Thanks for the Phil Kenzie interview!
Thanks for the Phil Kenzie interview!
Yes, thank you. What an amazing career that guy has had. May I quote one bit about the Eagles:
"They were all very talented people and talented writers. There was always that element of, well who's really the best. Even with Randy Meisner that happened. I said 'Why did he leave?' to Don Felder and he said 'Well, he wrote Take It To The Limit, and he decided he was a songwriting genius.' I said 'Is he?' and he said 'He's gone off to prove it.' A similar thing happened... Henley went off and had his personal stardom bid and so did Glenn Frey."
Thanks UtW for posting the Phil Kenzie interview. It was a really enlightening piece, which I think is quite refreshing.
One thing I like about Phil Kenzie is that he's enthusiastic about his time playing with the Eagles. In one interview, he says that was his best touring experience. When I hear his stories about some acts not giving credit to sidemen, I can contrast that with the way the Eagles always introduced the supporting musicians and credited them on albums.
Now here's something from Bob Seger:
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-10-...he-right-movesDid your writing change from that point?
I think so. Glenn Frey, who’d made it with The Eagles before Beautiful Loser, heard the initial tracks for the album. He listened to the songs and said: “Now you’re starting to write. Now you’re starting to get it”. He said: “Now you take your time. Take the time it takes to write good songs”. He was kind of my mentor, even though he was three or four years younger than me. With Glenn, the son became the father in a way. Seeing how hard Glenn and Don [Henley] worked on their stuff inspired me. Don would just kill himself over lyrics and Glenn would kill himself over music. Watching the two of them first-hand you could see how committed they were to their music.
You co-wrote the Eagles’ Heartache Tonight.
Yeah, but that was much later.
Was there as much meticulous attention to detail going into The Eagles’ songs when you worked with them?
Oh yeah. You listen to Don’s lyrics. He didn’t lighten up. You listen to the stuff they did in 1980 and it’s as good as the songs they did in 1975. Heartache Tonight started with me and Glenn at his house. I was playing bass and he was playing guitar. He had this little thing: 'Somebody’s gonna hurt somebody.’ He wanted to write a shuffle. So we’replaying that groove, and Glenn’s singing the verses, and suddenly, out of the blue, the chorus came into myhead.[Sings] ‘There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, heartache tonight, I know”.
I started singing that and Glenn goes: “Yeah!”. I took what he was singing about and jumped right into the chorus. Then Glenn called [Joe] Walsh. Now it’s like one o’clock in the morning. Walsh gets up and comes down and starts playing guitar on it, and comes up with the bridge. Then JD Souther came in right after Walsh that same night. He’d help Glenn with lyrics. The next day Henley chimes in and goes: “Oh yeah”, and he starts writing a lot of the lyrics. So that’s how that song happened.
Awesome stuff. Thanks UTW.
It sounds funny to hear Seger speak of Glenn as a mentor when we heard it the other way around from Glenn for so many years.
"People don't run out of dreams: People just run out of time ..."
Glenn Frey 11/06/1948 - 01/18/2016
Thanks for posting UTW!!! Loved reading that from Bob.
~*Amanda*~
"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key."
Very interesting and informative article, thanks for posting. It's the fourth different perspective I've read on how Heartache Tonight came into being, the other viewpoints being from Glenn, J.D. and Don F. Each one has been different, although Bob's version seems to match but Glenn and J.D.'s accounts more. I think they both also mentioned about jamming on electric guitars, although IIRC IJ.D. said that he was with Glenn during the jam sessions and then they called Bob when they wanted help with the chorus. Although now I think about it I don't think that's actually contradictory in any significant way.
One thing I'd be interested to know is what Bob means about Joe working on the bridge - I'm guessing he means Joe's slide guitar solo parts? That would be my guess, as Joe isn't credited as a writer for the song, but I can't be completely sure.
One thing that seems to be consistent is that the song started with the verse Glenn had and Bob came up with the chorus idea. As for the bridge, it has happened a lot that someone wasn't credited when he/she came up with a section in the song. But in this case I think that Bob's memory failed him. Or perhaps Joe played a chord that inspired Glenn or/and Bob to write the bridge. Joe could have played something that was enough to inspire the others to write, but not enough for an actual writing credit. And now Bob remembers that Joe wrote the whole bridge. Who knows...
UTW, loved the articles. Also loved how Kenzie lamented the lack of sax solos and guitar solos in today's music. I have always been a big Springsteen fan, and nobody did it like Clarence. I real miss the guitar solos also.
There were some amazing pieces of music in those days!
Oh, also loved all the little tidbits from Don Felder, since they were friends.