Eagles Songwriter Reemerges With New Album

Posted on Jan 23rd 2009 2:00PM by David Chiu
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Eagles songwriter Jack Tempchin may hold the rare distinction of being able to write a song over the telephone based on someone else's dream. That's what happened when he wrote the ballad 'Box of Memories,' with keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, about a girl and her possessions.

"[Bobby] just started telling me the whole dream," Tempchin recalls to Spinner, "and I was writing it down. Everything in the song is absolutely from his dream. By the end of the phone conversation we had written the song."

It is indicative of Tempchin's talent: The San Diego-based artist penned two of the Eagles' most popular songs in the '70s: 'Peaceful Easy Feeling' and 'Already Gone.' He later co-wrote several of Eagles founder Glenn Frey's big solo hits in the '80s including 'Smuggler's Blues' and 'You Belong to the City.' But few probably know that Tempchin is also a singer who has recorded seven albums since 1977, including the recent 'Songs,' his first work of original material in 12 years.

"I've always been performing but I never really emphasized that part of my career," Tempchin, 61, says. "I just made this album and I realized if people don't know who you are, they can't come to the show."

Songs contains eclectic styles including rock, romantic Parisian pop, country and Latin influences. Along with 'Box of Memories,' it features Tempchin's rendition of 'Smuggler's Blues,' which was originally recorded by Glenn Frey from 1983. "Towards the end of the album I realized I hadn't done any of the hits that I've written," says Tempchin. "I think it's still means just as much, if not more, in a whole world that's just going the wrong way on drug control."

The friendship with Frey began around the time Tempchin was playing the San Diego coffeehouses during the folk era. "[He and J.D. Souther] used to stay with me at my big house down in San Diego with a lot of hippies living there," Tempchin recalls. His biggest break came in the early '70s when he wrote 'Peaceful Easy Feeling,' inspired by his attempt to get a waitress's attention at a coffeehouse in El Centro.

"She went home and I ended up sleeping on the floor of the [place]," he says. "I wrote the first verse there. I came back to San Diego and met some other girls and I put them in the song. There was a Wienerschnitzel on Washington Boulevard, and I remember walking with my little $13 Stella guitar and writing the last verse."

He was visiting Jackson Browne's home when Frey dropped in. Tempchin performed the song he wrote for Frey's tape recorder. "[Glenn] came back the next day and said, 'Well, Jack, I got a new band. We've been together for eight days, and we just worked up your song.' Then he played it for me on the cassette [player]. He went to England and recorded [the Eagles] first album."

When the Eagles broke up in the early '80s, Frey collaborated with Tempchin for most of his solo career. Tempchin recalls a time when he came over to Frey's house where there was candlelight and a bottle of wine. "Glenn had a way of romancing a song," he says. "Then we hit an idea and all of a sudden, 'Whammo! Wow that's good!' I learned a lot about songwriting from him."

In the late '90s, Jay-Z and Coolio sampled 'You Belong to the City' and 'Smuggler's Blues' for their songs, respectively. "It was a pretty big thrill," Tempchin says with a chuckle, "to see my music re-circulated, although in a really different form. That feels pretty good."

Tempchin is still actively writing: his most recent composing credits are on the Eagles' last album 'Long Road Out of Eden.' He's been performing on the West Coast and hanging out at the Hotel Café, a music place in Los Angeles. "It's kind of like the early Troubadour bar scene over there," he says. "I'm so thankful to be back in the music scene where everyone is just into the music."