One Summer On The Road Helped Convince Them They Should Have A Band Of Their Own
Before the Eagles had a name Glenn Frey and Don Henley were standing behind Linda Ronstadt
The Eagles began as an idea heard from the side of the stage of someone else
Los Angeles in the early 1970s was full of musicians moving between country and folk and rock and Linda Ronstadt was already near the center of that world
Glenn Frey had come from Detroit and was playing with J.D. Souther and Don Henley had arrived from Texas with his band Shiloh and in 1971 Ronstadt hired both men for her touring band
Almost immediately Frey heard something in the combination and country instrumentation and rock energy and close harmonies were beginning to mix in a way that felt different
During the tour Frey and Henley started talking seriously about forming a band of their own and they told Ronstadt and she did not try to hold them back and Frey later credited her with helping them make the new group happen
Two more musicians completed the lineup and Bernie Leadon brought deep country and bluegrass roots from the Flying Burrito Brothers and Randy Meisner had already played with Poco and the Stone Canyon Band of Rick Nelson
By the fall of 1971 Frey and Henley and Leadon and Meisner had become the Eagles
Take It Easy Became Their First Single
But a new band still needed a sound and one of the songs that helped define it was sitting unfinished nearby
Jackson Browne had been working on Take It Easy but had stalled on part of the song and Frey helped finish it earning a co writing credit
The Eagles recorded it with Frey on lead vocal and the banjo of Leadon pushing the track toward country without making it traditional country and in May 1972 Take It Easy became the first single of the Eagles and it was also their breakthrough
The Formula Was Already There
More hits followed then Desperado and Best of My Love and Lyinβ Eyes and Take It to the Limit and eventually Hotel California
Within a few years the band that had grown out of the Los Angeles country rock scene had become one of the biggest acts in American music
A Detroit singer and a Texas drummer and a bluegrass rooted guitarist and a bassist from California country rock had taken pieces from different worlds and made them sound like they belonged together
But Take It Easy had already revealed the formula and that mixture became the Eagles
Linda Ronstadt gave Frey and Henley a place to stand and the road gave them time to listen