When Don Henley was working on his fifth solo album, Cass County, he decided to bring it back to some of his roots in country music. Growing up in rural Texas, Henley would often listen to Hank Williams and George Jones on the radio, which later penetrated some earlier Eagles songs, including “Tequila Sunrise,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Lyin’ Eyes,” which went to No. 8 on the Country chart, among many others, including “New Kid in Town (No. 43), and “Seven Bridges Road” (No. 55).
Throughout the years, Henley also collaborated with several country artists, including his 1992 duet with Trisha Yearwood, “Walkaway Joe,” which went to No. 2 on the Country chart and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. In 2006, Henley had another duet with Kenny Rogers, “Calling Me,” from the country legend’s album Water & Bridges.
By 2017, a year after the death of Glenn Frey, the Eagles’ blockbuster album Hotel California even re-entered the Country chart around its 40th anniversary, peaking at No. 5.
“The impact they’ve had on all of music didn’t miss me,” said Vince Gill, who joined the Eagles in 2017, a year after the death of founding member Glenn Frey. “It scarred me real good. A record of mine, like ‘When Love Finds You,’ sounds like an Eagles record. They’ve been as big a part of my learning curve as the greats of the country and Western world.”
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Released in 2015, Cass County featured duets with Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Jamey Johnson, Lee Ann Womack, Martina McBride, Alison Krauss, Eagles bandmate Vince Gill, Trisha Yearwood, Lucinda Williams, and more.
“I had most of them in mind going in,” Henley said of his Cass County collaborations, which were recorded over several years. “I had sort of planned the whole thing,” he added. “I mean, the recording of the album took place over about a five- or six-year period, so it was very much planned as it went along.”
The album, Henley’s first solo released in 15 years since Inside Job, topped the Country chart and went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
[RELATED: The Eagles Song Don Henley and Glenn Frey Regretted Recording]
“Bramble Rose”
To open Cass County, Henley covered “Bramble Rose,” originally written and recorded more than a decade earlier by country artist Tift Merritt on her 2002 debut album of the same name. Henley’s version brought together an unlikely pairing to sing alongside him: Mick Jagger and Miranda Lambert.
The lyrics follow the story of a thick-skinned woman passing through some difficult loves. Henley takes on the first verse and makes a minor switch with Merritt’s My mind turns determined, dark as a storm / So my love has grown as sharp as a bramble rose by adding the pronoun “her.”
The ungrateful few who tangle inside
Don’t care where they’re born, they’re growing up wild
The rain makes me thirsty, and fighting to go
Her mind turns determined, dark as a storm
Lambert comes in on the second part with Jagger on the third.
I get so ashamed for making you blue
I come back to this porch to make it all up to you
The rain’s got me thirsty, falling wasteful and slow
I’m restless enough, I’m so scared to go
Do you think I’ll be happy out on the wind?
Do you think I’ll get halfway fore it’s raining again?
Will I find that I’m true when it’s hardest to be,
Or will the notions I follow have all turned on me?
All three close on the final chorus with Jagger on harmonica.
Once my love has blown as far as a bramble rose
Just a real good woman nobody knows
An “Unlikely Combination”
Along with Lambert, Jagger was the first person Henley thought of when looking for another vocalist on the track.
“I thought, ‘What can I do to really make this song different from the original version … and what would be a very unlikely combination?” said Henley. “And so I thought of him [Jagger], but I didn’t think he would do it—at all. And I was shocked and pleased when word came back that he liked the song and he would do it.”
Henley added, “If you listen to the music that the Stones recorded between 1968 and 1972, there’s a lot of country influence in there. Keith Richards had met Gram Parsons and hung out with him. They spent a lot of time together, and I think that Gram Parsons played the great American songbook of country music for Keith Richards. He sat him down and played George Jones and Hank Williams and all that sort of thing for him. You could hear that influence in songs like ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Dead Flowers,’ ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ you can hear that twang.”
Photo: Don Henley, October 01, 2015, in Los Angeles. (RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
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