Jack Tempchin

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Tempchin's got a show coming up:

Time: January 5, 2009 9:00PM
Location: Dublin Square, 554 Fourth Ave, San Diego, California 92101

And... best of all...

It's FREE!

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Another article:

Eagles Songwriter Emerges with New Album

Eagles songwriter Jack Tempchin may hold the rare distinction of being able to write a song over the telephone based on someone else's dream. That's what happened when he wrote the ballad 'Box of Memories,' with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, about a girl and her possessions.

"[Bobby] just started telling me the whole dream," Tempchin recalls to Spinner, "and I was writing it down. Everything in the song is absolutely from his dream. By the end of the phone conversation we had written the song."

It is indicative of Tempchin's talent: The San Diego-based artist penned two of the Eagles' most popular songs in the '70s: 'Peaceful Easy Feeling' and 'Already Gone.' He later co-wrote several of Eagles founder Glenn Frey's big solo hits in the '80s including 'Smuggler's Blues' and 'You Belong to the City.' But few probably know that Tempchin is also a singer who has recorded seven albums since 1977, including the recent 'Songs,' his first work of original material in 12 years.

"I've always been performing but I never really emphasized that part of my career," Tempchin, 61, says. "I just made this album and I realized if people don't know who you are, they can't come to the show."

Songs contains eclectic styles including rock, romantic Parisian pop, country and Latin influences. Along with 'Box of Memories,' it features Tempchin's rendition of 'Smuggler's Blues,' which was originally recorded by Glenn Frey from 1983. "Towards the end of the album I realized I hadn't done any of the hits that I've written," says Tempchin. "I think it's still means just as much, if not more, in a whole world that's just going the wrong way on drug control."

The friendship with Frey began around the time Tempchin was playing the San Diego coffeehouses during the folk era. "[He and J.D. Souther] used to stay with me at my big house down in San Diego with a lot of hippies living there," Tempchin recalls. His biggest break came in the early '70s when he wrote 'Peaceful Easy Feeling,' inspired by his attempt to get a waitress's attention at a coffeehouse in El Centro.

"She went home and I ended up sleeping on the floor of the [place]," he says. "I wrote the first verse there. I came back to San Diego and met some other girls and I put them in the song. There was a Wienerschnitzel on Washington Boulevard, and I remember walking with my little $13 Stella guitar and writing the last verse."

He was visiting Jackson Browne's home when Frey dropped in. Tempchin performed the song he wrote for Frey's tape recorder. "[Glenn] came back the next day and said, 'Well, Jack, I got a new band. We've been together for eight days, and we just worked up your song.' Then he played it for me on the cassette [player]. He went to England and recorded [the Eagles] first album."

When the Eagles broke up in the early '80s, Frey collaborated with Tempchin for most of his solo career. Tempchin recalls a time when he came over to Frey's house where there was candlelight and a bottle of wine. "Glenn had a way of romancing a song," he says. "Then we hit an idea and all of a sudden, 'Whammo! Wow that's good!' I learned a lot about songwriting from him."

In the late '90s, Jay-Z and Coolio sampled 'You Belong to the City' and 'Smuggler's Blues' for their songs, respectively. "It was a pretty big thrill," Tempchin says with a chuckle, "to see my music re-circulated, although in a really different form. That feels pretty good."

Tempchin is still actively writing: his most recent composing credits are on the Eagles' last album 'Long Road Out of Eden.' He's been performing on the West Coast and hanging out at the Hotel Café, a music place in Los Angeles. "It's kind of like the early Troubadour bar scene over there," he says. "I'm so thankful to be back in the music scene where everyone is just into the music."

[Brooke]

That was very interesting. Thanks Soda.

What a talented man! It's just amazing to me how all these people knew each other back in the late 60's and 70's.

[Prettymaid]

Love the part about Peaceful Easy Feeling.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Thanks for posting this, Soda. It was very interesting. Here was my favorite part:

Tempchin recalls a time when he came over to Frey's house where there was candlelight and a bottle of wine. "Glenn had a way of romancing a song," he says. "Then we hit an idea and all of a sudden, 'Whammo! Wow that's good!' I learned a lot about songwriting from him."

[Freypower]

I know, Dreamer, I know.

[GlennLover]

I found an interesting radio interview with Jack Tempchin. Although most of it is about the legalization of marijuana (which is informative), there are some interesting Eagle tidbits, mainly about his collaboration & friendship with Glenn. Once you access the link, you have to scroll down and click on "Hear our interview by clicking here".

http://www.radioornot.blogspot.com/2...and-humor.html

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More Tempchin!

