''Desperado'' is the second studio album by the American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band the

Eagles Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

, released on April 17, 1973, by Asylum Records. The album was produced by

Glyn Johns Glyn Thomas Johns (born 15 February 1942) is an English recording engineer and record producer. He has worked with many of the most famous rock recording acts from both the UK and abroad, such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, ...

and was recorded at Island Studios in London, England. The songs on ''Desperado'' are based on the themes of the

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

. The band members are featured on the album's cover dressed like an outlaw gang; ''Desperado'' remains the only Eagles album where the band members appear on the front cover. Although the

title track A title track is a song that has the same name as the album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-t ...

is one of the Eagles'

signature song A signature (; from , "to sign") is a depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. Signatures are often, but not always, handwritten or styliz ...

s, it was never released as a single. The song " Desperado" was ranked number 494 on ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' 2004 list of "

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2 ...

". The album did yield two singles, "Tequila Sunrise" and "Outlaw Man", which reached number 64 and number 59 respectively. The album reached number 41 on the Billboard album chart and was certified gold by the RIAA on September 23, 1974, and double platinum on March 20, 2001. In 2000, ''Desperado'' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. ''Desperado'' was the last Asylum Records album to be distributed in North America by

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over the course of its first two decades, starting from the release of its first recor ...

(catalog no. SD 5068), prior to Asylum's mid-1973 merger with

Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...

by Asylum's, Elektra's and Atlantic's parent company,

Warner Communications Warner Media, LLC (doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warner ...

Background

Theme

After a commercially successful first album, Frey wanted the second album to be one with which they could be taken seriously as artists, and became interested in making a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

. The original concept was for songs about anti-heroes; according to Glenn Frey, he was jamming together with Don Henley,

Jackson Browne Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American rock musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 30 million albums in the United States. Emerging as a teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he had his ...

, and JD Souther after a

Tim Hardin James Timothy Hardin (December 23, 1941 – December 29, 1980) was an American folk music and blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his own success, his songs " If I Were a Carpenter", " Reason to Believe", " Misty Roses" and " ...

concert when they had the idea of doing an album about anti-heroes. One inspiration was a book on gunfighters of the

Wild West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

given to Browne by

Ned Doheny Patrick Anson "Ned" Doheny (born March 26, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Malibu, California, who has recorded eight albums and performed with other artists including Don Henley and Glenn Frey of the Eagles, JD So ...

for his 21st birthday, and Browne showed them the book and suggested the theme. The book includes stories about Bill Dalton and Bill Doolin; from this came the song "Doolin-Dalton" about the

Doolin-Dalton Gang The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang, or the Oklahombres, were a gang of American outlaws based in the Indian Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were active in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Terr ...

. However, they ran out of ideas after writing "Doolin-Dalton" and "

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He became one of the most influential figures in Hollywood in the 1950s, despite a career that lasted only five years. His impact on cinema and popular culture was p ...

" about the eponymous actor. The idea for anti-heroes then became the Western-themed ''Desperado'', and the song "James Dean" would be used for the next album '' On the Border'' instead. Jackson Browne himself credited the song " Desperado" written by Frey and Henley, as the origin of the outlaw theme of the album.

Bernie Leadon Bernard Matthew Leadon III ( ; born July 19, 1947) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Eagles, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of thr ...

said that Frey liked the idea of an analogy between outlaw gangs and rock-and-roll: "Glenn sat everybody down and mapped out which characters in the gang could have songs written about them, or encouraged us to write songs about this concept." As Frey said of the album in an interview in 1973: "It has its moments where it definitely draws some parallels between rock-and-roll and being an outlaw. Outside the laws of normality, I guess. I mean, I feel like I'm breaking a law all the time. What we live and what we do is kind of a fantasy." Henley also said that the album was to be their "big artistic commentary on the evils of fame and success, with a cowboy metaphor." However, he admitted: "The metaphor was probably a little bullshit. We were in L.A. staying up all night, smoking dope, living the California life, and I suppose we thought it was as radical as cowboys in the old West. We were really rebelling against the music business, not society." Part of the reasons for their dissatisfaction and cynicism with the music business was due to

David Geffen David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American film producer, record executive, and media proprietor. In music, he co-founded Asylum Records with Elliot Roberts in 1971 before founding Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1 ...

