James Gang Rides Again

Over and Over, Tomorrow, Inner Tube-Theme from Boat Weirdos, Life’s Been Good – But Seriously Folks…

Rivers [Of the Hidden Funk], A Life of Illusion – There Goes the Neighborhood

I Can Play That Rock & Roll, Told You So – You Bought It, You Name It

The Confessor, Rosewood Bitters, Good Man Down – The Confessor

The Radio Song, Got Any Gum-Up To Me – Got Any Gum

Split Decision – Back in the High Life [Steve Winwood]

As the Raven Flies – Souvenirs [Dan Fogelberg]