Eagles, p.30
Eagles, page 30
Geffen started his assault on the trade press in May, and secured a front-page story in Cashbox about all of Asylum’s new acts. Linda Ronstadt, David Blue, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Steve Ferguson, Ned Doheny, J.D. Souther, Judee Sill, Jo Jo Gunne, and, of course, the Eagles, all adorned the cover of the trade magazine. To reach the music-buying public Geffen needed to convince radio stations and disc jockeys to embrace Asylum’s artists, so he expended capital, monetary and otherwise, to elevate his stable. And he paid particular attention to lifting the Eagles.
In Billboard’s April 1, 1972 edition Geffen boasted expectations that Asylum would cross over $3 million in sales that year, and gushed over the recently released albums from Jo Jo Gunne, Browne and Sill. And he emphasized that the Eagles album would be released soon and they would be touring with Neil Young to start the summer.
The album’s first single, “Take It Easy,” was released May 1, 1972, nearly two months ahead of the album and gradually began getting heavy airplay across the United States.
Record World reported that Atlantic Records CEO Ahmet Ertegun, who backed Geffen’s Asylum label play, predicted that the Eagles debut would be #1 in six weeks, “which makes David Geffen’s heart go pitter-patter.”
While the band’s debut never reach Ertegun’s lofty projection, it still made its presence felt on the radio. By the time the album was released June 17 “Take It Easy” was already in the Top 40. It cracked into the Record World top 100 at #84 on May 27. It landed on Cashbox’s top 100 at #96 on May 20, and on June 3 it entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #79.
“This record is a home run,” Record World’s Kal Rudman wrote in his Money Music column June 3. “Many compare them to Creedence Clearwater [Revival] at their height. David Geffen, like Wes Ferrell, has become a legend in the business.”
By July 1 Take It Easy was breaking in every major and secondary Top 40 radio station in the country. It peaked at #6 on the Record World charts on August 5, and peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on July 22. The critically acclaimed debut eventually produced two more Top 25 singles: “Witchy Woman” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.”
For four frustrated, struggling musicians who couldn’t buy a break just one year earlier, it was a quite a turnaround. Up ahead in the distance more struggles awaited, but for now the band began living the rock and roll dream. 1
1 [10] Recording Industry Association of America, , (June 1, 1972).
[12] Rudman, K. (May 13, 1972). Money Music, Record World, 26(1299), 18.
[14] Record World. (June 17, 1972). Hits of the Week., 27(1304), 1.
[20] Clemons, J. (July 2, 1972). You Can't Ignore Eagles Album, Salina (Kan.) Journal
[36] Holloway, D. (March 10, 1973). The Eagles: Takin' It Easy, New Musical Express
[202] Billboard. (June 17, 1972). Eagles - Asylum SD 5054 (Atlantic), Billboard.
[588] Everett, T. (June 10, 1972). Insights & Sounds, Cashbox
Eagles, Asylum Records, June 1972
The four members of the Eagles were not ebullient when producer Glyn Johns rolled the playback for their just-completed debut album. London was a drag for the Eagles and they wanted to go back to Los Angeles. But Johns’ two weeks of studio work—at a bargain price of about $125,000—produced a well-received debut. The band handled all their instrumentation on their own, and even though their approach was country-rock, there was no steel guitar. Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon each got three writing credits apiece, while Don Henley shared a writing credit with Leadon. “Take It Easy” and “Nightingale” were contributed by Jackson Browne, and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” came from Frey’s friend Jack Tempchin. The album’s harmonic blend was made for radio. By August it had peaked at #22 nationally, and three songs, “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Witchy Woman” had all cracked the top 25. The Eagles had arrived.
Chicago Daily Herald, June 30, 1972
Each year new groups cut albums, and most aren’t worth a listen. But the Eagles are remarkable. They have a very distinctive sound when harmonizing. By the end of Side 1 you could identify any song of theirs you ever hear. The music is real tight, a controlled fury on faster numbers like “Chug All Night” and some soft sounds on “Most of Us Are Sad” and “Train Leaves Here This Morning.” It is a great first album, and one of the best this year.
