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Thread: Eagles and Band Leadership

  1. #11
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Thank You UTW, I think you summarized it perfectly.

  2. #12
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by UndertheWire View Post
    The leadership position seems to have changed over time. In the beginning, the premise was that they were all equal with an equal vote. They had all been sidemen and their ideal was to run the group as a democracy. However, when you have two people who tend to agree, their votes are going to carry more weight than the other two, so in practice it was probably Glenn backed by Don who made most of the decisions.

    If you can find the "No Christmas Cards" article from Uncut, it describes early band dynamics with quotes from Bernie and also Glyn Johns.

    Glenn was their frontman on stage from the start. For some reason he was also the lead singer, although all of the others got to sing lead at some point. If you look at setlists from around 1973/4 you can see that Glenn sang lead on about half the songs.

    I need to get on with other things but I'm sure I'll return to this topic.
    It's been awhile since I've read that "Uncut" article; I'll have to review it. Thanks for the reminder.

    Interesting about the Glenn singing lead comment. He wrote songs and brought in Jack Tempchin and Jackson Browne's material so I assume that why he sang those leads. But did he also sing many leads with Longbranch Pennywhistle? I don't think Don and Bernie sang many leads with Shiloh and FBB. Randy didn't sing any leads with The Stone Canyon Band and only one with Poco. That may be a reason the band gravitated, at first, toward Glenn being the lead singer--more recent frontman experience.

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  3. #13
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by New Kid In Town View Post
    Delilah - I was just indicating what I had read in numerous books regarding the Eagles.
    Ok, I guess I was reading your comment the wrong way.

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  4. #14
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by Delilah View Post
    Interesting about the Glenn singing lead comment. He wrote songs and brought in Jack Tempchin and Jackson Browne's material so I assume that why he sang those leads. But did he also sing many leads with Longbranch Pennywhistle? I don't think Don and Bernie sang many leads with Shiloh and FBB. Randy didn't sing any leads with The Stone Canyon Band and only one with Poco. That may be a reason the band gravitated, at first, toward Glenn being the lead singer--more recent frontman experience.
    Didn 't Don sing lead on his Shiloh songs? If so, then he sang more leads on the Shiloh album than he did on the first Eagles album.

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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by Delilah View Post
    It's been awhile since I've read that "Uncut" article; I'll have to review it. Thanks for the reminder.

    Interesting about the Glenn singing lead comment. He wrote songs and brought in Jack Tempchin and Jackson Browne's material so I assume that why he sang those leads. But did he also sing many leads with Longbranch Pennywhistle? I don't think Don and Bernie sang many leads with Shiloh and FBB. Randy didn't sing any leads with The Stone Canyon Band and only one with Poco. That may be a reason the band gravitated, at first, toward Glenn being the lead singer--more recent frontman experience.

    The most frustrating thing about the Longbranch album is that Glenn sings lead on TWO songs. So no, he didn't have that much experience in that context. He had been the lead singer of his Detroit band the Subterraneans.

    If you listen to his performance of Get Up Kate backing Linda Ronstadt it's clear he was born to be a lead singer & frontman.

    Regarding UTW's comment about what happened between Don & Glenn after HC, the biased Glenn fan in me thinks Glenn realised what he had done by allowing Don to dominate that album so much. He had ceded his position ('I sang less. We had Don Henley'). Don became the star. Perhaps the only reason Glenn was able to retain the leadership was because he stood down the front & his personality was the strongest. I try to think of his generosity & willingness to promote his bandmates which is another sign of leadership; but in this case he went too far in my view.

  6. #16
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    I believe Glenn was the front man through force of personality. Henley was always a great singer but was a far more reticent personality plus he was the drummer, he was invisible to most of the audience.

    The friction with Bernie, Randy and Don (F) doesn't seem to be any more excessive in the Eagles than in their stints with other bands. Bernie joined and left a few bands before he joined the Eagles. Randy didn't even last until the first album with Poco. Felder mentions being in bands before the Eagles but he never divulges how they fell apart.

    It was Glyn Johns who encouraged them to share the vocals around. I've heard it was Most Of Us Are Sad (G Frey song with Randy on lead vocal) that won him over. So they were sharing the vocals before Johns became their producer.

    I've recently read that Don's mother spoilt him rotten. Don was used to getting his own way as he was growing up so I can see a dynamic where Don is quite happy for Glenn to be leader as long as he gets his own way.

    On the Eagles Live album, Glenn introduces Don as "our drummer" before Don sings Wasted Time (1976). Probably since Best Of My Love became a belated hit, Henley's influence as a hit singer overtook his role as the drummer. Bill Szymczyk obviously didn't share Glyn John's philosophy sharing the lead vocals.

