The Eagles

Description

Balance is the key element of the Eagles self-titled debut album, a collection that contains elements of rock & roll, folk, and country, overlaid by vocal harmonies alternately suggestive of doo wop, the Beach Boys, and the Everly Brothers. If the group kicks up its heels on rockers like Chug All Night, Nightingale, and Tryin, it is equally convincing on ballads like Most of Us Are Sad and Train Leaves Here This Morning. The album is also balanced among its members, who trade off on lead vocal chores and divide the songwriting such that Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner all get three writing or co-writing credits. (Fourth member Don Henley, with only one co-writing credit and two lead vocals, falls a little behind, while Jackson Browne, Gene Clark, and Jack Tempchin also figure in the writing credits.) The albums overall balance is worth keeping in mind because it produced three Top 40 hit singles (all of which turned up on the massively popular Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975) that do not reflect that balance. Take It Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling are similar-sounding mid-tempo folk-rock tunes sung by Frey that express the same sort of laid-back philosophy, as indicated by the word easy in both titles, while Witchy Woman, a Henley vocal and co-composition, initiates the bands career-long examination of supernaturally evil females. These are the songs one remembers from Eagles, and they look forward to the eventual dominance of the band by Frey and Henley. But the complete album from which they come belongs as much to Leadons country-steeped playing and singing and to Meisners melodic rock & roll feel, which, on the release date, made it seem a more varied and consistent effort than it did later, when the singles had become overly familiar. ~ William Ruhlmann