Eagles, p.14
Eagles, page 14
Hearts and Flowers, with Bernie Leadon: Arlo Guthrie
Working every conceivable angle to better position the artists he represented was part of Irving Azoff’s business model. And in the early days of his career when he was working alongside promoter Bob Nutt under Blytham Limited, he found a way to give his acts a leg up by working closely with radio deejays, including megastation WLS-AM in Chicago.
John Rook, who became director of programming at WLS, an ABC affiliate, in 1967, was a little more than a year into his job when he was approached by his bosses at ABC about the relationship between his deejays and the record companies.
Networks and radio stations were being watched closely by federal regulators at the time. There had been congressional payola hearings in the early 1960s, and even a whiff of impropriety might put a radio station’s license at risk. At the time, WLS was not playing the top song in the nation, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” which was on Atlantic Records. Strangely, the popular Chicago station was playing all the Franklin songs from her previous label, Columbia, and, Rook said, WLS happened to employed a deejay with a brother who worked at Columbia.
WLS kept a close watch on the record company relationships forged by their deejays. One day, future ABC Radio President Hal Neal, Rook’s supervisor at WLS, glanced at a pad of scribbles on his desk and asked, “Do you know someone named Irving Azoff?” “Never heard of him,” Rook replied. “He’s got the station wrapped up in some kind of deal he has with the jocks and I want that ended.” Rook said that Azoff would book acts into the vast WLS listening area, then hire a station disc jockey to front it and get free mentions on the air during the disc jockey’s show, all without paying for commercials. Azoff reportedly had tight relationships with WLS jocks like Art Roberts and Larry Lujack.
Barry Fasman, who played keyboards for the One-Eyed Jacks, one of the bands championed by Blytham, was aware of the approach.
“Our managers and booking agents, Nutt and Azoff, were the key for us,” Fasman said. “They knew that courting disc jockeys would be helpful so that we could get airplay for our records. Hence, [they] would pay disc jockeys to MC our shows.”
The practice came under closer scrutiny at WLS, however. “Someone who wanted to do the same thing had complained to ABC, after getting nowhere when they brought it up to [Station Manager] Gene Taylor,” Neal told Rook. “Find out what’s going on and clean that damn station out, John, just clean it out, before we lose our damn license.”
Rook said Neal’s suspicions were correct; Azoff had created solid relationships with the WLS jocks, and “he would also become a good friend of mine for all the years ahead. Who would have thought the diminutive Mr. Azoff would become one of the biggest wheeler dealers in the music business? Always returning every call to me, opening any doors I wanted to enter, even forty years later.” 1
1 [1355] McLane, B. (January 1, 1997). The One Eyed Jacks, Retrieved from https://www.benmclane.com/OneEyed.htm
[1386] Rook, J.H. (September 4, 2014). WLS Bound, JohnRook.com
[1389] Faber, G. (May 22, 2019). Interview: George Faber, Time Passages
Linda Ronstadt, Capitol Records, September 1967
Linda Ronstadt and her band, the Stone Poneys, were back in the studio of Capitol Records in the spring of 1967 recording songs for their second album, Evergreen, Vol. 2. But a wedge was being placed between Ronstadt and the other Poneys, Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards. Ronstadt was unhappy with the songs that Kimmel was writing for the album, feeling that they didn’t give her the opportunity to stretch her vocals.
While Kimmel and Edwards worked on new material, Ronstadt found a song by the Greenbriar Boys, a bluegrass band that used to open for Joan Baez, on an album they released in 1966. The song, “Different Drum,” was written by Michael Nesmith, a folk- and country-rock singer-songwriter who would later become one of The Monkees. Ronstadt and the Poneys recorded the song, but their producer Nik Venet did not like the arrangement and wasn’t fond of Kimmel and Edwards’ talent either.
Unknown to the band, Venet wanted to bring in a new arranger and a team of session musicians to re-record the track. “A few days later I walked into the studio and was surprised to see it filled with musicians I didn’t know,” Ronstadt said in her book Simple Dreams.
