Remember When Linda Ronstadt Sang With the Eagles?
Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles were two of the biggest superstar musical acts of the 1970s, and they jam together on one of her biggest hits in a classic television appearance that has surfaced online.
In the video below, Ronstadt joined the Eagles onstage during the taping of an appearance on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. The original lineup of the country-rock crossover stars backs Ronstadt as she tears through an energetic performance of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," a classic song she turned into a Top 20 hit when she released it as a single from her 1973 album Don't Cry Now.
"We'd like to introduce someone who was very instrumental in putting our band the Eagles together," Glenn Frey states, calling Ronstadt "our favorite girl singer."
Frey first met Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner when Ronstadt recruited all of them to back her in her solo band. Each of them was already a veteran of the burgeoning country-rock scene in Los Angeles; Henley had previously played drums in a group called Shiloh, which Kenny Rogers first discovered in Dallas and brought to Los Angeles to record, while Frey had worked in a duo called Longbranch Pennywhistle with J.D. Souther. Meisner had played in Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band, and Leadon had performed with the Flying Burrito Brothers prior to playing with Ronstadt.
Ronstadt brought them together as a group of country-rock "all-stars" for her Silk Purse Tour in 1971, and they made their live debut with her during a performance at Disneyland on July 12, 1971, which turned out to be the only concert they ever played with her. The chemistry between the band members was so undeniably special that Henley and Frey approached Ronstadt to tell her they were splitting off to form a new band of their own, leaving her to hire an entirely new group as they formed the Eagles.
There were no hard feelings, though. Not only did Ronstadt appear on television with the Eagles, but she also covered "Desperado" on Don't Cry Now, and Henley joined her to sing backing vocals on her smash hit version of Roy Orbison's "Blue Bayou," which reached No. 2 and was nominated for two Grammy Awards when she released it as a single from 1977's Simple Dreams album.
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