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Post by the Scribe on Dec 22, 2020 10:01:38 GMT
Linda Ronstadt: Glenn Frey Had 'Raw Nerve and Gumption'time.com/4185979/linda-ronstadt-glenn-frey-had-raw-nerve-and-gumption/
Glenn Frey speaks onstage, inducting Linda Ronstadt into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 10, 2014.
BY LINDA RONSTADT JANUARY 20, 2016 11:33 AM EST
I first met Glenn through John David Souther—they had a duo called Longbranch Pennywhistle. I hired Glenn for my tour to replace Bernie Leadon, and I hired Don Henley, too, who I’d also seen play at the Troubadour. We weren’t making enough money to afford hotel rooms for everybody, so everyone had to double up, and he and Don were roommates. They wanted to form a band, and we told them we’d help until they got a record deal—they could play backup until then. I suggested Bernie Leadon to Don and Glenn, and my manager John Boylan suggested Randy Meisner. That’s how the Eagles were formed. We introduced them.
www.jdsouther.net/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbranch_Pennywhistle
I believe the last thing Glenn and I ever played together was “Take It Easy,” on a Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. But I definitely remember the first time I ever played with him. It was at Disneyland, and Smokey Robinson was there too. I had a massive, massive crush on Smokey. Glenn, being a Detroit boy, of course loved his music. There were long breaks between shows, so we would play cards, and Glenn kept beating him. I said, “Stop winning or Smokey’s not going to like us!” Glenn was a great poker player—a little bit better at hearts—and he always won.
Our musical milieu back then was the Troubadour crowd—Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Carole King, Crosby Stills and Nash. Serious business. If you screwed up and did something uncool, well, that was not good. Glenn was kind of shy and insecure, and it took a lot of courage to throw your music down in that ring, but he wasn’t afraid to step up and take his chance.
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-glenn-frey-appreciation-20160119-story.html
He had a clear idea of the story he wanted to tell, and he could tell it by just digging into his guitar. He had plenty of talent, but he also had raw nerve and gumption. There are a lot of pushy people out there who have nothing to back it up—like Donald Trump. But Glenn knew when to make his move. He was incredibly brave. And what he did resonated with the world.
The Eagles - Glenn Frey interview - Tavis Smiley 1/20/16
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 25, 2022 22:04:11 GMT
Linda Ronstadt, whose backing band was the hub for the Eagles, remembers Glenn Frey
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-glenn-frey-ronstadt-20160120-story.html
BY RANDY LEWIS
JAN. 19, 2016 5:04 PM PT
No one ever suggested that the Eagles invented country-rock music. The seeds for that hybrid had been planted and nurtured in the mid-1960s by the likes of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Linda Ronstadt and the Monkees’ Michael Nesmith well before Glenn Frey came together with Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner in the early ‘70s.
What the Eagles did was take their distinctive version of this Los Angeles-bred genre to international acclaim thanks to a combination of relentlessly catchy songs, an astute business plan and fortuitous timing.
Much of the credit for the band’s recipe for success has been attributed to Frey, the singer and guitarist who died Monday at 67 from a combination of rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.
“We originally hired Glenn to replace Bernie Leadon, because he left my band to be in the Flying Burrito Brothers,” Ronstadt told The Times on Monday, remembering what prompted her to draft Frey to be part of her backing band in the early 1970s.
At the time, Frey was just one of hundreds of aspiring musicians hanging around Hollywood searching for an outlet for his music. He’d come to L.A. from Detroit, and one of his early connections was with singer and songwriter J.D. Souther, another Detroit native who’d grown up in Amarillo, Texas, before venturing west. They formed a band called Longbranch Pennywhistle, which played McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica and the Troubadour in West Hollywood, among other local clubs that constituted a cauldron for the brewing L.A. music scene.
Ronstadt and Souther had dated, so she encountered Frey when he was still in Longbranch Pennywhistle. Ronstadt’s manager, John Boylan, invited Henley to join Ronstadt’s band after he’d relocated from Texas.
“They were all great musicians,” Ronstadt said, “but what I was most interested in creating was a harmony band, and they were a great harmony band.”
What struck Boylan first about Frey, he recalled, was his “boundless energy for what he was doing. ... He was just a whirlwind. You could tell he had his heart set on what he was doing, and whatever it took, he was going do it.
“The other thing that impressed me was the scope of his musical knowledge,” Boylan said. “He knew tons of different musical genres. He was a way better musician than a lot of people have given him credit for.”
“Glenn was always smarter, and better prepared, than you thought he would be,” she said. “It was like going into a card game with him. We used to play poker, and you’d go into a game thinking you were going to take his money, but he always ended up winning.