While she didn’t know them, Venet had brought in a solid team of veteran musicians to back the song, including Don Randi (harpsichord), Jimmy Gordon (drums), Jimmy Bond (bass), Al Viola and future Eagles co-founder Bernie Leadon on guitars. It would be the first of many times Leadon would back Ronstadt.
Venet also incorporated an orchestra, and finished the job after just two cuts. Tensions reached a high point when Kimmel and Edwards were told and showed up outside the recording session. By then, Capital had already planned to bill the band as “Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys.”
Ronstadt doubted and protested Venet’s new arrangement in the recording session. “I didn’t think we could use it because it was so different from the way I had imagined it,” she wrote. “Also, it didn’t include Bobby or Ken. [Venet] ignored me. It was a hit.” The song shot up the charts, rising to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It would also launch Ronstadt’s solo career . 1
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Cashbox, September 30, 1967
Things are looking good for the Stone Poneys with “Different Drum,” which is penned by Monkee Michael Nesmith. Cross the vocal styles of Cher and Joan Baez, add fire and you’ve got a semblance of the sound on this overwhelming deck. The light-hearted orking, a catchy instrumental break and the smashing vocal make a side that should come on very strongly.
Paterson (N.J.) News, December 1, 1967
Nothing could keep this one down. The vocal is what really does it, although “Different Drum” is really distinctive. The female vocal lead, Linda Ronstadt, asserts herself in a strong, assured manner. The song has a smooth country feeling and sensitive lyrics add to an overall perfection of the disc. This is a certified hit record and we will see much more of the Stone Poneys to come.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1968
The [Stone Poneys] received general recognition with a strong hit single “Different Drum,” a manifesto of the free-floating entity written by Monkee Michael Nesmith. The first Poney is Linda Ronstadt, and the others are mere background. Her voice is high, crystal clear, with good range and with considerable drive for upbeat numbers and has just the right amount of ache for the blues.
1 [534] Ronstadt, L. (2013). Linda Ronstadt: Simple Dreams, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster
[1195] Rock Cellar Magazine. (April 1, 2014). Linda Ronstadt: Long, long time Simple Dreams.
[1196] Finkle, D. (March 2, 1968). It's Where the Girls Are With 'Happening' Groups, Cashbox
Hearts and Flowers, with Bernie Leadon, “She Sang Hymns Out of Tune” (single)
Glad, with Timothy B. Schmit, Glad (album)
Glad, with Timothy B. Schmit, “Let’s Play Make Believe” (single)
Bernie Leadon plays guitar on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album Rare Junk.
James Gang, with Joe Walsh: The Youngbloods, The Stooges, The Human Beinz
Hearts and Flowers, with Bernie Leadon: Jackson Browne, Mark Levine, Tom Tutt and the Bluegrassers
Fresh off the regional triumph of their first successful single, “Green Eye’d Woman,” The New Breed, including future Eagle Timothy B. Schmit, signed a recording contract with ABC Records, which was a prolific mid-level record company in the 1960s with acts that included then-up-and-coming artists Ray Charles, Steely Dan, and Joe Walsh’s first breakthrough band, the James Gang.
In 1966 they had created their own World United label and released the single “Fine With Me” that did well regionally. They followed that up with “Want Ad Reader,” which was eerily reminiscent of their heroes, The Beatles’ recent hit, “Paperback Writer.”
By the spring of 1968, the band also had moved around a bit signing singles contracts with a few different labels, and issued releases for “I’ve Been Wrong Before” on Diplomacy Records (distributed by Mercury). The band remained popular in California, but had not developed a following outside of the Golden State. ABC Records hoped to change that. It started by changing the band’s name to Glad, and then brought the group to Los Angeles to start recording what would be their first album in January of 1968.
