Spotify playlist: https://tinyurl.com/2mnuj67y

He deserves to be remembered as more than that guy in the Eagles documentary, the one who incurred Glenn Frey’s wrath. Hell, he deserves to be remembered for more than “Take It to the Limit.”

It was fifty one years ago today, not that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, but that “Take It Easy” dominated the airwaves. It was an instant hit single. On AM. When that still mattered, because of the car.

But this was different. Because usually records started on FM and then crossed over to AM. They got a start on the quieter band, the act gained fans, and after they’d embraced them then the group was ready for mainstream consumption. The Eagles did it backward. And as a result were not warmly embraced by the cognoscenti. Sure, it was an amazing hit single, but really was this act any better than the Starland Vocal Band, which had its one monster smash?

Well, if you bought the album you found out. The group emerged fully-formed. But if you didn’t buy the album, you didn’t know this. FM itself was becoming codified, less deep, less the bastion of album tracks. And since the Eagles hadn’t paid their dues they were not all over the radio.

But if you bought the album…

The big surprise was “Witchy Woman,” which followed the first side opener “Take It Easy.” “Witchy Woman” was as dark and brooding as “Take It Easy” was breezy and uplifting. This was our introduction to Don Henley. The drummer. He only sang two songs on the LP.

So, the Eagles were Linda Ronstadt’s backup band, experienced musicians, who’d been in groups previously, who were not wet behind the ears, they all had history, it was a minor league supergroup.

And not the group most people talk about today.

There are two Eagles periods, and they are quite different. Don Felder joined the band for the fourth album, “On the Border,” and the band rocked harder. Then Joe Walsh joined for “Hotel California” and there was no confusing what was happening then with what happened before. When the Dude criticized the Eagles, he was talking about the earlier period.

Not that it matters, not with fifty years of hindsight.

Randy Meisner was the bassist in the earlier period of the band.

And unlike Bernie Leadon, he never came back. Then again, Meisner was sick, had been for eons. At Glenn Frey’s memorial service he was using oxygen and…it’s not a complete surprise Randy passed.

And Randy did make a solo album after he left the band, 1978’s eponymous effort. I bought it, it was not memorable. And then…

He was akin to Jason Newsted. Then again, Jason was not an original member of Metallica.

So back to the narrative.

Well, let’s start before that. With Poco. A previous supergroup that was supposed to rival Crosby, Stills & Nash on the chart, but didn’t. Randy Meisner was the bass player, but he quit before the album came out.

Then Randy played with Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band, an outfit that was gaining credibility, rejecting Ricky’s early hits for something deeper, meatier and more soulful.

And then Randy was in the Eagles.

Oh, he went back to Nebraska and went straight for a moment in between, but that brings us back to 1972, and the Eagles debut.

The songs left off the greatest hits albums have faded away. But when there was only one album, I was deeply enamored of the closing track, Randy Meisner’s “Tryin’.”

“I’m just arriving in the city

And there’s music on my mind

Lookin’ for my destination and

My home is far behind”

That’s what they all did. Came from disparate burgs across this great nation of ours to Los Angeles, to make it. They’d outgrown the local scene, they wanted more, they believed they deserved more.

“‘Cause it’s a long road ahead

And you can make it in the end

I’m gonna make it with my friends

And I’m tryin'”

Was it Glenn Frey who called a band a gang? They’re in the trenches together, slugging it out, friends until…the band doesn’t make it and breaks up or it does and friendships fracture.

And the funny thing about Meisner’s voice is it’s somewhere between Henley and Frey’s, it fits right in, and did as part of the harmonies. He too sounded like an Eagle. To hear Randy sing was not jarring.

So “Tryin'” is a tear. And optimistic.

“And it’s a lonely way to live

You gotta take it, you gotta give

If you mistake it just try again

And I’m trying”

Everybody in L.A. was tryin’, but very few were makin’ it.

And the sound is a road trip with the top down, the band locked in with Randy’s vocal on top and then, AND THEN!

“Ah-ha-ha, we’ve got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Whoa I’m tryin'”

Talk about magical…

It’s nearly a-cappella. The Eagles singing together. The smooth, developed sound that pushed the band to the top. Crosby, Stills & Nash could never get the harmonies right live, either in their heyday or the latter day, but the Eagles? They nailed it every time.

