Throwback Thursday: The Music of The Eagles

A few days ago Glenn Frey, a member of The Eagles, died at the age of 67. For the past two months it seems like longtime famous music stars are dying on a regular basis including Scott Weiland, Lemmy, Natalie Cole, and David Bowie. Now Glenn Frey is the latest music star who is now dead at a relatively young age.

I remember The Eagles’ music really well since they were frequently played on the radio when I was growing up. While I liked some of their songs, I wasn’t as big of an Eagles fan as others were. But I purchased some of their 45 singles. (Remember that format?)

Thanks to YouTube I found many of the songs that Glenn Frey have sang on. I’m just going to list the songs that I personally liked the best.

Every now and then the local rock stations would play this early hit from Bob Seeger called “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.” What I didn’t know until recently was that Glenn Frey had played acoustic guitar and sang backup on the chorus.

Of all The Eagles songs I’ve heard, I still think “Take It Easy” still ranks among my favorites from that band. This is one that Glenn Frey co-wrote with Jackson Browne and he sang lead on it as well.

Here’s another one that Glenn Frey sang on, “Already Gone.”

Here’s “Life in the Fast Lane.”

Here’s “Heartache Tonight,” which has this incredibly catchy beat.

This last video has an interesting memory for me. During my high school years I was involved with the stage crew where we worked backstage to make sure that the various high school productions worked smoothly without a hitch. The one big advantage is that I was involved in the theater without having to deal with auditions and we were only required to be in rehearsals about two weeks before the first show. (Yes, such things as putting on certain spotlights or raising/lowering the curtains have to be rehearsed.) Another advantage of being in the stage crew was that we were invited to cast parties after the last show. We were invited to the home of one of the students whose parents were either out of town or they were out for the evening (I don’t remember). Well the kids broke into the parents’ liquor cabinets and got drunk. I had a couple of sips of a drink but I stuck with soda because the drinks tasted bad. A couple of the kids who got drunk started to sing along to this song that played on the turntable. I still remember when they belted out this tune in totally drunken voices: “Lyin’ Eyes.”

I wasn’t as big of a fan of Glenn Frey’s solo work. (It didn’t help that the radio stations overplayed “The Heat is On” back when it was released in the 1980’s.) But he really shined when he was with The Eagles and it’s too bad that he died relatively young. At least I have the music to remember him by.