TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/073189/07318900.046

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 6.1 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                MUSIC, Page 64

Building on Prime Real Estate


Once an Eagle, Don Henley, flying solo, soars even higher

By Jay Cocks


    At the onset of the '80s, Don Henley was sitting behind the
drums of the Eagles, a colossally successful Los Angeles band
with a lot of hits behind it and a future of guaranteed
disintegration. There was a fair portion of intramural rivalry
among band members. There was also a sense, even among the
group's fans, that the Eagles' sound -- smooth melodies and
often aseptic lyrics that took listeners on a twilight tour of
the Hotel California -- might be about played out.

    Glenn Frey, Henley's friend and co-writer in the band, was
the one who put the wraps on it. He called Henley one September
afternoon in 1980 and told him he was making an album on his
own. No Eagles invited. "He didn't say that he was through with
the group, but I knew what he meant," Henley says. "He was tired
of all the diplomacy and compromise necessitated by a group
situation. Still, I was shocked and hurt. You just don't think
of ending something that was great."

    Henley responded to the crisis in classic rock-'n'-roll
fashion: a fair amount of rambunctious confusion, running
concurrently with some studious dissipation, followed by the
release of his own solo album in 1982. I Can't Stand Still sold
well, but nowhere near what it deserved to. It was a superb
album, yet the solid commercial breakthrough would come with his
second release, Building the Perfect Beast. Its keynote single,
The Boys of Summer, a romantic song full of nostalgia and
vitriol, won Henley a Grammy. Now Henley is closing out the '80s
with a splendid third album, The End of the Innocence, which
will shoo him into the new decade as one of the fleetest talents
around. Not bad for 42 and for a guy people still mistake for
Frey.

    It doesn't much matter to Henley. "People have short
memories and attention spans," he notes. "They forget me as soon
as I'm off MTV. I'm glad." That kind of confidence can come not
only from satisfaction in his work but also from a sense that
the work has paid off. Out just a month ago, the new album has
already gone gold: the title cut, released as a single, sounds
similarly hit-bound. It is a ravishing love song, slightly
world-weary and bracingly off-center, nostalgic for better loves
and wiser times.

    Henley knows all the odd angles in the geometry of love. In
one of his best songs, Long Way Home, he wrote, "There are three
sides to every story:/ Yours, mine, and the cold, hard truth."
There seems to be a lot of truth on this new album. Much of it
sounds tough, as on one of Henley's favorite tracks, I Will Not
Go Quietly ("It kicks ass more than any previous rock-'n'-roll
songs I've done"), but nothing is delivered here with the jaded
swagger that often got the Eagles branded as a slick bunch of
SoCal libertines. That was mostly a bum rap, and it has taken
Henley until now not only to find his own voice but also to get
his own footing.

    There is a good bit of manicured savagery in songs like New
York Minute and If Dirt Were Dollars ("I was flyin' back from
Lubbock/ I saw Jesus on the plane/ . . . or maybe it was Elvis/
You know, they kinda look the same"), and a memorably nasty
cameo portrait of Ronald Reagan as a cowboy named Jingo in
Little Tin God. That's vintage Henley, delivered with a snarl
and a smile, but The Heart of the Matter, which ends the record,
is the struggle for a different sense of place, another state
of grace: "I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the
matter/ Because the flesh will get weak and the ashes will
scatter/ So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness/ Forgiveness/ Even
if, even if you don't love me anymore." Brand new, that song
already sounds like a classic.

    The reputation grew from a beginning that was so typically
modest it could almost be mythic. The only child of an
auto-parts salesman-farmer and an elementary school teacher in
Linden, Texas ("Drive 20 miles to The Crossroads or, in the
other direction, to Uncertain") -- Henley had a bedrock
upbringing that permitted his musical excursions but gave him
something to kick out against. When success with the Eagles hit
fast and hard, he lived his share of the Los Angeles high life
and paid a big price. In 1980 he found himself pickled in the
press when he was given two years' probation for drug possession
and fined for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. "I
thought it was probably the end of my career," he says. But out
of the scandal and distortions he salvaged a memorable song,
Dirty Laundry, which could have just as neatly applied to his
next brush with notoriety, as the host of the New Year's party
at which Donna Rice met Gary Hart.

    "Someone introduced them," he recalls, "but it wasn't me.
I was off cooking for 60 guests, but I got the credit . . . or
the blame, whatever your perspective. Donna's a nice girl,
personable and fun, but I feel sorry for her, and saddened and
aggravated by the way she chose to exploit the situation. She
figured her life was ruined, and she damn well wanted to get
something out of it all. That's O.K., as long as it didn't
involve me."

    If that kind of dirt were dollars, Henley would be flush
enough. These days he lives in Los Angeles and travels to his
small spread outside Aspen, Colo. ("my ranchette"). He also
devotes time to social issues like the Southern Poverty Law
Center, as well as a variety of environmental groups. But what
he can always take to the bank is his gift for songwriting,
which keeps growing. Talking about the legacy of the Eagles, he
says, "The Eagles were another link in the chain, a logical
extension of what came before. But I don't think the '70s will
ever be as important in the history of rock as the '60s, because
you don't have the cultural and sociological upheaval combined
with music." Fair enough. But there's a corner of the '80s that
ought to read "Property of D. Henley." And that real estate is
prime space. He'll be building on it for quite a while yet.


-- Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles