Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles

Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles

ASIN: B000002L1T

Track Listings

1. Take It Easy - Travis Tritt

2. Peaceful Easy Feeling - Little Texas

3. Desperado - Clint Black

4. Heartache Tonight - John Anderson

5. Tequila Sunrise - Alan Jackson

6. Take It to the Limit - Suzy Bogguss

7. I Can't Tell You Why - Vince Gill

8. Lyin' Eyes - Diamond Rio

9. New Kid in Town - Trisha Yearwood

10. Saturday Night - Billy Dean

11. Already Gone - Tanya Tucker

12. Best of My Love - Brooks & Dunn

13. Sad Café - Lorrie Morgan

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In 1993, Nashville's biggest young stars--Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, and others--recorded an album of Eagles songs called Common Thread. When the disc went platinum, everyone hailed it as the rebirth of country-rock. If you listened closely, though, you heard neither the down-to-earth twang of country nor the metallic aggression of rock & roll. What you heard instead was the romantic sweetness of pop. More specifically, the Eagles represented the southern California pop tradition of harmony-drenched groups like the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. It's a wonderful tradition, but it's misleading to call it something else. Out there in the hinterlands you can still hear authentic country-rock, an exhilarating combination of blunt adult storytelling and blazing guitars as practiced by the likes of Joe Ely, Shaver, the Bottle Rockets, Mike Henderson, and Jason and the Scorchers. Real country-rock remains a marginal commercial force, however, and the real money is in the new Nashville version of southern California harmonies. Call it "suburban pop." --Geoffrey Himes

Tracks:

Take It Easy - Travis Tritt
Peaceful Easy Feeling - Little Texas
Desperado - Clint Black
Heartache Tonight - John Anderson
Tequila Sunrise - Alan Jackson
Take It To The Limit - Suzy Bogguss
I Can't Tell You Why - Vince Gill
Lyin' Eyes - Diamond Rio
New Kid In Town - Trisha Yearwood
Saturday Night - Billy Dean
Already Gone - Tanya Tucker
Best Of My Love - Brooks & Dunn
The Sad Cafe - Lorrie Morgan

Amazon.com

In 1993, Nashville's biggest young stars--Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, and others--recorded an album of Eagles songs called Common Thread. When the disc went platinum, everyone hailed it as the rebirth of country-rock. If you listened closely, though, you heard neither the down-to-earth twang of country nor the metallic aggression of rock & roll. What you heard instead was the romantic sweetness of pop. More specifically, the Eagles represented the southern California pop tradition of harmony-drenched groups like the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. It's a wonderful tradition, but it's misleading to call it something else. Out there in the hinterlands you can still hear authentic country-rock, an exhilarating combination of blunt adult storytelling and blazing guitars as practiced by the likes of Joe Ely, Shaver, the Bottle Rockets, Mike Henderson, and Jason and the Scorchers. Real country-rock remains a marginal commercial force, however, and the real money is in the new Nashville version of southern California harmonies. Call it "suburban pop." --Geoffrey Himes

Customer Reviews:

Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles.......2007-01-10

This is the best. We had this on a cassette and replaced it with a CD so that we could continue enjoying the music.

Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles.......2007-01-04

A remarkable and most enjoyable CD for one's collection

Passable copies - little to impress overall in interpretations.......2006-05-01

The Eagles while they may have been country in origin were ultimately class purveyors of pop music that like Fleetwood Mac of the 1970s was an easy fit onto AM radio channels or programming. This CD in providing a number of country artistes (not all well known) the opportunity of doing covers of Eagles songs thus could have been an interesting "back to the roots" concept.

Sadly this is not reflected in the final output - what we have is a series of current popular country artises doing almost faithful note for note copies of the originals and adding very little new or different in the process on personal interpretations apart from vocal style. The only one who differs for the better is Alan Jackson on "Tequila Sunrise" where his jaded delivery catches better than the original the vacuous life style it depicts.

Overall a disappointment, though as easy background or alternative music (unless you cannot do without the originals to listen to) it is well recorded and passable. If country interpretations of pop songs as a genre is of interest then try "Come together - America salutes the Beatles" which shows how the idea can be made to work.

The Trouble With Tributes.......2006-02-26

The trouble with all-star tribute albums to past superstar artists and bands is that oftentimes they are done purely for money, attention, and a sense that certain of those artists can one-up the artists being paid the "tribute" to; and often, the results don't come close to measuring up to the originals. Such, I'm afraid, is the case with the 1993 COMMON THREADS album, where Nashville artists give their props to that renegade bunch of desperados who occupied the Hotel California for most of the 1970s, the Eagles.

The brainchild of Eagles manager Irving Azoff, who saw how revered the band had become amongst the Nashville hierarchy of the Nineties, COMMON THREADS also functioned as a charity album, whose profits went to the Walden Woods Project, of which Eagles drummer Don Henley was a particularly prominent supporter. Were it not for that one particular aspect, COMMON THREADS would be as much an aberration as a lot of other tribute albums of its type. Even as this album already stands, however, and even though it caused hell to freeze over and the Eagles to reunite, the artists here still fall well short of what the band originally did.

