The (American) Eagles

Although the Eagles' music played a pivotal role in my former radio career, it never occurred to me to write about them until I saw a TV ad for their latest album at Wal Mart. It's not a bad fit - their music was always fairly mainstream - it just seems incongruous that a band whose members brought us songs like "Smugglers Blues" ,"Life in the Fast Lane" and "Tequila Sunrise" would end up being showcased along with the other Christmas merchandise at America's leading discounter.


I suppose I could argue that the first taste of the Eagles I got was being at Kent State from 1972-1974 when Joe Walsh and the James Gang were storming through the greater Cleveland area bar scene, but it would still be a few years before Walsh made the transition from Pacific Gas & Electric to join Frey, Henley et al. My relationship with their music formally started on Martha's Vineyard from 1974-75, fresh out of school and hired at the former WVOI FM, the island's first attempt at a full time radio station. I would wander into the production studio during segments of the classical music program I was supposed to engineer at night, and listen to "Already Gone", a song which I've re-discovered thanks to my IPod. When the station finally caved in to become a rocker, the Eagles quickly became a staple, adding "On The Border", "James Dean", "Lying Eyes", and "Heartache Tonight" among others. I didn't think of them as country rockers , but saw them as an outgrowth of the California music scene, the evolution of the surfer sound combined with a touch of San Francisco. It was "clean" music with crystal clear harmonies and smooth guitar solos.


The next barrier was crossed when I heard Big Dan Ingraham - a staple of New York's legendary WABC AM - introduce "Hotel California" as the longest song ever played on the station, a testament to the band's power to overcome the three minute "box" most AM hits were supposed to fit into. Ingraham's skill at talking right up to the beginning of the vocal was sorely tested due to the length of the intro. The song itself is sort of like a postscript on the West Coast phenomenon from Monterey Pop to Altamont to the Manson family to the celebrity dilettante lifestyle , a dream that sank into the abyss of drugs and dissolution. Being able to play "New Kid in Town" sustained me through a truly dismal job at a Connecticut AM, since the only tunes I could stomach in between megadoses of Tony Orlando and Dawn were "New Kid" and "Bohemian Rhapsody", although Queen was just a bit too pretentious for my taste.


Glenn Frey and Don Henley paced my final reincarnation on a Rhode Island rocker. Frey achieved the ultimate cool by not only co-starring on the hippest TV show of the 80s - Miami Vice - but also summarizing most of the plot lines in "Smugglers' Blues". Henley's powerful lyrics and plaintive vocals haunted the airwaves with "Boys of Summer" and "Sunset Grille" among others, proving that the groups' talent was the sum of its members. When they finally reunited,
I was pleasantly surprised by the freshness of the new tunes on "Hell Freezes Over", most notably "Learn to Be Still ", but honorable mention definitely goes to "Get Over It" - in the same vein as "Dirty Laundry" - and the Nashville twang of "The Girl From Yesterday".


I guess it's fitting that the Eagles newest great American album debuts during America's greatest retail selling season - the holidays - at America's greatest retail outlet. Just like Mom, apple pie, the flag, the Fourth of July and hot dogs, the Eagles have been inducted into the ranks of popular culture icons. I better got out and get my copy now while supplies last.