“Popular music is one of this country’s finest exports,” Eagles founding member
Don Henley told The Times on Wednesday via email.
“We excel at it. Popular music and radio programming created and recorded in the USA have been a global force that crosses geographical, cultural and political boundaries.”
“Some anthropologists,” Henley said, “say that humankind has about 1,000 more years of existence on this planet. So, one might logically ask, ‘What’s the point of archiving these recordings?’ We do it for the same reason ancient cave dwellers made drawings on the walls of their caves – to say, ‘We were here and this is what our life was like.’”
“Each of the other selected songs you mentioned,” Henley wrote, “has a special resonance in my life: Judy Garland’s ‘Over the Rainbow,’ one of the greatest ballads ever written, is part of the childhood of every Baby Boomer (and pre-Boomer, back to 1939). ‘Hound Dog’ (Elvis Presley’s version) was the first rock & roll record I ever owned. ‘I’ll Fly Away’ (Dillards’ version on ‘Wheatstraw Suite’ LP) has always been a favorite and was sung at my mother’s funeral. ‘Amazing Grace’ was one of my grandmother’s most beloved hymns.”
Referring to his Eagles bandmate Glenn Frey, who died last year, Henley added, “Glenn, being the avid sports fan that he was, would have been so pleased to know that our album went into the archives alongside Vin Scully’s historic 1957 broadcast of the Brooklyn Dodgers-New York Giants game at the Polo Grounds, the last Dodgers-Giants game ever played there.”