Rolling Stone, June 22, 1972
“It’s a girl my lord, in a flatbed Ford/Slowin’ down to take a look at me…”
Each time I listen to “Take It Easy” it unfurls new pleasures. The rest of the songs—and a major part of the album—are as good as those lines. And get the single too—it has a side that isn’t on the LP. Eagles is right behind Jackson Browne’s record as the best first album this year. And I could be persuaded to remove the word ‘first” from that statement. —Bud Scoppa
Ore. Statesman-Journal, June 25, 1972
From out of the Western skies comes Eagles. On the strength of the single “Take It Easy” and experience with other top L.A. bands, the group’s first album shows promise. They come from Poco, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Dillard & Clark and Linda Ronstadt’s bands. Eagles combine rhythm, catchy melody and creative lyrics to produce a soothing sounds. “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Nightingale” are good tunes dealing with simple love.
With the delivery of their debut album in June 1972, the Eagles achieved something that many of their country-rock brethren struggled with: commercial success. California bands like The Byrds, the Mamas and Papas, and Buffalo Springfield began to scratch the surface of commercial success, but they could not sustain. In the late 1960s Los Angeles-based bands like Poco, Dillard & Clark and The Flying Burrito Brothers began changing their formulas and made inroads, but like their predecessors could not find that final radio-pleasing ingredient. Although their musical skills were masterful, and their performances impressively tight, that element of commercial appeal remained elusive.
But the Eagles cracked the code on commercial success. Glenn Frey, affectionately known by his bandmates as The Lone Arranger, had an innate ability to take an average song and make it quite good. Further, he could make a good song great. And, has he did throughout the life, he could take a great song and make it legendary. Likewise, Don Henley’s ability to conjure insightful, intimate lyrics and weave them into lilting harmonies with complex instrumentation evolved into his own master class in meaningful songwriting. Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon had already spent time with high-performing bands and they brought precision playing and vocals, along with a country-rock credibility that was critical for that period in rock music.
David Geffen and his business acumen and marketing skills put the Eagles in a position to succeed, though it was their talent that ultimately drove their success. Collectively they advanced the genre of country-rock to another level. Even though the band would come to eschew that country-rock label, the Eagles’ songs and performances in their debut and follow-up album, Desperado, pushed the music industry toward more commercial country-and-western infused rock, if for just a short while. It created opportunities for new bands who used their formula. But the band’s growth beyond that formula is what ultimately elevated them from upstarts to stadium-filling headliners.
The unexpected success of the band’s first album created higher expectations for themselves, their fans and, to an uncomfortable degree, their label. They would run headlong into those expectations the following year. Extreme highs and lows were to come, but their evolution into a superband had begun. Book two in this series, Up Ahead in the Distance, will follow those changes.
– Rik Forgo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rik Forgo developed his love of music while managing a store for a prominent Washington D.C.-area record chain. The burning interest in rock and roll he cultivated there would stay with him for the rest of his life. A few years later, he began his writing career as an Air Force journalist in Panama and the Middle East. He also filed a few stories from the jungles of Ohio and New Jersey. Eventually, he found his way into the halls of National Geographic, where he took on a different kind of writing—coding software—in support of the company’s heralded magazine and books divisions.
In 2018 he put all that experience together with his passion for rock and roll and founded Time Passages, his own rock-oriented publishing company, and stocked it with veteran rock journalists and seasoned professionals with record industry experience. The first book the company published was his own—Eagles: Before the Band, in 2019. Eagles: Up Ahead in the Distance is the second book in his trilogy of the band. When he’s not writing, designing, or editing, he and his wife, Maureen, and their dog, Zeus, relax and watch ducks and sailboats from their home near Annapolis, Maryland.
Rik Forgo, Eagles