selling his independent Asylum label to

which then merged it with Elektra, and the band attributed this as the reason for the lack of interest in promoting the band internationally by

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

Compositions

Frey and Henley decided that they should write songs together after they recorded their first album ''

'' in London in 1972, and the first songs they wrote together days after they returned to Los Angeles were "Desperado" and " Tequila Sunrise", both written within the first week of their collaboration. The other songs in the album quickly came together after they had decided on the Western theme. While ''Desperado'' does not have a specific narrative, and the songs do not all necessarily fit in with the theme explicitly, the album has been described as being "suffused with the atmosphere of the open plains and a tough, peculiarly male kind of loneliness" that can "trick the listener into believing they are" tied to the theme. This album is the beginning of the songwriting partnership of Frey and Henley; in all Frey and Henley were involved in writing eight of the eleven songs in the album. Henley noted: "That’s when we became a team." The songwriting prowess of Frey and Henley in ''Desperado'' also marks the beginning of their dominance in the band. Henley said in retrospect: "That was a real crucial time for us. When we formed the band, it was supposed to be one of those 'everybody's equal' affairs. We'd all sing and all write and so forth. But the fact is people aren't all going to be able to do everything the same. It's just like on a football team . . . . Some people quarterback and some people block. So we went through a lot of hassles for a while." Leadon wrote two songs – "Twenty-One" and "Bitter Creek" – while

Randy Meisner Randall Herman Meisner (March 8, 1946 – July 26, 2023) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and founding member of both Eagles and Poco. Throughout his professional musical career, both as group member and session musician, his main r ...

co-wrote "Certain Kind of Fool" and "Saturday Night". "Twenty-One" refers to the age of

Emmett Dalton Emmett Dalton (May 3, 1871 – July 13, 1937) was an American outlaw, train robber and member of the Dalton Gang in the American Old West. Part of a gang that attempted to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, on October 5, 1892, he was the ...

, the youngest of the

Dalton gang The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because three of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted doub ...

, when he was shot 23 times but survived during the raid on

Coffeyville, Kansas Coffeyville is a city in southeastern Montgomery County, Kansas, United States, located along the Verdigris River in the state's southeastern region. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,826. Coffeyville is the most pop ...

, in October 1892. Meisner came up with the idea for how someone became an outlaw in "Certain Kind of Fool", wrote most of it, and said of his contribution: "I kinda started it. And that's what usually happened – I'd get a verse or two, and I'm done, and they would help fill in the blanks" The only song on the album not written by the band members of Eagles is " Outlaw Man", which was written by David Blue and chosen because it fit the theme.

Recording

The album was recorded at the Island Studios in London, which took four weeks at a cost of £30,000. The producer

wanted to produce the album quickly and economically, each track was therefore limited to four or five takes, and requests to record more were refused. Henley would later state that his greatest regret was that he did not sing as well as he could on the title track "Desperado", and would have liked to redo the song. According to the producer Johns, he and Leadon tried to come up with a few musical links in an attempt to tie up the story for an outlaw concept in the album; however, the concept itself dissipated. The band was very happy with the finished result; after Johns had played the album back to them as an entity for the first time, they carried him on their shoulders out of the control room. However, the finished recording was received poorly by Jerry Greenberg, the president of

, who said: "Jeez, they've made a fucking cowboy album!" The film director

Sam Peckinpah David Samuel Peckinpah (; February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American film director and screenwriter. His 1969 Western epic '' The Wild Bunch'' received two Academy Award nominations and was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Instit ...

had planned to use the album as the basis for a film, but the plan did not come to fruition.

Artwork

The artwork for the album was done by artist Gary Burden with photos by Henry Diltz, both of whom were also responsible for Eagles' first album. To illustrate the theme for the music in the album, the original concept was for a

gatefold A gatefold cover or gatefold LP is a form of packaging for gramophone record, LP records that became popular in the mid-1960s. A gatefold cover, when folded, is the same size as a standard LP cover (i.e., a 12½-inch 2.7-centimetresquare). ...

album with the band dressed as outlaws on the front cover with images of gunfight and the

inside. The centerfold idea, however, was scrapped by

. On the back of the album is an image of all four members of the band together with Jackson Browne and JD Souther lying dead and bound on the ground. A posse stands over them, including the producer Glyn Johns (far right in a white hat), manager John Hartmann, road manager Tommy Nixon, artist Boyd Elder (who would be responsible for the skull artwork of Eagles' later albums), roadies, and Gary Burden (far left). The photo is meant to be a reenactment of the historical image of the capture and death of the

Dalton Gang The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because three of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted doub ...

