Bernie Leadon
Mirror

Leadon. Bernie Leadon. I admired this man when I was young. He appeared to me as the most "right," without contradictions and drawbacks, among the Eagles. Prepared, skillful, multifaceted, efficient, and brilliant, while the others, although all talented and charming, betrayed their anxiety (Henley), bullying (Frey), insecurity (Meisner). His voice was just normal, but still solid and suitable; much more was conveyed through his performances on the mandolin, banjo, dobro, steel guitar, acoustic, and electric guitars, capable of providing nourishing seasoning and depth to all the band's songs, keeping them in that country rock area less universally commercial but certainly more peculiar and ultimately... likable and fresh.

And then the songs from the Eagles' repertoire written by his pen pleased me tremendously: the rock blues "Witchy Woman," the rocking and very acoustic "Train Leaves Here This Morning," the banjo-driven "Earlybird" that exploded live in a virtuous nine-minute performance; and also the snappy "Twenty-one," the desert-like and supreme masterpiece "Bitter Creek," the touching ode to Graham Parsons "My Man," another masterpiece... Even the quiet and jazzy "I Wish You Peace" convinced me, with its bunch of sophisticated and skewed chords.

The Eagles from when Leadon was there are the right ones to frame the band with all the deserved merits. The subsequent albums without him are chewed up, quarrelsome, vain. The atmosphere in the last three albums spreads a patina of negativity, overcooked, unlikable. Being related to the years of huge success, they are responsible for the bad light in which this group is held by a significant portion of Italian music enthusiasts. But the first four albums with Leadon weren't like that; they sounded vital, flourishing, and lively, and an adequate portion of the credit was his, considering that instrumentally the interesting things were contributed by him, while the others mainly focused on composing (well) and singing (excellently).

All this mastery of Leadon that I extolled, his versatility on so many different instruments, his compositional depth, are unfortunately not reaffirmed in this, which is the only solo work he managed to publish (in 2003). The album is only pleasant, not offering pages that make a mark and add glory to the man. As expected, they are all electro-acoustic ballads, more or less rhythmic, with instruments kept simple, too simple!, without thematic outbursts. And even Leadon's singing doesn't seem as rounded and accurate as it was in his youth... there's something blurred, modest, as if besides hair and mustaches, the artist has lost his dexterity, his class over the years.

There is nothing wrong, there's just... a narrowness of intent, mediocrity, an instinct of a follower that emerges. Listening to the album several times, of course, the brain adapts to what the convent passes and starts to surface sensations of decent entertainment, pleasant company, adequate performance. But I don't feel like pointing out any of the nine episodes contained. Giving a passing grade to the work of one of the Eagles (the very one who found the name for the band, incidentally) is equivalent to being disappointed by it, but so it is.