What seems to have happened here is that each of the artists got so caught up in the idea of doing songs from the Eagles' massively successful catalog that they thought they could get off by copying almost note-for-note and by arrangement what the band had done; one listen to Travis Tritt's version of "Take It Easy", and Vince Gill's take on "I Can't Tell You Why" seems to indicate this. In other cases, they sound terribly anemic, as in Clint Black's version of "Desperado", where he sounds like second-rate John Denver (and I think John Denver could have done this far better than Clint Black). And hearing faux-Eagles wanna-bes like Little Texas doing "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and Diamond Rio doing "Lyin' Eyes" is no substitute whatsoever for the real thing.

The womenfolk don't have it much easier either. Lorrie Morgan simply sounds out of place on "The Sad Cafe", seemingly not having any idea about the song's mournful inspiration; and Tanya Tucker's toughness on "Already Gone" is quite dull. Suzy Bogguss' take on "Take It To The Limit" is a bit better, but it won't make anyone forget the Randy Meisner-led original. And Trisha Yearwood's version of "New Kid In Town" is okay, but she sounds like she's trying to do it the way she thinks her idol Linda Ronstadt would, and it's not totally successful either.

In the end, the inability of contemporary Nashville artists to really understand the Eagles lies in the fact that there is a very wide gap between the Eagles' sound of the 1970s and the way contemporary Music Row does things. Though classified as "country-rock", the Eagles also mixed in elements of bluegrass, surf-rock, R&B, disco, and even Tex-Mex a time or two, styles that are largely alien to contemporary Nashville. As Linda herself, around whom the Eagles originally formed in 1971, has said, it is a part of the diverse spectrum of California music: "California music is a real hybrid, very specialized, and it doesn't have anything to do with Nashville." This is something that I'm not sure these artists really understand, and why I can't give this album a better rating.

Nearly Flawless Covers.......2005-12-21

I picked up "Common Thread: The Songs Of The Eagles" when it originally came out. Back then, I was a sucker for Nashville's commercial country engine and this album seemed to fit the bill. Laden with 90's Country stars, I figured this album would be great. Of course, back then I thought it was. However, my tastes have changed over the years and my love of commercial Nashville has turned into hatred. Posers like Mr. and Mrs. Faith Hill, Big and Rich, and Shania Twain have stolen the spotlight from real Country artists by cranking out easy-to-digest pop songs and passing them off as Country. Even with my transformation though, I've grown to love this particular album more over time. In fact, most of the artists on this project have either been drawn deeper into traditional Country or their careers have faded into dust. I guess Nashville got lucky on this album by picking artists that weren't molded for stardom but found it in their own right.

For instance, take Little Texas. They were probably one of the most popular commercial outfits to be plugged by Nashville. Pretty boys with long flowing hair and an "aw shucks, ma'am" mentality when interviewed, Little Texas was groomed for the spotlight. With that said, their take on "Peaceful, Easy Feeling" is one of the most honest and, in my opinion, one of the best songs on this entire album. They've been busted up for quite sometime now, but this cover will always be a gem in my book. Though they were very commercial, they were very good at what they did.

A group who also basked in the light of commercial Country even though they were solidly grounded in the old hillbilly, mandolin-drenched twang was Diamond Rio. They were and still are one of my favorite bands. They have a "high lonesome" quality in all of their songs that shows the listener that they still remember what makes Country music great. Their cover of "Lyin' Eyes" is the best song on this album. Their talent has kept them near the top of Country music to this day.

Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and Brooks and Dunn also take some solid stabs at a few of the Eagles' tunes. Jackson puts a good country spin on "Tequila Sunrise" and Black shoots straight on "Desperado." Kix Brooks handles the vocals in "Best Of My Love," and I'm glad he did. His voice fits that tune nicely.

There are plenty of other artists on this album that do a grand job. Travis Tritt's "Take It Easy" and Billy Dean's "Saturday Night" deserve special recognition as one takes a huge Eagles hit and makes it his own while the other takes a relatively unknown to the mainstream Eagles tune and gives it a wonderful rendition.

Fans of California's light country and rock should enjoy this album. This may be a little bit too soft for Southern rockers. Of course, just tell the modern Country fan that this is great stuff and just like sheep they'll probably gobble it up. Oh, and if you're into labels, this is California country, not country-rock or "pop" as the Amazon reviewer argues. Check out the Flying Burrito Brothers or the Desert Rose Band if you don't believe me.

Average customer rating:

Common Thread - The Songs of the Eagles
Travis Tritt , Little Texas , Clint Black , John Anderson , Alan Jackson , Suzy Bogguss , Vince Gill , Diamond Rio , Trisha Yearwood , and Billy Dean
Manufacturer: Giant
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Country | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000BA44AQ

Product Description

Common Thread - The Songs of the Eagles // 1. Take It Easy - Travis Tritt 2. Peaceful Easy Feeling - Little Texas 3. Desperado - Clint Black 4. Heartache Tonight - John Anderson 5. Tequila Sunrise - Alan Jackson 6. Take It To The Limit - Suzy Bogguss 7. I Can't Tell You Why - Vince Gill 8. Lyin' Eyes - Diamond Rio 9. New Kid In Town - Trisha Yearwood 10. Saturday Night - Billy Dean 11. Already Gone - Tanya Tucker 12. Best Of My Love - Brooks & Dunn 13. The Sad Cafe - Lorrie Morgan

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