Life in the Fast Lane: The Eagles’ Reckless Ride Down the Rock & Roll Highway, by Mick Wall

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'Life in the Fast Lane' by Mick Wall

In one of his cleverly true if not literally accurate remarks, Mick Wall opens Life in the Fast Lane by declaring, “The Eagles have never been anybody’s favorite band” but “have written and recorded lots of people’s favorite song.” The British rock critic and biographer nails lots of points in his account of the ‘70s stars, a band without charisma whose members could walk most streets unrecognized but whose voices were gold.

Life in the Fast Lane is interesting for telling the Eagles’ origins as part of a larger story about what happened when LA woke up to Charles Manson, California dreaming turned nightmare and the ‘60s soured into the ‘70s. The four Eagles were drawn to SoCal’s sunny legend only to find lots of talented musicians making no money and the tide of “liberation” eddying into a “dark narcotic river.” By contrast with the music for music’s sake crowd they elbowed at LA’s Troubadour, they wanted to sell records. 

David Geffen, new in his role as music mogul, saw them as fresh clay to be molded. He took them to a harsh taskmaster, British producer Glyn Johns, who drilled and drilled them again, trying to discern a sellable sound in that novice band. Johns initially dismissed them as bullocks. As Wall puts it, “it’s hard work trying to sound this free and easy.”

The sniping by Lester Bangs and many other rock critics did nothing to thwart their ascent. The Eagles set out to be what they became, “a stadium rock act with universal songs that sells a vision of life and love—complicated by the inevitable darkness,” Wall writes. Well put.