“Take It Easy” co-writer Glenn Frey dies

There’s a little corner in Winslow, Arizona, that’s a sadder sight to see

Glenn Frey, a co-founder of the mega-selling country-rock band The Eagles and co-writer of one of its early hits, “Take It Easy,” that made the Route 66 town internationally famous, died Monday at age 67 after suffering from several ailments for weeks.

Frey and co-writer Jackson Browne collaborated on writing “Take It Easy” in 1972, which had this ultimately memorable line:

“Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see,
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowing down to take a look at me.”

The song reached No. 12 on the pop charts for the band’s first hit. It wasn’t the band’s biggest hit by a long shot.

https://youtu.be/FhH3mRkKDX8

But as The Independent in London put it:

Yet it would go on to become of The Eagles most celebrated numbers, and would also help provide an obscure town in the north of Arizona with a celebrity that has lasted down the years.

Last year, it was reported that such has been the fame of that song, and that line, that more than 100,000 people every year visited the former rail hub to place themselves in the setting created by The Eagles. […]

About 15 years ago, the authorities in Winslow decided to try and cash in on their footnote in musical history and erected a statue to commemorate the song.

On the junction of 2nd Street and Kinsley Street, they put up the statue of a man with long hair and a guitar. Someone painted a mural and the town named the spot the Standin’ on the Corner Park.

“People were stopping and taking pictures on corners in Winslow anyway. So they were quite brilliant to realise that they should capitalise on this interest,” local historian Ann-Mary Lutzick, director of the town’s Old Trail Museum, told the Los Angeles Times.

Winslow also is the site of the Standin’ on a Corner Festival, where a slew of bands inevitably do their take on the song.

Browne didn’t even play a show in Winslow until many years later, and the flatbed Ford story happened in another Route 66 town in Arizona, Flagstaff. But Browne said “Winslow” sounded better.

Browne was the one who began writing the song but had trouble finishing it. Frey wrote the last lyrics, the arranged and recorded it as the first song on The Eagles’ debut album.

Glenn Frey wrote and/or sung a slew of other hits that now are part of the American songbook — “New Kid in Town,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “The Heat Is On,” and “Lyin’ Eyes.” The Eagles became the biggest-selling act of the 1970s and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

In his last album just a few years ago, Frey even performed a western-swing-influenced version of Bobby Troup’s “(Get Your Kicks) on Route 66.”

But Frey forever will be known as the guy who fronted The Eagles and providing a lot of notoriety to that Arizona town. It wouldn’t be surprising if mourners this week leave a few flowers in front of that statue at Standin’ on a Corner Park.

UPDATE: Apparently little memorials already were popping up at the Winslow statue:

According to several people on Facebook, an unofficial memorial will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Standin’ on a Corner Park in Winslow.

UPDATE 2/16/2015: Most of the surviving members of The Eagles, plus “Take It Easy” co-writer Jackson Browne, assembled during the Grammys to play that song in Frey’s tribute one last time. The fact original guitarist Bernie Leadon came back is a big deal, and it gives a finality to the performance.

https://youtu.be/NQ4HBBZJOf4

(Image of Standin’ on a Corner Park in Winslow, Arizona, by all in green; image of Glenn Frey during an Eagles concert in 2008 by Steve Alexander, both via Flickr)