    It was great to see Glenn making a major vocal contribution to Long Road Out Of Eden but I remember that there was friction during it's creation.

    They were going to film the making of that album but I'm sure that was abandoned at some time. Bill Szymczyk was the original producer but was laid off after a couple of years. Don and Glenn switched to working in separate studios at some point. Glenn declared that he was finished with the album as Don was saying something like it was two thirds done. Glenn wanted a double CD, Don wanted a single, Henley said it needed another six months, after it was released. When they got the deadline from Walmart, they all went back into the studio together to finish it. Tim says they were working on LROOE up to the last minute of the last day before they handed over the finished product.

    When Henley says that Glenn was the leader, I guess he's discounting the time they spend in the studio putting the music together or Glenn knew it would be a waste of time and effort trying to tell Don what to do and just left him to it.

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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    I find it hard to come to this without bringing my own bias. I'm also wary of reviving the whole Felder debate.

    One of the problems when looking at band leadership is the lack of good source material.

    We have Marc Eliot's book which is unbalanced because of a lack of co-operation from Glenn. Henley gave a lot of input (prior to when it was first published) even if he regretted that later. Someone close to the band commented that Eliot didn't get it right but it wasn't his fault (and I don't know where I got that from).

    The second source is Don Felder's book which has problems in that the co-writer relied on Eliot's book to some extent and, of course, Don Felder wasn't able to view Glenn objectively at the time he was writing the book.

    Apart from that, we can look at interviews over the years and the comments from many sources after Glenn died (keeping in mind that most people will focus on positives in such circumstances).

    The seond problem is understanding what we mean by "band leadership". It's not always the one out front talking to the audience. At this point, I'm thinking of "Almost Famous" where we learned that it had been agreed that Jeff would be the frontman but Russell was the band leader. I'm also thinking of "The Smiths" where it was the bass player who took care of band business but the singer who got the glory. It's not always clear to fans who does what and who makes the decisions.

    In background reading, I see lots of references to Glenn working with other band members to help them deliver (whether they wanted his help or not!) but not so much for Don. I know Don was part of the decision-making process, had a good ear for when things weren't played right and reviewed lyrics. I'm interested in anything that someone with a different bias can add to this. I don't feel I have a good grasp of Don's personality and abilities.

  8. #18
    Stuck on the Border WalshFan88's Avatar
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    I definitely feel it was Glenn's band. Though I think DH had more say-so than the rest of them, but I feel that Glenn had the final say even over Don. I think his personality led him to be the frontman, albeit being a co-lead vocalist with Henley. Back in the days when Henley did all the drumming, he certainly was the frontman and had the stage presence. He, right or wrong, did things his way. Certainly didn't pull any punches in the later years of the band making decisions.

  9. #19
    Stuck on the Border Delilah's Avatar
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by Funk 50 View Post
    I believe Glenn was the front man through force of personality. Henley was always a great singer but was a far more reticent personality plus he was the drummer, he was invisible to most of the audience.

    When Henley says that Glenn was the leader, I guess he's discounting the time they spend in the studio putting the music together or Glenn knew it would be a waste of time and effort trying to tell Don what to do and just left him to it.
    And the end result is that "Waiting in the Weeds" is by far the best thing on that album, possibly the best song since "Hotel California" although the former sounds more like a Henley single while the latter is more Eagles-like. Leaving Don to his own devices was probably a good thing. And Don may not have cared who was called the leader as long as he called some or even most of the shots behind the scenes. Did Don have more input on Hotel California than The Long Run?

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  10. #20
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    Default Re: Eagles and Band Leadership

    Quote Originally Posted by Delilah View Post
    And the end result is that "Waiting in the Weeds" is by far the best thing on that album, possibly the best song since "Hotel California" although the former sounds more like a Henley single while the latter is more Eagles-like. Leaving Don to his own devices was probably a good thing. And Don may not have cared who was called the leader as long as he called some or even most of the shots behind the scenes. Did Don have more input on Hotel California than The Long Run?
    Given his dominance of HC I would say so. By TLR it appears both he & Glenn had just about given up. He is quoted in Eliot's book in saying that he had to do more to keep things going because Glenn had 'stepped back' or words to that effect. I don't however translate that as calling some or most of the shots. Glenn had the final say, always, including the decision to disband.

    WITW is the best song on LROOE in your opinion. For me it's the title track, which has just as much of Glenn in it as Don, although probably not in the lyrics. I'm not going to get into any arguments about how they divided up & recorded LROOE. The fact is that it was Glenn who insisted that it be a double album. He got his way. I should however repeat what I observed recently; he did NOT get his way about recording songs by the band's influences.

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