
Credits: Sports and Music Photographer via Flickr
Sun 26 April 2026 22:00, UK
When you think about Eagles, soul music is not usually what comes to mind.
The 1970s were the peak years of some of the greatest albums that Motown and Stax Records had ever produced, but Don Henley wasn’t exactly the same singer in the way that David Ruffin or even Teddy Pendergrass was. He was a brilliant vocalist with a mic in his hand, but he felt that a lot of the soul behind the band came more from what the guitars were doing every single time they played their tracks.
Because outside of the band’s massive harmonies, the first thing that you’re going to look out for on any Eagles record is usually the guitar parts. It only takes the first strum of the acoustic guitar in ‘Take it Easy’ to get you bouncing, and the band certainly deserve to be in rock and roll Valhalla for gifting the world those harmonised guitars on ‘Hotel California’, but even then, Henley had to take time before he figured out what he had on his hands.
For one thing, he was far from the kind of guitarist that Don Felder or Joe Walsh was, and even though Bernie Leadon could play virtually anything with strings on it, Henley felt that he needed a bit more passion behind what they were playing. It’s one thing to get everything sounding perfect, but Henley felt that he was in good hands whenever he passed one of his ideas over to Glenn Frey.
Aside from knowing every single chord that he threw at him, Frey was the one that had studied music for a time before he came to Los Angeles. Getting piano lessons when he was in school probably wasn’t the coolest thing to brag about by any stretch, but Henley felt that the way that Frey played guitar was always the secret weapon behind every single track that they recorded together.
He wasn’t the flashiest player and didn’t even play a ton of lead guitar, but it was the attitude behind his playing that resonated most with Henley, saying, “Glenn stuck with getting great rhythm and lead sounds out of that one guitar, that single operational pickup and, usually, one small amp. His rhythm playing was chunky and funky; his leads, if not the most technically proficient, were always imaginative, melodic. They were soulful and memorable.”
That said, it’s not like Frey didn’t grow as a guitarist over the course of the band’s career. He wouldn’t have needed it when he had someone like Walsh in his ranks, but when you look at the kind of instrumental piece that he laid down on Long Road Out of Eden, he clearly had an idea of what his fans wanted to hear. His sense of melody was his greatest superpower, but the rhythm aspect is what gave the band their pulse.
You have to remember that the rhythm guitarist is a lot more important than you think and just like Keith Richards did with The Stones, you can hear Frey kicking the band in the ass every now and again on their songs. He could have been laying down a smooth pulse on ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ or one of the breeziest grooves on ‘Tequila Sunrise’, but every single time he played, you would hear his personality through that guitar.
It wasn’t easy for someone to get their point across when all they had to rely on was a bunch of cowboy chords, but when you live and breathe every song you play, you usually don’t have to worry about leaving your stamp on things. Frey had put in the hours, and up until the day he died, you can feel the presence of someone truly in control of their instrument whenever he put on a show.
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