“When we played a grad night gig at Disneyland in 1971, we had to do four shows a night,” she recalled. “You’d play a 20-minute set, then be off for three or four hours, then play another 20 minutes — there was a lot of time to kill between sets.
“At one point we got into a poker game with Smokey Robinson, who also was booked there,” she said. “I had a huge crush on Smokey at that time, and we were playing poker, and Glenn kept winning. I told him, ‘Quit winning!’ That’s the kind of poker player I was.”
His skills translated into the business world as well, said the Eagles’ longtime manager, Irving Azoff, the superstar talent manager considered by many to be among the most powerful people in the entertainment industry.
“He was always telling people, ‘When you’re in the music business, you’ve got to have your music right, and you’ve got to have your business right,’ ” Azoff said on Monday. “Glenn taught me as much about business as he taught me about music. … He wasn’t just an incredible writer, singer and musician, he also had incredibly good business instincts.”
That played out in Frey becoming what he often described as the band’s “quarterback,” usually making decisions about what songs they should play, in what order, and what they would rehearse.
Sometimes that led to tension with the other band members. In an interview with The Times last year, Henley said he would have liked to have included more of the group’s recent songs on its “History of the Eagles” tour in 2013 and 2014. “But that’s not my decision,” he said.
Azoff indicated that, with Frey, it wasn’t so much a matter of exerting control but of having the acumen to keep the multiple plates spinning that are crucial to an organization as big as the Eagles.
Glenn Frey - A collection of memorable songs.
“They had a really good creative give and take — it was not a dictatorship,” Azoff said. “Don had his way of wanting to do certain things, and they worked all that out together.”
Ronstadt said she knew from the start that the Eagles were destined for great things.
“The first time they started working out their harmonies, they needed a place to rehearse. J.D. and I had a house we were sharing, and we said, ‘You can use our living room.’ It was a small place, and there wasn’t really room for six people, so J.D. and I went to the movies.
“When we came back, they had worked up ‘Witchy Woman’ in that room. They tuned their voices to each other in that room,” she said. “It was the best I ever heard that song sung. It was just amazing — I knew then they were going to have hits. There was no doubt in my mind.”
randy.lewis@latimes.com
Twitter: @randylewis2
MORE:
In ‘After Hours,’ Glenn Frey’s unlikely goodbye carries a hidden slyness
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-glenn-frey-dies-after-hours-20160119-story.html
Don Henley remembers Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey as ‘a brother to me’
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-glenn-frey-death-don-henley-eagles-remembers-20160118-story.html
Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey dies at 67: chief architect of band’s vocal and instrumental blend
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-me-ln-eagles-founding-member-glenn-frey-dead-at-67-20160118-story.html
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Post by the Scribe on Aug 25, 2022 22:07:20 GMT
Linda Ronstadt with Eagles Silver Threads & Golden Needles Classic Live Performance
The Eagles' Glenn Frey inducts Linda Ronstadt into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: His Complete Speech
619,475 views Apr 11, 2014 Unfortunately, Linda Ronstadt was too ill to attend the ceremony. But Glenn Frey praises not just her contributions to Country Rock and Rock, but to the Eagles as well. Barclays Center. Brooklyn, 4-10-14
GLENN FREY OF THE EAGLES INTERVIEW: ROCK HALL OF FAME ABOUT LINDA RONSTADT
26,047 views Jan 19, 2016 The Eagles Glenn Frey and Don Henley got their start as part of the backing band for Linda Ronstadt, but when it was Linda that couldn't make it to her Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2014, it was Frey who ushered her in and then spoke only about her in the Rock Hall press room.
Linda Ronstadt On Her Backup Band The Eagles
156,371 views Dec 26, 2013 The Hudson Union www.hudsonunionsociety.com is where everyone comes to be inspired, to change our world.
Check us out on Twitter @actualjoepascal
Linda Ronstadt became one of the most popular iconic singers of all time, earning a string of platinum-selling albums and Top 40 singles, twelve Grammy Awards and sold more than 100 million records! She had six platinum certified albums, three of which went to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. Ronstadt has set records as one of the top-grossing concert performers and stands as one of the most successful female recording artists in history.A consummate American artist, Ronstadt opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres by championing songwriters and musicians, pioneering her chart success onto the concert circuit, and being at the vanguard of many musical movements. She is the first woman to sell out arenas and stadiums hosting tens of thousands of fans. She quickly became the highest paid women in rock.As Rolling Stone magazine dubbed her "Rock's Venus", her record sales continued to multiply and set records themselves.Christopher Loudon of Jazz Times noted in 2004, Ronstadt is "Blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation ... rarest of rarities—a chameleon who can blend into any background yet remain boldly distinctive ... It's an exceptional gift; one shared by few others."Ronstadt has collaborated with legends such as Frank Sinatra, Neil Young, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Aaron Neville, and as well as Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog.
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