And Randy didn’t sing “Earlybird,” but he did write it with Bernie Leadon. This more country-influenced sound was ultimately dropped by the latter day band, but it was a feature of the first edition.

These two unheralded cuts from the first LP are two of my favorites, once you could pick and choose with the advent of the CD I played them plenty, I know them by heart.

Randy had even fewer writing credits on “Desperado,” but it is his song that opens the second side of this legendary concept album that was a stiff upon release. But you can’t keep greatness down, “Desperado” is now the absolute highlight of the live show.

“He was a poor boy, raised in a small family

He kinda had a cravin’ for somethin’ no one else could see”

That’s it, the essence. You know. You need to leave town, be more, or you’re satisfied where you are. Some of us are incomplete and want more. That’s the story of rock and roll.

“They say that he was crazy

The kind that no lady should meet”

The rock and roll outlaw. That was the theme of the LP, the melding, the comparing and contrasting of yesterday’s cowboys and today’s.

“He ran out to the city and wandered around in the street

He wants to dance, oh yeah

He wants to sing, oh yeah

He wants to see the lights a-flashin’

And listen to the thundering”

You’ve got to be able to cut loose to rock and roll. Let go. Cross the lines, throw away the rule book. Most people don’t have the guts, the chutzpah.

“He knew he could stand with the best

They got respect, oh yeah

He wants the same, oh yeah

And it’s a certain kind of fool

That likes to hear the sound of his own name”

You’ve got to be a certain kind of fool to play this game, the odds are just too long.

“A poster on a storefront, the picture of a wanted man

He had a reputation spreading like fire through the land

It wasn’t for the money, at least it didn’t start that way

It wasn’t for the runnin’, but now he’s runnin’ every day”

That’s the story of the bank robbers of the west, but it’s also the story of seventies rockers. You were lucky if you got a poster in the storefront. And it doesn’t start out about the money, but when you gain a certain amount of success… And you keep runnin’ every day, you’re on tour, keeping the starmaking machinery alive.

There used to be an amazing video on YouTube of the Eagles performing “Certain Kind of Fool” on TV. Only four members, but they got it exactly right, including Randy Meisner’s vocal. They weren’t jumping around the stage, there were no antics, they were letting the music speak for itself.

1974’s “On the Border” was the commercial breakthrough, suddenly the Eagles were everywhere.

My favorite cut is the title song, a Henley/Leadon/Frey number. And Henley’s vocal stands out, but Randy Meisner is there singing too.

And Randy also sings “Midnight Flyer,” which Paul Craft wrote. And he wrote and sang “Is It True?,” and I like his vocal, and it fits in the album perfectly, but it’s a minor cut.

And then came “One of These Nights.” It’s this album that made the Eagles superstars. “Hotel California” was the cherry on top, an unexpected great leap forward, but in a summer competing with James Taylor’s “Gorilla” and Paul McCartney and Wings’s “Venus and Mars” and Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks,” it was “One of These Nights” which was dominant. Everywhere in a way no album is today, none. Pouring out of every window. Talk about the soundtrack of the summer.

And of course “One of These Nights” contains “Take It to the Limit,” which actually is not one of my favorites, I prefer “Too Many Hands,” from the first side, a number Randy cowrote with Don Felder, which Randy sings himself.

“Too Many Hands” has the intensity of “Certain Kind of Fool.” A stinging guitar. And Randy singing like someone’s squeezing his balls, like every word is important and counts, imploring you to listen.

But it was a different era. The album era. When it was a rare record that exceeded forty minutes and you knew what you bought by heart. These Randy Meisner cuts may not have been radio hits, but they were personal hits, I know them just as well as the songs that floated over the airwaves. You see our albums were religious texts, we studied them, they were more important than television or movies, they were more important than us, we couldn’t compete with the musicians, they were gods, we bowed at their feet, and Randy Meisner was one of them, and once you reach this level, once you’re in the pantheon, you’re never forgotten.

So it wasn’t a complete shock that Randy Meisner passed today. He’d been ill and off the radar screen for so long. But still, it affects us. He was talented, a member of a group that won the World Series, ultimately the Eagles are the Yankees, in that they triumphed again and again, more than anybody else, they sit above the rest, you don’t own the best-selling album of all time by accident, that’s not something you can fake.

