Common Thread: Songs of the Eagles

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