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| Eagles - On the Border Band: Eagles Tracks: - Already Gone - You Never Cry Like a Lover - Midnight Flyer - My Man - On the Border - James Dean - Ol' 55 - Is It True - Good Day in Hell - Best of My Love Take A Trip To The Border Don Felder joined The Band for On The Border. His addition marked the starting of a shift from a country rock Band towards more main stream rock. In fact most of the album is made up of harder rocking songs. The album opens up with the brisk "Already Gone", "James Dean" is a tribute to the Culture icon, "Good Day In Hell" is a stinger and the title track gets into a favorite Eagles subject, paranoia. Bernie Leadon still left his bluegrass footprints on the album with the scorching banjo workout, "Midnight Flyer" and "My Man" is a tribute to country-rock god, Gram Parsons. "Ol' 55" is a gorgeous cover of a Tom Waits tune with classic Eagles harmonies. Despite the harder edge, it was the supple ballad, "Best Of My Love" that became the album's big hit and the band's first number one single. A very diverse, but generally very good, rock record All of a sudden, in 1974, The Eagles became a rock band. Not a country rock band, but a plain old rock n' roll band.<BR>The addition of third guitarist Don Felder gave The Band a bigger, more raw, more urgent sound, particularly on the hardest rock tracks "Good Day In Hell" and "James Dean". Sure, like "Desperado", "On The Border" sounds like songs from two or three completely different albums have somehow ended up on the same release, but as usual, The Eagles manage to pull of having the modern bluegrass of "Midnight Flyer" and the Traditional country rock ballad "My Man" on the same album as the twin lead guitar lines of "Already Gone" and the power chords of "James Dean". The album gave The Eagles their first #1 single, "The Best Of My Love", a country-tinged ballad. A little bit Ironic considering how much Glenn Frey and Don Henley wanted The Eagles to be a rock Band rather than a country band, but it is really a beautiful song with a great lead vocal by Henley and pedal steel work by Leadon. The two rock singles, "James Dean" and "Already Gone" (which sports a distinctly country-flavoured melody and really isn't that much of a rock song, in spite of the Allman Brothers-inspired guitar duel between Frey and Felder) didn't fare nearly as well; "Already Gone" made it to #32, but "James Dean" stalled at #77. <BR>They're great songs, though, as is the Eagles' cover of labelmate Tom Waits' "Ol' 55" and the heavy "Good Day In Hell".<BR>The title track is a bit experimental, and not unlike some of the, eh, less conventional songs on "The Long Run", but it's not a bad song - just not a great one either. "Is It True" is a much more conventional, very pleasant mid-tempo Love song with some fine slide guitar. <BR>The Eagles really wanted a good slide Player for this album, and they found that in Don Felder, who rocks on "Good Day In Hell". On "Is It True", Glenn Frey, however, is playing the slide leads, and on Paul Craft's upbeat country-tune "Midnight Flyer", sung by Randy Meisner, Frey is also credited as the slide guitarist. Finally there's "You Never Cry Like A Lover", which has some really great lyrics, but is somewhat hampered by a strange arrangements (gentle ballad - crashing guitar chords and lead lines - gentle ballad again - crashing guitar chords again). It could have been a classic, but because of the strange arrangements, which makes it sound like two songs pieced hap-hazardly together, it is only good. Glenn Frey and Don Henley had obviously taken firm control of The Band by 1974. Frey does two solo lead vocals, Henley three, and they share center stage on "Ol' 55" and "Good Day In Hell" - at least according to the liner notes. It's hard to hear Henley doing more than backing vocals on "Good Day In Second Best, most underrated album With On the Border The Eagles added Don Felder to the mix. This album is by far the most underrated album in rock and roll. Everything on this album just clicks, what more can I say. This is one of those albums I listen to nearly every song (Midnight Flyer doesn't do it for me) and will listen to it more than one time, expecially on long drives. Some of the best songs The Eagles did are on this thing: Good Day in Hell-On the Border-James Dean-Ol' 55, and oh yeah, Already Gone and Best of my Love. WOW! Good Day in Hell is one of the best songs they EVER did, it's like a story of my life. Add this one to your rotation..... Buy Eagles On The Border at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.comJamster - the latest ringtones for your phone! |