The songs were written almost entirely by band leader Ron Floegel, with Schmit getting one co-writer credit on “Sweet Melinda.” ABC rolled out the first single, “Say What You Mean,” in March 1968, but it couldn’t get airplay. ABC released the album in March along with a new single “Let’s Play Make Believe,” but it didn’t chart either. The label released two new singles, “A New Tomorrow” and “Johnny Silver’s Ride” in July and December, respectively, including a publicity push for “Johnny” late in the year; neither managed to gain traction. The band’s prospects were becoming clearer, and Schmit was getting noticed by other artists. A few months after cutting the Glad album, he would get invited to audition for a new country-rock band that was emerging from the ashes of Buffalo Springfield. Glad’s other band members would push on, and eventually signed a five-record deal with Fantasy Records under the new name, Redwing. 1
1 [350] Santa Rosa (Ca.) Press Democrat. (December 16, 1968). Glad!.
[351] San Francisco Examiner. (April 27, 1986). The New Breed: Want Ad Reader.
[1240] Cashbox. (March 23, 1968). Glad: Say What You Mean [Egg, BMI-Floegel].
[1241] Cashbox. (July 20, 1968). Glad: A New Tomorrow.
[1242] Cashbox. (December 7, 1968). Glad: Johnny Silver's Ride.
[1243] Glad. (1968). Album Credits/Liner Notes: Feeling Glad
Glad, ABC Records, April 1968
ABC Records was hoping to leverage the regional success the The New Breed had enjoyed in California and develop them into a band with a national following. The label changed the band’s name to Glad to launch a fresh start for the group and brought in producer Erik Wangberg to lead them in the studio.
The band’s leader, Ron Floegel, wrote or co-wrote most of the songs for Feelin’ Glad, while Schmit sang lead and received one co-writing credit for “Sweet Melinda.” The cuts were slickly produced and offered a flavor that was a cross between early Jefferson Airplane and The Grass Roots. ABC included Glad in its marketing package that put the band alongside Ray Charles and a collection of other up-and-coming bands in Cashbox and Record World, but the album never took off. Later in 1968 Schmit was invited to audition for Richie Furay’s post-Buffalo Springfield band, Pogo. He lost out to future Eagles founder and kept playing with Glad, but joined Furay a year later when Meisner abruptly quit the band, which had been since-renamed Poco. Schmit would become a fixture with Poco for the next nine years. Ironically, would replace Meisner once again when he quit the Eagles in 1977.
Santa Rosa Press-Democrat,
December 16, 1968
Glad spent most of the past summer in Los Angeles working on an album. The LP, Feelin’ Glad, and a single, “Johnny’s Silver Ride,” a cut about John Lennon in his early days when he was known as Johnny Silver and the Silver Beatles. The new album offers a new country-rock sound.
Paterson (N.J.) Times, May 16, 1969
A foursome calling itself The Glad Group [sic] let’s the listener know it’s Feeling Glad [sic]. Of the dozen selections that are contained on this album all but two are compositions of Ron Flegal [sic], one of the quartet. The group is on ABC Records. —Henry C. Schwartz
Randy Meisner arrived in Los Angeles as a member of the Soul Survivors, but the competition in the epicenter of the country-rock movement proved too much for the group. He and the remnants of the Survivors started a new band, The Poor, but they suffered a similar fate. Individual band members started taking on session work to make ends meet. Others went their own way.
On a personal level, Meisner wasn’t ready to give up, but he needed a helpful break. He got one when his friend, Miles Thomas, a Buffalo Springfield roadie, informed him that Springfield co-founder Richie Furay was auditioning bassists to replace the outgoing Jim Messina. Meanwhile, future Eagle Timothy B. Schmit, who had spent the last two-and-a-half years with The New Breed, was invited to the same audition by Furay. Schmit and the New Breed had become well known across California; the band’s stature outside the Golden State was muted.
On a fateful afternoon on May 1968, their paths would unexpectedly cross. Meisner, Schmit, and a host of other auditioners thought they were trying out for Buffalo Springfield’s vacant bass job, but Furay and Messina were already turning the gears on their next project: Pogo. Although Furay personally invited Schmit to audition, according to Rolling Stone’s Charles Young, the young bass player suffered some guilt over the notion of leaving his boyhood friends from The New Breed.