Jack Is One of the Greats by George Varga

Jack Tempchin, who performs Wednesday at the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla with his band, should merit at least a few chapters when the definitive history of rock 'n' roll in San Diego is compiled.

A mainstay of the local scene since the 1960s, when he and musical pal Tom Waits completed the song “Tijuana” just moments before first performing it on stage, Tempchin managed the Back Door at SDSU during its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later co-owned the Stingaree in Encinitas, one of North County's most popular live-music clubs.


His first band of note, the Funky Kings, recorded a lone album — 1976's “Funky Kings” on Arista Records — that was so full of terrific songs, including the future chart-topper “Slow Dancin',” that stardom seemed assured. They were promised as much by Arista president Clive Davis, the man who'd previously signed such budding stars as Janis Joplin, Santana, Chicago, Aerosmith and Earth, Wind & Fire.


“When the Funky Kings finished making our album, Clive sat us down in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Tempchin recalled. “He said, ‘Look, you guys, you're all going to be hugely famous, and I hope you can handle it.’ Why that didn't happen, I still don't know.”


Yet, while fame eluded Tempchin, he struck gold as one of pop's most gifted and prolific songwriters. And while his latest album, 2007's self-produced “Songs,” is only his third solo outing since 1978, its title captures the essence of what he does best.


Indeed, it is Tempchin's gently infectious songs that strike a resounding chord with listeners, especially the versions recorded by other artists.
His songwriting credits include Johnny Rivers' “Slow Dancin' (Swayin' to the Music)” and The Eagles' “Already Gone” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Together with Glenn Frey, whom he met here in the late 1960s before Frey joined The Eagles, Tempchin co-wrote “Smuggler's Blues” and “You Belong to the City” (which later were sampled on records by hip-hop stars Coolio and Jay-Z, respectively).


Other artists who have recorded songs by Tempchin over the years range from George Jones and Emmylou Harris to Richie Havens and such San Diego-bred artists as The Paladins and former Byrds member Chris Hillman. Songs written or co-written by Tempchin have been featured on the soundtracks of such films as “The Big Lebowski” and “Thelma and Louise.” He also co-wrote the “Seventh Heaven” TV series theme song.
“Jack is one of the greats,” said fellow San Diego troubadour Steve Poltz, during a Sunday songwriting panel with Tempchin at the North Park Music Thing.


“I used to hear (The Eagles') ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ all the time, and they didn't do a lot for me. But then I heard Jack do them live at the old Casbah (in the early 1990s) and he owned those songs. It was the same with ‘Slow Dancin'.’ I didn't think much (of Rivers' version), but when Jack did it, it was the sexiest song I've ever heard.”


A San Diego native who now splits his time between Encinitas and Los Angeles, Tempchin celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary on Aug. 5. For the past decade, he has performed most Tuesday nights at Calypso Cafe in Encinitas with his local band, Rocket Science. For his 21-and-up Green Flash concert series gig Wednesday night at La Jolla's Birch Aquarium, he'll play with his four-man Los Angeles band, which features Neil Young bassist Rick Rosas and guitarist Burton Averre of The Knack.


“I always thought of myself as a performer,” Tempchin said. “I didn't think of being a writer until I wrote a bunch of songs and people said: ‘Hey, I'd like to sing that.’ After a while, I thought, ‘Maybe I can be a songwriter.’ ”
In 1967, Tempchin befriended Frey after the future Eagle began playing gigs here with J.D. Souther. Tempchin invited the duo to crash at his combination “hippie pad and candle factory” in North Park, and he and Frey became fast friends.


Tempchin co-wrote two songs on 2007's “Long Road Out of Eden,” The Eagles' first new studio album since 1979. With two of his earlier songs featured on “Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-1975,” which has sold nearly 30 million copies in the U.S. alone, he could have retired long ago. But his passion for making music continues unabated.


“I'm 62, but nobody wants to quit,” said Tempchin, who laments the lack of opportunities for young and veteran singer-songwriters alike.
“In the 1960s, people dug the music, but they didn't all want to be rock stars. Now, it's a ‘career path,’ but there's no money for songwriters (in a digital music age). If I'm having trouble geting my songs placed, what can these people who don't have a bunch of hit songs in their pocket do? It's pretty frightening.”

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Jack has a Facebook fanpage now! Don't tell Don Henley.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eagles...in/42280894815

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Jack Tempchin performs Somebody:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtCSnnmB3GE[/ame]