(Credits: Far Out / Don Henley)
Mon 2 March 2026 22:15, UK
Don Henley isn’t the kind of artist who settles for merely ‘good enough’ whenever he makes a new record.
He wanted to give 110% every single time he walked into that studio, and even though the Eagles have many records that could be considered perfect, it’s hard for him to listen to some of those albums without remembering all of the hours that came with getting the perfect take for every song. But even after the California rockers hit the ground running, Henley couldn’t help but remember a few of the blemishes throughout their career that he would have liked to change.
Then again, a lot of those “blemishes” are what give a lot of their songs character at the end of the day. Henley was far from the first person to critique his own voice, but it’s hard to see what he’s talking about when he talked about wanting a redo of a song like ‘Desperado’. The vocal take does sound more than a little bit weaker compared to some of his later records, but for someone playing the character of a man trying to get one of his friends on the straight and narrow again, it’s a lot better for him to use that kind of approach.
That said, there are still a few records where you can hear the pain that it took to get them off the ground. Henley has said numerous times that he wasn’t that much of a fan of The Long Run because of how long they had to work on it, and based on the more forgettable tracks on there like ‘The Disco Strangler’, it’s hard to really argue with him, considering it was supposed to be the magical follow-up to Hotel California.
But before Eagles were even forming, Henley had already been slogging it out for years in the LA rock scene. He had already landed the gig of being Linda Ronstadt’s touring drummer, but even when they were making the greatest country-rock tunes of the time, Henley figured that playing with her was the least that he could do to wash the taste of Shiloh out of his mouth after they went belly up.
While Henley’s first band was far from the worst band in the world by any stretch, they were still clearly wet behind the ears when they first moved to California. They all had big dreams when they first got out of Texas, but when they started working with Kenny Rogers to get their first record off the ground, Henley felt that they didn’t spend enough time refining themselves by the time they eventually walked into the studio.
And despite Henley not liking the record, he could at least recognise its importance for him learning the lay of the land in the music industry, saying, “We had a very small budget and none of the members of Shiloh, including myself, had really developed as songwriters, but we did the best we could under the circumstances. Although I was not satisfied with the final product, it was a learning experience for me, as well as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. I remain grateful for the opportunity.”
Having a friend in Rogers certainly didn’t hurt either, but it’s not like the record is an undiscovered gem by any means. The single ‘A Simple Little Down Home Rock and Roll Love Song for Rosie’ doesn’t exactly scream hit material, but you can certainly hear Henley starting to find that golden voice that would eventually turn into the greatest strength that the Eagles had when he sang songs like ‘Witchy Woman’.
Shiloh was never meant to set the world on fire, but since everyone needs to start somewhere, Henley had a fairly solid effort to help introduce him to the world. All he needed was someone like Glenn Frey to come into his life, but the seeds of one of country rock’s greatest bands were slowly starting to get planted.