(Credits: Far Out / Derek Russell)
Thu 1 January 2026 19:30, UK
The tale of Don Henley is the epitome of what a rock and roller strives for when cutting their teeth in the early days.
The Eagles frontman did everything he could to make sure everything sounded perfect when he made a record, and while they had more than their fair share of fun behind the scenes, Henley was always the one working to make sure that they created timeless music on every one of their records. But without the right people standing in his corner, there’s a good chance that he never would have found his way out of Texas.
Then again, the fact that he managed to get into a rock and roll outfit in his teens was a strange miracle for him. His parents didn’t have the kind of money to finance an up-and-coming drummer, but one day, when his mother drove out to buy him a proper drum kit, Henley was going to put everything he had into making sure that he honed his chops. A lot of the stuff he played was Dixieland jazz, but after a few rehearsals, he started to morph into the same artist who would one day play backup for Linda Ronstadt.
In the meantime, though, he was in a band called Shiloh, and when operating under the name Felicity, they were struggling to make ends meet before they got the chance to play for Kenny Rogers. The country singer was already becoming one of the biggest names in music at the time, and after taking the band under his wing, they had their first shot at the big time before they eventually fell apart.
That was no big deal, though. Henley had already befriended Glenn Frey when they moved to California, and after talking to him about joining Ronstadt’s backing group, Henley was more than happy to get a paying gig working with one of his favourite singers. That is, until the record company started talking about keeping the royalties from Shiloh’s early days and practically owning Henley’s name.
The music business can be sinister in that way, but Henley said if it wasn’t for Rogers stepping in, he would have never been able to make a name for himself, saying, “Kenny got we out of my contract, got me out of my publishing deal, and gave everything back, and said ‘here you go’. And that just doesn’t happen. So I owe him big time, and he’s never said a bad word about it since. He gave me some good advice when he said, ‘you have to be nice to people on the way up because you’re going to meet them on the way down’ and I never forgot that.”
That didn’t mean that Henley wouldn’t eventually have his own problems once the Eagles hit it big. Halfway through their deal with Asylum Records, Glenn Frey remembered how pissed off they were when they weren’t given their publishing back once David Geffen ended up selling his entire company to Warner Bros, which probably explains why the band remained so protective of their work once they got it back.
But beyond being a mentor figure, Rogers seemed to be like the older brother figure to Henley during those early days in Shiloh. They cut some of their debut record in the country legend’s house, and even when they began working on their later material for the Eagles, there are certain hints of country music in the way that Henley approached songs like ‘Desperado’ or even the bluegrass tunes like ‘Midnight Flyer’.
It was already going to take a miracle for him to even come close to the charts, but the fact that Rogers saw something in that timid Texas kid is the reason why every artist should keep their ears open. Because even if someone doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere, all it takes is one song for people to realise that they are looking at a true legend.
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