. Jackson Browne said that the image on the back cover with the musicians lying dead is when the "whole thing really comes together". The photo shoot took place at the Paramount Ranch, an old

film set A set is artificially constructed scenery used in film and television. In the last two cases there are many reasons to build or use a set instead of travelling to a real location, such as budget, time, the need to control the environment, or the ...

for Western movies in Malibu Canyon. It was, however, an expensive shoot, and to justify the cost a promotional film for the album was also made at the same time. The film was shot on

Super-8 Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The formal name for Super 8 is 8-mm Type S, distinguishing it from the ...

, then sepia-tinted, and transferred to videotape. In each process a little video quality is lost, which Frey described as a "nice accident" as it made the video appear aged and more realistic. Henley described the promotional film, like the album itself, as "a commentary on

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

loss of innocence with regard to how the music business really worked".

Critical reception

Paul Gambaccini Paul Matthew Gambaccini (born 2 April 1949) is an American-British radio and television presenter and author. He is a dual citizen of the United States and United Kingdom, having become a British citizen in 2005. Known as "The Great Gambo" and ...

of ''

'' gave the album a positive review on its release in 1973. He wrote: "The beautiful thing about it is that although it is a unified set of songs, it is not a rock opera, a concept album, or anything pretending to be much more than a set of good tunes that just happen to fit together." In conclusion, he wrote: "''Desperado'' won't cure your hangover or revalue the dollar, but it will give you many good times. With their second consecutive job well done, the Eagles are on a winning streak."

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

, however, took the view that "with its barstool-macho equation of gunslinger and guitarschlonger, its on-the-road misogyny, its playing-card metaphors, and its paucity of decent songs, this soundtrack to an imaginary Sam Peckinpah movie is "concept" at its most mindless."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

editor William Ruhlmann praised that Henley had more involvement with the album, but wrote that it "was simultaneously more ambitious and serious-minded than its predecessor and also slighter and less consistent." The album is now considered by some critics to be one of the significant albums of

country rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

. Music writer John Einarson argued in his book ''Desperados: The Roots of Country Rock'' that despite its weak initial sales, the album "would set the tone for all the later soft country rock sounds, and impact what would become the foundation of 'new country', in both image and music." It was voted number 631 in the third edition of

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited th ...

's ''

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by the ...

'' (2000). ''Ultimate Classic Rock'' critic Sterling Whitaker rated both "Tequila Sunrise" and "Doolin-Dalton" as being among the Eagles' 10 most underrated songs.

Commercial performance

Released in April 1973, the album was not a commercial success initially. It debuted on the US

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a rec ...

chart at a lowly number 145 on its week of its release, rising to number 41 in its eighth week on the chart, It remains Eagles' lowest charting album and it produced no hit song, as both singles released from the album, "Tequila Sunrise" and "Outlaw Man", failed to reach top 50 on the main singles chart. However, the success of their next album release, '' On the Border'', as well as subsequent releases, spurred on the sales of the album. It was certified Gold on September 23, 1974 by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) after the release of ''On the Border'', followed by a

double platinum Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music Sound recording and reproduction, recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video ...

certification on March 20, 2001, indicating shipment of 2 million copies in the United States.

Track listing

Personnel

Eagles *

Glenn Frey Glenn Lewis Frey (; November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016) was an American musician. He was a founding member of the rock band Eagles, for whom he was the co-lead singer and frontman, roles he came to share with fellow member Don Henley, with ...

– vocals, acoustic and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

s, keyboards,

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

* Don Henley – vocals, drums, acoustic guitar *

– vocals, electric and acoustic guitars,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

Dobro Dobro () is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a gui ...

– vocals, bass guitar Production *

– producer,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

*Howard Kilgour – assistant engineer *Barry Diament – mastering *

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' '' Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Early life ...

– remastering * Jim Ed Norman – string arrangements, conductor, piano ("Saturday Night"), electric piano ("Outlaw Man") * Gary Burden – art direction, design * Henry Diltz – lettering, photography

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 1973 albums Albums produced by Glyn Johns Asylum Records albums 1970s concept albums Eagles (band) albums Elektra Records albums Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients