Celebration of "On the Border"

[WalshFan88]

Definitely their earliest album with the least amount of skips for me....they started to rock a bit more. Already Gone is my 2nd favorite Eagles song.

[Jonny Come Lately]

Happy belated birthday to On The Border!

Belated happy birthday On the Border!

It may not have the strong underlying concept of Desperado or the sheer prolificness of Hotel California, but it is a set of ten well-written, listenable songs. It is a superb album from first to last, relenting only slightly for me with Is It True?. I even love the cover!

There are a couple of personal highlights on this album that rank among the Eagles finest moments for me: the utterly beautiful harmonies and steel pedal that accompany Ol' 55, the effective simplicity of Best of My Love, and the glorious carousel line and subsequent solo in You Never Cry Like a Lover. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. I still wear the album t-shirt I bought during their HOTE tour leg in England three years ago, even if it now fits me like a parachute!

I find myself agreeing with most of this. One thing I really love about this album is its consistency - I have three established favourites (as I've probably said before, these are Already Gone, My Man and Good Day In Hell) but I really like all of them and gravitate to different songs when I'm in a different mood.

I do think OTB has a different flavour to the first two albums, and personally I definitely feel it's definitely the most geared towards rock out of the pre-HC albums (more so than One Of These Nights, IMO). To me this is not so much due to having more songs like AG, GDIH and James Dean, but if for example you compare Midnight Flyer to Twenty-One (both bluegrass type songs), there is a marked change in pace at the end of the song with Glenn's slide solo, which has no obvious equivalent in the earlier track. Although the change of producer is usually mentioned when people talk about OTB, everything I've read or heard seems to suggest that that the stylistic shift was ultimately down to the band wanting to move in a different direction and that the change was due to Glyn's resistance to this.

[Annoying Twit]

On The Border survivor game?

[Delilah]

Happy belated birthday to On The Border!
I do think OTB has a different flavour to the first two albums, and personally I definitely feel it's definitely the most geared towards rock out of the pre-HC albums (more so than One Of These Nights, IMO). To me this is not so much due to having more songs like AG, GDIH and James Dean, but if for example you compare Midnight Flyer to Twenty-One (both bluegrass type songs), there is a marked change in pace at the end of the song with Glenn's slide solo, which has no obvious equivalent in the earlier track. Although the change of producer is usually mentioned when people talk about OTB, everything I've read or heard seems to suggest that that the stylistic shift was ultimately down to the band wanting to move in a different direction and that the change was due to Glyn's resistance to this.

I love the instrumental outro of MF. I can imagine them all jamming together and coming up with the different parts of it. It's quite different from anything they had done before and have since. The outro took the standard Osborne Brothers version to a whole other level.

Here's a UCR article about the album (it looks like the link was posted before on this thread but that link isn't working). An interesting quote from the article by Don Henley:

"The important thing to remember with this group is that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts,” Henley told Hit Parader. “The Eagles and what we’ve created is bigger than all five of us put together. It’s hard when five guys want to do everything. You see, there’s no leader in the Eagles, because everybody is an egomaniac. X can be leader for one day before someone rises up and says ‘F— you.’ It’s so hard, but that’s what keeps things getting better.”

Read More: How the Eagles Steered From Country to Rock With 'On the Border' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/eagle...ckback=tsmclip

[sodascouts]

I'm few days late, but I adore this album! The Eagles get their first number one and finally start getting more props after their massively underrated Desperado. Love it!

[Eagles7]

I love the instrumental outro of MF. I can imagine them all jamming together and coming up with the different parts of it. It's quite different from anything they had done before and have since. The outro took the standard Osborne Brothers version to a whole other level.

Here's a UCR article about the album (it looks like the link was posted before on this thread but that link isn't working). An interesting quote from the article by Don Henley:

"The important thing to remember with this group is that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts,” Henley told Hit Parader. “The Eagles and what we’ve created is bigger than all five of us put together. It’s hard when five guys want to do everything. You see, there’s no leader in the Eagles, because everybody is an egomaniac. X can be leader for one day before someone rises up and says ‘F— you.’ It’s so hard, but that’s what keeps things getting better.”


Read More: How the Eagles Steered From Country to Rock With 'On the Border' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/eagle...ckback=tsmclip

Well, that all changed

[UndertheWire]

"You Never Cry Like a Lover" came up on my playlist and listening to it out of the blue, I realised how much I like the lead guitar. It's a lovely, melodic and plaintive. It was one of the tracks recorded in London with Glyn Johns, so it's not Felder. My guess would be Bernie. Any thoughts?

[Pippinwhite]

@UTW -- Love that one. I'd have liked to hear Glenn's take on the lead vocal, though. But a minor wish. I think the guitar is great. Plus, Glenn's piano work is really good, too.

I love this album. Not a clunker in the bunch. I think it probably has the most diversity of any of their albums. You get a little of the country rock, some straight ahead R&R, a little rocking bluegrass, great vocal performances from everyone -- it's the complete package, to me. Overall, it's much more listenable from start to finish than HC -- for me.

[groupie2686]

"You Never Cry Like a Lover" came up on my playlist and listening to it out of the blue, I realised how much I like the lead guitar. It's a lovely, melodic and plaintive. It was one of the tracks recorded in London with Glyn Johns, so it's not Felder. My guess would be Bernie. Any thoughts?

It is Bernie...I like the guitar on this too and I've looked it up, wondering the same thing.

[East Texas Girl]

I love this album. Not a clunker in the bunch. I think it probably has the most diversity of any of their albums. You get a little of the country rock, some straight ahead R&R, a little rocking bluegrass, great vocal performances from everyone -- it's the complete package, to me. Overall, it's much more listenable from start to finish than HC -- for me.

I totally agree with you on this album. It is pretty much my favorite album from the guys!