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Sat 5 September 2026 20:30, UK
Don Henley was ever after the fame and the glory when forming Eagles.
He had a song in his heart every single time he made a new record, and even when Eagles weren’t necessarily in style, he was willing to hunker down and give the people the kind of song that reminded them why he was one of the greatest musicians of his generation. And while there are more than a few times where he couldn’t compete with the grunge bandwagon or the nu-metal bands out at the time, the 2000s saw Henley looking around and wondering where all the songwriters had gone.
Granted, Henley also knew that there was no way of going back to the kind of rock and roll that he would have wanted to see every single time he made a record. Eagles’ brand of country rock had been long past its prime and that point, and while ‘Hotel California’ would get a lot of play on the oldies stations from time to time, a lot of people were more focused where bands like The Strokes were going in the 2000s.
And once the 2010s turned up, rock and roll had started to become a thing of the past. Some of the greatest artists of the time were coming out of the pop world and the rap community, so Henley’s vision of a songwriter didn’t exist anymore. The idea of a guy sitting around playing a guitar and hashing out songs was more of a novelty, but Henley didn’t want to think that those days were completely over, either.
He still had something to say with all of his songs, and while he did have a fair share of help on the solo record Cass County, everyone he chose had an understanding of what the genre had come to. Merle Haggard had asked Henley what happened to the music scene when they first met, and even though Henley didn’t have a good answer for that, he could see that there were still some new voices out there doing a lot of good work.
Because remember how I said how Eagles’ music didn’t have that much room on the charts anymore? Well, turns out you’ve been reading the words of a liar. Yes, country rock bands tend to be kinda rare on the pop charts, but in Nashville, Eagles’ music became the handbook for some of the biggest stars of the 2000s, with everyone from Travis Tritt to BRad Paisley shouting the band’s praises at every opportunity.
Henley was still grateful to have some outlet for songwriters, but he also felt that the country world was missing someone like Randy Travis to kick everything into high gear, saying, “Music will get really slick and poppy for a while and then there will be an improvement back to pure country or neo-traditional country like Randy Travis. . . He ushered in one of those neo-traditional eras back in the late Eighties and I’m hoping that’s about to happen again. I’d like to see a good backlash happen again. Radio has to stop pandering to demographics.”
Further reading: From The Vault
Travis might not be in any state to perform like he used to, but for someone that grew up when Henley did, you can hear what he heard in the country legend’s music. There were a lot of wholesome country messages that dated all the way back to the days of Johnny Cash, and having that thick baritone on the charts was something that helped everyone contextualise what country music was all about.
So when so many people get attached to what people like Morgan Wallen do on the charts, the real country music isn’t the kind that talks about drinking and trucks at every single opportunity. The real songwriters are the ones that can stab you in the heart and put it back together afterwards, but who knows? Maybe someone like Chris Stapleton could be the one to help usher in a new brand of country revival like Henley was talking about, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
