The singer and songwriter of country-rock John David Souther died at the age of 78 at his home in New Mexico “over the weekend” of September 14 and 15, according to a statement released days later by his family that did not specify the day or the cause of his death. Although he never enjoyed unbridled popularity among the general public, the musician played a fundamental role in the history of the country-rock Californian of the last half century, above all for his close connection with the Eagles (his signature appears on a dozen of the band’s great classics) and for his bond with Linda Ronstadt, with whom he was a partner and who also recorded and popularized several of his compositions.
Souther also worked as a solo artist, especially during the seventies and eighties. During that period he produced four albums that were adored by fans of country sounds and systematically ignored by the commercial circuits: John David Souther (1972), Black Rose (1976), You’re Only Lonely (1979) y Home By Dawnwhich is now 40 years old. His only (minor) success around the world, and also in Spain, was with If You’re Only Lonelya song that served as a clamorous tribute to Roy Orbison’s vocal and sonic style, and which in fact paraphrased the title of one of his most popular songs, Only The Lonely (1960).
Not even the concessions to a more commercial and popular writing of Home By Dawn —which Vicente Cagiao broadcast incessantly on Spanish radio through his program, Cycles— served to ensure that John David’s work achieved not even a hundredth of the popularity of his “almost brothers” from the Eagles, so the musician, disillusioned and exhausted, would not return to a recording studio until more than three decades later, with If The World Was You (2008). His last original songs, included in another superb and largely ignored album, Tendernessdating back to 2015.
Souther was born in Detroit but grew up in Amarillo, Texas, and this double geographical affiliation explains well the nature of his compositions, always eclectic and bathed in country influences, but not at all canonical. In the mid-sixties he moved to Los Angeles and became friends with another emerging musician, Glenn Frey, with whom he shared an apartment for a long time and recorded a beautiful, candid and very forgettable album under the stage name Longbranch Pennywhistle. In 1971, Frey would end up founding, together with Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon, one of the most successful American bands of all time, the Eagles. And although JD (who often abbreviated his first name to his initials) never officially joined the group, he often acted as an unofficial “fifth Eagle” and participated in the composition of a dozen of their songs. Three of them became very famous, New Kid In Town, Best Of My Love y Heartache Tonightbut Souther’s signature also appears in James Dean, Doolin-Dalton, The Sad Cafe and several more titles from the famous quartet.
While roommates with Frey, Souther began dating another of the new big names on the West Coast scene, the heavenly Linda Ronstadt, for whom he wrote some of his most celebrated pages, from Faithless Love a Prisoner In Disguisewhich would end up being the title of the Arizona singer’s 1975 album. But JD never managed to make the leap to popular artist on his own, beyond his enormous influence in country circles. He wasn’t even lucky when he gave birth to a superbanda alongside Chris Hillman, formerly of The Byrds, and Richie Furay, the main architect of Poco. The two albums released under the name The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band were received with little success.
Scalded by his poor reputation as a musical performer, JD Souther would end up devoting his best efforts to his emerging role as an actor, although in 1988 he would still play a relevant role in A Black And White Nighta tribute to Roy Orbison by some of his most illustrious admirers. The ultimate blessing as one of the greatest of his generation came to JD in 2013 when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. A little earlier, in 2007, his old friends from the Eagles had recorded a new LP after a very long recording silence of 27 years, The Long Road Out Of Eden, and they gave him another huge nod by choosing as the first single How Longa song that appeared on John David’s first and eponymous album and that almost no one seemed to remember. It was the last time that Souther could act as “the other” Eagle.