Meet  The Musical Icons In My Book "Absolutely Hutely" Part 3

Greetings, Out of the turbulent 1960s arose a band that gave us a transition we could understand. With hit songs like "Take It Easy" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling," the Eagles popularity soared as the listening public tried hard to understand the "Desperado." In many cases it was a mirror image. Starting in my early teens, my friends and I felt the pull of country rock. Its positivism and toe-tapping melodies brought us back to the days of the family farm. Joe Walsh is credited with reviving a slowing Eagles phenomena. However, the once outlaw who sought something better over that horizon found the "Seven Bridges Road" along with the rest of us! As back up players to Linda Ronstadt, Glenn Fry and Don Henley realized the need to further their creative talents. Songs like "James Dean" and "Twenty One" gave my generation a new lease on life. All the automobile crashes and fateful warnings couldn't stop us from feeling alive. The sun had come up once again and we were heading home to our place. We, again, knew what freedom meant to us.

Before the Golden Age of Athens, Helots (slaves) in Sparta knew only pain and suffering for thousands of years. Regardless, Hesiod knew "There must be something better." Walsh, like Homer and Herodotus, saw the value in a rocky, mountain way. My song "Mountain Breeze" speaks to the majesty of higher, just causes. However, in the pursuit of paradise, "Somebody laid the mountains low while the town got high." To me, long ocean expanses and mammoth mountain ranges represent true freedom. Knossos, and then Athens, was something better. Don Felder, J.D.Souther, Randy Meisner, and Timothy B. Schmidt rounded out the musical genius that was the Eagles. They were organic and uniquely American. It's yet to be determined, but I think it will become clear that they helped many of us out in "The Long Run." Till next time, Dan Tilley  


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