And you might say that the Eagles haven’t had a hit in decades, but I’ll say the Yankees haven’t been the Yankees for decades, maybe since George Steinbrenner came along and laid down all that cash.

Randy Meisner was there, he was part of it.

Some may not know, but I will never forget.

Tim Leiweke is Chairman and CEO of the Oak View Group, which builds and owns arenas and manages venues for others. We discuss the status of buildings and shows around the world, as well as Tim’s history, from sports to concerts, hockey to basketball to Springsteen and Henley, from St. Louis to Los Angeles and AEG and then Toronto and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to OVG. No one is building more arenas than OVG. Which also has its hands in food, security, diversity and more. Tim and OVG represent the cutting edge of live entertainment, this is the guy.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tim-leiweke/id1316200737?i=1000622504656

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/c11740ed-fa16-483c-a0d8-088d52f62d97/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tim-leiweke

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/tim-leiweke-305620952

“Jason Aldean, Decrying ‘Cancel Culture,’ Has a No. 2 Hit – ‘Try That in a Small Town’ went from overlooked to almost topping the charts after a week of controversy.”: https://tinyurl.com/d9pptvfw

What a crock of shit.

Who knew the crooked music charts would impact the political scene.

That’s right, the music charts are manipulated and phony, made to serve the labels, not the public. They’re inaccurate and should never be trusted. There are many ways to game the charts.

Leading me back to what I wrote last week. Which is find some way you can win, can say you’re #1, have done something dramatic, there must be some category in which you qualify. How about iTunes sales? About as relevant as vinyl. Then again, they tell us who is #1 in vinyl too! In a world where little is released on vinyl, you can’t get pressing time, and big stars load up product and drop it in a week so they can go #1 and hype it ad infinitum, just like Jason Aldean and his supporters re “Try That in a Small Town.”

Do you remember 2003? That’s when the iTunes Store launched. Twenty years ago. When you still rushed out to buy an iPod, a device that Apple has completely stopped making. Because music is an on demand item, you don’t need to own anything, it’s all at your fingertips, when you want it!

So why buy?

Almost nobody does. It makes no sense. Why buy a compromised file when you can listen in full fidelity on Apple Music and other platforms, in many cases in better than CD quality.

But wait, if you can still sell CDs… You go to the top of the chart!

You see sales are unjustly weighted on the charts. It would be like singles being worth more than home runs when it comes to baseball. It’d be like sales of the VCR in a DVR world… And DVRs have been eclipsed by on demand!

How far can I take this…

It’s like the sale of cassette decks. Or Walkmen. Dated products that have little to no use in today’s world. Let’s say the sale of one cassette is worth a million streams. No, let’s be realistic… Let’s start with the truth. One sale is worth 1,500 streams in the Luminate, chart-making world. Think about that, one sale at the iTunes Store is worth 1,500 listens on a streaming platform. I’ll bet my life that no one will listen to the iTunes file of “Try That in a Small Town” 1500 times. Man, I doubt anybody will listen five hundred times. How many will listen even ten times. HOW MANY WILL LISTEN AT ALL!

The purchase of iTunes files is evidence of support, of solidarity, it’s got nothing to do with listening to the song. Because not that many people are listening to the song. How do I know? I checked the Spotify Top 50 and “Try That in a Small Town” is not in it! Nowhere to be found.

And don’t tell me it’s a country thing. Luke Combs’s version of “Fast Car” is number 7. It got 6,324,853 streams yesterday. “Try That in a Small Town” got 11.6 million streams last week, on all platforms! Sure, Spotify punches above its weight, but it is not all of the market. I’m not saying 11.6 million streams in a week is nothing, but it’s not a whole hell of a lot. It won’t put much gas in either the plane or the bus. But somehow, in the topsy-turvy world called the music business, “Try That in a Small Town” charts higher than “Fast Car.”

Morgan Wallen’s “Wasted on You” is #16, with 4,825,150 streams on Spotify yesterday. But in bizarroland, it doesn’t hold a candle to “Try That in a Small Town.

Never mind all the non-country hits in the Spotify Top 50, they can’t compete with “Try That in a Small Town,” no way, Jason Aldean is #2!

And if this hogwash is printed in the “New York Times,” you’ve got to believe that it’s being repeated by other news outlets, especially on the right wing. Jason Aldean won! But he didn’t. But if you say that you’re a naysayer, someone who can’t handle the truth.

