Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Eagles · S1 E1
The Troubadour
A tiny club on Santa Monica Boulevard where every singer-songwriter in Los Angeles auditions for the future
West Hollywood, a Monday night in 1970. A twenty-one-year-old kid from Detroit stands at the bar of a tiny club on Santa Monica Boulevard, nursing a beer he can barely afford, watching Jackson Browne tune his guitar on an empty stage.
Eagles, How Long. Written by J.D. Souther in 1972 during the exact Troubadour era this episode describes. Souther was Glenn Frey's best friend and roommate in LA. Eagles always wanted to record it but never did until 2007, thirty-five years after Souther first played it at the bar.
The Room Where It All Started
The Troubadour is not much to look at. A three-hundred-seat club with low ceilings, a cramped backstage, and a long wooden bar that stays open when the music stops. But between 1968 and 1975, every songwriter, dreamer, and future rock star in Los Angeles walks through its front door.
“I first met Linda in 1970 at the Troubadour bar. For my part, it was love at first sight.”
— Glenn Frey
The Troubadour
9081 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood. The three-hundred-seat club where the California sound was born, and where every future member of Eagles first crossed paths.
Hoot Night
Every Monday is hoot night: open mic. You sign your name on a list, you get ten minutes on stage, and you play for a room full of people who will either ignore you or change your life. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young, David Crosby. They all start here, or pass through here, or just hang out at the bar.
Train Leaves Here This Morning
From Eagles (1972). Written by Bernie Leadon and Gene Clark of The Byrds, this deep cut is pure Laurel Canyon country-rock: gentle acoustic guitars, soft harmonies, and a restless longing for something just out of reach. It sounds exactly like the world this episode describes. Late nights at the Troubadour, borrowed couches in the canyon, and the feeling that something big is about to happen.
TAP TO REVEAL: Which rock legend's career was launched by a six-night Troubadour residency?
Which influential music mogul discovered talent at the Troubadour bar and went on to found Asylum Records, the label that signed Eagles?
At the Troubadour bar, a kid from Detroit shares a building with Jackson Browne and starts learning to write songs by listening through the wall. Next: Glenn Frey, the relentless ambition that dragged him to California, and the moment he decides he needs his own band.
0 XP earned this session