(Credits: Alamy)
Tue 25 November 2025 20:30, UK
When Eagles first started, there was no telling whether they were going to take over the world or not.
They were world-class musicians who had great harmonies whenever they sang, but when listening to Don Henley talk about their ascent back in the day, even he seemed dumbfounded at the idea of them becoming one of the biggest names in music. But even for all of the great songs that they had right out of the gate, even they weren’t safe from being told what to do behind the scenes.
Granted, it’s not like the band got off to the best start, either. All of them had the potential to be a great rock and roll band from the moment they started playing, but after Henley and Glenn Frey ditched Linda Ronstadt’s band, they marched directly into David Geffen’s office, asking for a record deal and were given a firm ‘NO’. It wasn’t that they couldn’t play. They certainly could, but they weren’t exactly ready to record yet.
They still needed some time to work on their material, and even when they had their live act down, producer Glyn Johns remembered them being very confused about what they wanted to be half the time. Once those harmonies began, though, he knew that they could go in a lot of different directions so long as they kept singing like that. But for an album that was intended to introduce them to the world, it was a lot more democratic than what we’d expect.
For a band that had Frey and Henley as the key songwriters, it’s strange to see every single member get their own place to shine here. Neither of them realised the kind of songwriting duo that they would become in a few years, but if there was one thing that Geffen was going to make sure they got exactly right, it was making sure that Henley’s voice could soar over every single tune.
And when he found out that they only had one tune on the record with Henley singing, the production mogul was furious. He felt that they were shooting themselves in the foot by not having ‘Golden Throat’ out front, so if they didn’t have enough material, he felt that they needed to dig a little bit deeper to get the right song for him.
When all else failed, Frey knew that it was better for them to cover a song like ‘Nightingale’, which they had been playing as far back as their days with Ronstadt, saying, “There was only one song that Don Henley sang, and David insisted that we needed to have more songs with ‘Golden Throat’. He loved Don’s voice, what we all did. And so he made us go back in the studio and rework and record another song. We actually recorded a Jackson Browne song called ‘Nightingale’. So, you know, again, David knew even on our first album.”
It’s not like Browne’s songs didn’t go perfectly with Eagles, either. Most artists would have killed to have that kind of songwriter behind them, but since Frey had already helped Browne finish ‘Take It Easy’ for their debut, having another tune added into the mix was another way of keeping him close to the band.
Their arm may have been twisted slightly to get their debut completed, but even if it didn’t have the same flow as before, it did show the world more of what Henley could do. ‘Witchy Woman’ was a fairly dark song for him to get introduced with, but he definitely lived up to the band’s name when he started singing the high notes on his second try.
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