This is not so different from Donald Trump saying he won the election. Well, he was leading in certain states before the mail-in vote was counted. Well, that means you win, right?

Of course not. But you can’t convince many of his supporters otherwise. And you can’t convince Aldean supporters otherwise.

I mean at least level the playing field. Tell us how many paid streams a song gets, create the chart from that. But it can’t be done, because the labels find that nearly impossible to manipulate!

This is how it works. A has-been star wants a number one album. So the label cooks up some vinyl, pushes iTunes Store sales, games the crooked system so they can get something to publicize. And the following week the album is nowhere to be found, because in truth no one is listening to it. I mean it is music, it’s about listens, isn’t it?

OF COURSE NOT!

Wow, I could go on and on. You’ve got the artists who don’t understand the difference between an on demand stream and a radio stream. Not complicated, but when you get a low royalty check someone must be at fault, it can’t be you. But radio pays so much less! And there’s radio on Spotify. You put in the name of an act and a bunch of tracks are spewed out and the pay rate is different, because the listener has no control.

I won’t even go into who owns the publishing or how many writers there are, if the complainer even owns any of the publishing.

And if the people involved can’t understand it, what are the odds that people uninvolved can understand it? Almost nonexistent!

But it feels good to say. Those right wing red people from the rural states are showing the nasty blue people something. You can’t keep a heinous view down. We are incredibly strong. Hell, we learned our skills while we were enslaved!

That’s another right wing trope. Uttered by a candidate for President.

So in truth, the Jason Aldean kerfuffle is minor in the scheme of things. But falsehood, obfuscation, manipulation goes to the bedrock of our system. Everybody’s got their own facts, everybody’s #1 somewhere.

No wonder we can’t come together and move ahead. We’re not even starting from the same line, we don’t even believe the same things.

And if you think this screed will change the charts…

The people who pay Luminate like it this way. We can’t even get rid of the carried-interest rule, what are the odds we can have an honest music chart?

I hate when this happens. Because if the news will print tripe like this, what will they print about something more important?

Scary.

Would this have happened if she wasn’t in the public eye?

At this writing the cause of death has not been revealed, but I am not optimistic it was natural causes.

They don’t make stars like Sinéad O’Connor anymore. There’s nowhere to project a unique talent to everybody simultaneously, to deliver to the public a unique voice that blows them away. That was the power of MTV. And FM rock before that. And, of course, AM radio before that.

You only had to see the video once. You know, the Prince song, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” He’s gone now too. Which is hard to fathom, since he said he was fine, talked about rumors of his supposed imminent death just before he did die. And Sinéad and Prince were similar in that they came up in an era where they wanted you to do it their way, as opposed to the way the artist wanted to do it, their way.

So this was a different era, one of a plethora of record labels. Chrysalis was now a standalone company, after being an imprint whose records were distributed by others. It started just before the turn of the decade, from the seventies to the eighties, with Blondie. And then Pat Benatar and Huey Lewis. Somehow, Chrysalis could make stick what previous companies had been unable to break through.

So by time we hit 1990, MTV ruled the world. It had been around for nine years, was now established all over the world, and radio, which still mattered, was in lockstep with the music video channel. Such that “Nothing Compares 2 U” was instantly everywhere.

And this was not Chumbawamba. There was not only one good track and a plethora of dreck on “I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got.” It was deep and sparing throughout, just like the hit. It stuck with you. It was personal. Not done by committee. And it was a huge hit.

And then Sinéad ripped up the picture of the Pope on SNL and it was all over. That’s America, don’t fight with God. And those who don’t care are afraid of those who stand up to God.

Then again, most Americans didn’t grow up in Ireland, still haven’t been to Ireland, don’t comprehend Ireland. There’s a long history of literature exposing the Irish condition, but America doesn’t read, it’s got to be delivered easy, via moving pictures. Hopefully like “Ted Lasso,” upbeat. We don’t want to be reminded of the underbelly, but Sinéad was all underbelly.

O’Connor never had another hit. And we can argue whether her material deserved presence at the top of the pops or not, but one thing is for sure, she was silently blackballed. Because she was dangerous, because she was uncontrollable. And this is what record labels and radio abhor. They don’t care how talented you are, if you’re a loose cannon, if you don’t play it their way, they want nothing to do with you. You’re trouble.

