Desperado Album
A Western-themed concept album that launched the Frey-Henley songwriting partnership.
Desperado is the second studio album by the American rock band the Eagles, released on April 17, 1973, by Asylum Records. Produced by Glyn Johns and recorded at Island Studios in London, England, the album is built around themes of the Old West. The band members appear on the cover dressed like an outlaw gang, and Desperado remains the only Eagles album where the band members appear on the front cover. The album reached number 41 on the Billboard album chart and was certified gold by the RIAA on September 23, 1974, and double platinum on March 20, 2001.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- the Eagles
- Released
- 17 April 1973
- Studio
- Island (London, England)
- Genre
- Country rock, folk rock
- Label
- Asylum
- Producer
- Glyn Johns
Lore & Background
After their commercially successful first album, Glenn Frey wanted the second album to be one with which they could be taken seriously as artists. The original concept was for songs about anti-heroes, inspired by a book on gunfighters of the Wild West given to Jackson Browne by Ned Doheny. Frey, Don Henley, Browne, and JD Souther came up with the idea after a Tim Hardin concert. The first songs Frey and Henley wrote together after returning to Los Angeles were 'Desperado' and 'Tequila Sunrise,' both written within the first week of their collaboration.
The album was recorded at Island Studios in London over four weeks at a cost of £30,000. Producer Glyn Johns limited each track to four or five takes. Henley later regretted not singing as well as he could on the title track. The band was so happy with the finished result that after Johns played it back to them, they carried him on their shoulders out of the control room. However, Jerry Greenberg, president of Atlantic Records, said: 'Jeez, they've made a fucking cowboy album!'
Reader's Guide
Desperado is the beginning of the songwriting partnership of Frey and Henley; they were involved in writing eight of the eleven songs. Henley noted: 'That's when we became a team.' The album yielded two singles: 'Tequila Sunrise' (reached number 64) and 'Outlaw Man' (reached number 59). The title track 'Desperado' was never released as a single but was ranked number 494 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of 'The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.'
In 2000, Desperado was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The only song not written by band members is 'Outlaw Man,' written by David Blue. Bernie Leadon wrote 'Twenty-One' and 'Bitter Creek'; Randy Meisner co-wrote 'Certain Kind of Fool' and 'Saturday Night.' 'Twenty-One' refers to the age of Emmett Dalton, the youngest of the Dalton gang, who was shot 23 times but survived during the raid on Coffeyville, Kansas, in October 1892. Film director Sam Peckinpah planned to use the album as the basis for a film, but the plan did not come to fruition.
Track listing
Side one
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Doolin-Dalton | Don Henley, Glenn Frey, JD Souther, Jackson Browne | 3:26 |
| 2 | Twenty-One | Bernie Leadon | 2:11 |
| 3 | Out of Control | Henley, Frey, Tom Nixon | 3:04 |
| 4 | Tequila Sunrise | Henley, Frey | 2:52 |
| 5 | Desperado | Henley, Frey | 3:36 |
Side two
More in Discography & Albums
Elsewhere in Eagles Band
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