Furay and Messina wanted for complementary pieces for their new band that would stretch the electrified country movement in a way it had not been explored before. While the two leaders agreed on adding Rusty Young and George Grantham, both congenial Coloradans and former alums of the respected band Boenzee Cryque, there was some division over who should play bass.
Many people were auditioned, but there was some predetermined notions before any selection was rendered. Furay had personally invited Schmit, a young musician with crystal falsetto vocals for the well-known California band Glad, to audition. Meanwhile, Miles Thomas, road manager for Poco—and who had recommended Young—thought his friend with Colorado roots Randy Meisner was a solid fit—and he was another experienced bass player with impeccable high vocals. Thomas thought he would be perfect for the part.
Furay said in his book Pickin’ Up the Pieces that both musicians aced their auditions, and he felt that the band couldn’t go wrong with either. When it came time to decide, Furay said the key issue was keeping a “family feeling within the band,” and with Young advocating for Meisner—and with Furay and Messina not having strong feelings either way.
“When I arrived at [Furay’s] house for an audition Tim Schmit was playing. So, I auditioned right after him. A couple of days later, they called me back and said, ‘We want you.’” Perhaps the timing wasn’t right for Schmit, or it may have been that Meisner’s experience won out.
The decision was made largely to placate Young, who had lobbied hard for Meisner. But even after selecting Meisner, Furay said he still didn’t feel at ease, adding that he didn’t think Meisner’s personality meshed well with the other four members of the band.
Schmit thought that because Meisner already had two friends in the band that may have played a role in his ultimate selection, but he told Australia’s Noise11.com that his Vietnam War draft number was approaching and he it was possible it could be called by the Army. Meisner, he said, didn’t have that issue, so the band might have weighed that factor in its ultimate decision.
Still, it remained a tough decision for Furay and Messina.
“Not that Randy’s personality entirely disrupted the family feeling I was seeking,” Furay said. “From the beginning the camaraderie we achieved in the new band was much more comfortable than it had been in the Springfield.”
Furay, Meisner, Rusty Young, and the rest of the new Pogo spent the next six months working on their first album. Their effort would become one of the seminal albums in the country-rock movement, but it would mark another turning point for Meisner, and for Schmit, as well. 1
1 [343] Young, C.M. (November 29, 1979). The Eagles: Hell if for Heroes, Rolling Stone
[486] Nebraska Music Hall of Fame Foundation, Biography: Randy Meisner, (January 1, 2000).
[1140] Floegel, R. (January 1, 2011). Sacremento Rock & Radio Museum: The New Breed, Sacremento Rock & Radio Museum. Retrieved from http://www.sacrockmuseum.org/the-new-breed.html
[1293] Kubernik, H. (2009). Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon, New York, NY: Sterling Publishing
[2139] Cashmere, P. (2009). Interview with Timothy B. Schmit, Noise11.com
Since high school, the musical evolution of Don Felder was built on experiences he gained from the two bands he founded, The Continentals and the Maundy Quintet. He had also worked with and taught some of Gainesville, Florida’s best rock musicians, including Duane and Gregg Allman, Tom Petty, and his bandmate in the Quintet, Bernie Leadon. By the early summer of 1968, however, the Quintet had disbanded.
Leadon left after hearing the siren call of the country and bluegrass music movement in Southern California. His departure didn’t kill the Quintet, but the group finally dissolved permanently when lead singer Tom Laughlon left for college. For the first time in years, Felder was without a band, and he felt directionless.
That feeling didn’t last long. An Ocala, Florida, three-piece band called Gingerbread (later renamed Flow) asked him to join them. They needed a guitarist, and they were impressed with Felder’s performance with the Quintet. It was an attractive offer because they were also connected to the management team for the Young Rascals, the chart-topping group who reached #1 with “Good Lovin’” in 1966. Faced with either returning to school or playing with a band that had a reasonable chance to get a record deal, he chose the latter. It wasn’t a perfect fit since the band played an eclectic mix of rock and jazz, and Felder didn’t have that musical background. But soon he was immersing himself in jazz, listening and learning from artists like Sonny Rollins and Django Reinhardt. In his book Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles, Felder said the experience with Flow was educational.
