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Eagles · S3 E6
A Turning Point
Desperado peaks at number 41. Glenn Frey decides the next album will rock. The country-rock purists will have to deal with it
A tour bus heading west on Interstate 70, late 1973. Glenn Frey cranks a Joe Walsh cassette until the speakers distort and turns to Don Henley: that is what we should sound like.
Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way (1973). The sound Glenn Frey wanted Eagles to become. Walsh's slide guitar, the talk box solo, the swagger of a guy who does not care if the critics like him. Released the same year as Desperado, this song represents everything Frey felt was missing from his own band.
Rocky Mountain Way, Joe Walsh (1973)
The talk box solo alone changed the direction of Eagles. Walsh runs his guitar signal through a tube connected to his mouth, shaping the sound with his jaw and lips, creating something that sounds like a robot trying to sing the blues. But the real lesson for Frey was the attitude. Listen for the way Walsh plays loose, almost sloppy, with a confidence that says: I do not need to be perfect. I need to be dangerous.
The Decision
The Desperado tour is not filling arenas. The album is stalling on the charts. Every night, Glenn Frey watches harder bands draw bigger crowds and wonders why Eagles are still playing acoustic guitars on a stage that needs electric ones.
“I knew after Desperado that we had to change. The world was getting louder and we were still whispering. If we made another quiet album, we were finished.”
— Glenn Frey, History of the Eagles documentary, 2013
TAP TO REVEAL: What specific concert made Glenn Frey decide Eagles had to change their sound?
What band did Eagles open for in 1972 that planted the seed for their shift to rock?
Good Day in Hell, Eagles
From On the Border (1974), the very next album. This is the payoff of Frey's decision. Electric guitars up front, a bluesy swagger, and a darkness that would have been unthinkable on the debut. If you want to hear what the turning point actually sounded like, press play.
Frey has made his decision: the next album will rock. Next season: Glyn Johns gets the call, a new producer takes the chair, and a slide guitarist from Gainesville, Florida walks into a rehearsal and changes everything.
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