Before They Were the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt Gave Them a Job — Then They Shared the Stage Again
By 1974, the Eagles were becoming one of the hottest bands in America.
But only a few years earlier, several of them had been standing behind another singer.
Her name was Linda Ronstadt.
In 1971, Ronstadt needed musicians for her touring band. Among the players brought together were Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner.
Those four names would soon become the original Eagles.
Ronstadt later remembered hearing them work out their harmonies in her living room. The sound was so powerful that she immediately believed they could become something special.
Glenn Frey and Don Henley believed it too.
While touring with Ronstadt, the two began talking seriously about forming their own band. Ronstadt encouraged them rather than trying to keep them behind her.
Soon, the Eagles were born.
There was another young songwriter moving through the same Los Angeles music scene: Jackson Browne.
Browne had begun writing a song called “Take It Easy,” but he could not quite finish it. Glenn Frey heard him working on the song and eventually helped complete it.
The Eagles recorded “Take It Easy” as their first single in 1972.
It became the song that introduced them to America.
That history makes their 1974 appearance on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert especially fascinating.
By then, the former backing musicians were stars in their own right.
The Eagles performed songs including “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Already Gone,” “Good Day in Hell” and “Midnight Flyer,” showing how quickly they were moving from country-rock toward a harder sound.
Then their old connections returned to the stage.
Linda Ronstadt joined them during the show, including a performance of “Desperado.”
Jackson Browne also appeared.
And for the finale, the musicians came together around the song that had helped start the Eagles’ career:
“Take It Easy.”
There was something almost perfect about the moment.
Ronstadt had helped give Frey and Henley the opportunity that brought the future Eagles together.
Browne had helped create the song that became their first hit.
And now they were sharing a stage while the Eagles were rapidly becoming one of the defining American bands of the decade.
It was more than a collection of famous musicians appearing together.
It was a snapshot of how connected the Southern California music scene really was.
They borrowed musicians.
They finished one another’s songs.
They sang on one another’s records.
And sometimes, the person standing behind you onstage today became one of the biggest stars in the world tomorrow.
Linda Ronstadt did not create the Eagles.
But she helped put the musicians in the same room.
Jackson Browne did not write “Take It Easy” alone.
But without him, one of the Eagles’ most famous songs might never have existed.
Years later, that 1974 stage feels like a reunion of people who had helped change one another’s lives before anyone knew just how famous they would become.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
