Eagles – Journey of the Sorcerer (1975)
One of the great American bands of the 70s, The Eagles peddled in easy-listening country crossovers while so many other US acts were churning blues-based rock and roll, funk, soul or pale imitations of British prog.
So when the breakout album One of These Nights dropped, the style shift from songwriter JD Souther and guitarist Bernie Leadon’s (this was his last album with the band) grassroots was abrupt and dramatic.
There was one absolute ear-popper on the album. Journey of the Sorcerer was instrumental-only, the longest song they’d ever recorded to that point, and an alternating drama of murmurs and crescendos that featured the banjo as the hero and orchestral strings as the foil. So evocative, and deliciously un-Frey/Henley/Meisner.
Fun fact: it was used as the theme song for the BBC’s radio production of Douglas Adams‘ A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. That’s as off-point as a California groovin’ band gets.
