Fifty Years of Music • Eagles, Desperado • Released April 17, 1973

 

I'm as pleased as an outlaw in a sleepy town bank to write this post.

First hitching post.

It's September, 1975 and I've just moved into the Toltec dorms at San Diego State University as a junior transfer. It's my first time living away from home and I'm teamed up with another junior, Kevin Kuhlmeyer from Pasadena, California. 

We become friends and share our love for the Eagles. Kevin has just bought the new Eagles album that came out in June 1975, One of These Nights. Kevin quickly proclaims it as the "best" Eagles album. I too love One of these Nights, but in a fun dorm room debate stake my claim that Desperado is indeed the best Eagles album. 

During that 1975-76 school year, we will share each others records on our respective turntables as we both have complete stereo systems in our little 10' x 12' cell block dorm room. So one day during the spring semester, I walk into the room and Kevin is sitting with his friend, Debbie Phelps listening to Desperado, and he says to me, "Doug, I think Desperado is now my favorite Eagles album." Rest in peace my friend, I'll always cherish our year together.

Second hitching post.

YouTube was started in 2005, and then was purchased in 2006 by Google for $1.65 billion dollars. (In 2022, YouTube is estimated to be worth $180 billion dollars.)

If you're old enough to remember the wild west of streaming music back in the early 2000's, you might recall that thing called, "Napster" was shot down like a dirty dog in the street in 2001. Another outlaw online streaming service, Limewire was hung in the public square in 2011. I say this in context as various bands like The Beatles and Eagles were slow to embrace the new streaming format for music. The Beatles didn't appear on the very "legit"  iTunes until 2010, for example.

Since the early 2000's, most famous bands and artists eventually put all their content on YouTube, Spotify (2006), and Amazon Music (2007) as they figured pennies on the dollar were better than no pennies at all. 

However, there were a few holdouts who were not going to give it all away as the Eagles, and in particular, Don Henley was just not having it. It's like he hired Palidin from Have Gun - Will Travel as an AI bot bounty hunter taking down non-approved fan uploads of Eagles and Henley songs with his six-shooter. 

In January 2015, I started writing this blog and used another outlaw free streaming service called "Grooveshark" to build my playlists. By April, that too was strung up, and thus I made my way to YouTube that still stands tall today like Gary Cooper in High Noon as my playlist app of choice. 

Last year, I was doolin-dalton around on YouTube, and found that every song from Desperado was now actually there! By combining a 2018 Eagles greatest hits album called, Eagles - Legacy with the non-hits from Desperado, that had been uploaded in 2014, I was finally able to blacksmith a complete Desperado YouTube album playlist. Phew! (So how many of these cowboy references is he going to throw in here?)

Third hitching post.

In preparing this blog post, I came across a website called, Randy Meisner - Hearts on Fire. You have to stop and click here first, before listening to the playlist as it chronicles the outlaw photo shoot by Henry Diltz and includes many interesting articles, you'll love it!

Jackson Browne, JD Souther, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Don Henley & Glenn Frey

Enjoy the Desperado playlist my friends.