And Sinéad O’Connor was perceived as trouble.

Now the funny thing is O’Connor continued to have some success overseas after her stock crumbled in the U.S., but eventually that faded away too. Sinéad was a has-been. Seen by many as a one hit wonder. Even though she was never about the hits, meaning her work delivered, she was an artist, who had something to say, who was in pain.

And suddenly that pain was everywhere.

Radio and records might not want to touch you, but the press loves famous people who act irrationally, who make crazy statements, who behave wildly. They’ve got to fill the pages. And that’s where O’Connor started to appear.

There were marriages and babies, a religious conversion, an institutionalization, Oprah and Dr. Phil. O’Connor was self-destructing in front of our very eyes. And the weird thing is these people don’t get help, they’re seen as entertainment. Until they die.

So… Would all of this have happened to Sinéad O’Connor if she hadn’t had a hit record and become recognizable around the world?

Well, O’Connor came out and said she was bipolar. And if this is true, and unmedicated, bad behavior, weird behavior, is part of the diagnosis.

Then again, fame is a drug that once experienced is hard to give up. Knowing that everything you say will be fodder for the news, distributed around the globe.

Then again, there are mentally ill people living desperate lives around the globe who go unnoticed, because they are not famous.

Was Sinéad O’Connor destined for this path, or was the world complicit?

Now the bipolar are some of our greatest artists. Today everyone is seen as a possible musical star. How do you look? We can put you together with a team, we can build a monolith. But you used to need something extra, we called that talent, and it had nothing to do with self-promotion, but raw musical creation. Our artists had insight, they were beacons. Sinéad was constantly pushing the envelope, warning others of the ills of the music industry, but her statements fell on deaf ears. Seen any real repercussions of #MeToo in the music business? No. It’s an independent contractor enterprise run by men. Of course there are women, but oftentimes they have the values of men. Criticize me all you want, but this is frequently true, because you have to have that killer instinct to survive.

The machine needs music. It thrives when there are artists. And artists are not about breaking records, but breaking hearts and minds, getting us to question ourselves and the world. Artists are not concerned with what the prepubescent think, not that they’ll turn away their business, artists are speaking to those who’ve grown up, who’ve experienced, and it’s not only their fans but society at large. Don’t forget, they attacked John Lennon for saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Back in an era when “Time” asked if religion was dead.

Actually, religion is dying in America. But politically it’s more powerful than ever. Sinéad O’Connor was standing up to the ills of religion, but this message went unheeded, never mind being from a girl.

But unlike so many of those with success in the past, Sinéad O’Connor won’t be forgotten, because she had it, what most people don’t possess, and she delivered it.

And what she delivered…

Of course there was “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

But on that same album, there’s “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance.” And “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” And “Black Boys on Mopeds.” And “I Am Stretched on Your Grave.”

I was at the Lilith Fair at the Rose Bowl, outside the Bowl, watching Special K and Billie Myers, and then I heard this sound floating over the stands, I had to run inside to listen.

“I am stretched on your grave

And I’ll lie here forever”

That voice! Pure and powerful. Natural. Not aided by studio trickery.

And then there was that moment on Letterman. Sinéad singing “You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart.” It’s disappeared from YouTube, because of some rights issue, but not only did it slay me the first time through, I kept it on VHS tape, so I could watch it again and again.

Sinéad was possessed by the music. She felt the music. She was the music. It was transcendent. It’s one thing to take the stage, it’s another to lift the entire auditorium.

The song was from the film “In the Name of the Father.” If they even make those films anymore, they go nearly unseen. This is not what Universal, the film’s distributor, or the rest of the majors put out these days. They want cartoons, not truth. Because most people can’t handle the truth. And the truth is life is now so hard that people don’t want to be reminded of the fact that there is no upside, that they’re stuck. Which is why people believe in falsehoods, conspiracy theories, because the truth is just too scary.

But Sinéad O’Connor was all about the truth. Directly from her heart to ours. She looked us in the eye and delivered. Like the rock stars of yore. She might not have died at 27, but she shares the lineage of those who do. She just wasn’t made for these times.

“Oh, you lost

Oh, you lost all

You lost all

You lost all”