Singer-songwriter JD Souther is known as one of the principal architects of the Southern California sound of the 1970s, penning hits like “Best of My Love,” “New Kid in Town” and “Heartache Tonight” for the Eagles,” and scoring one of his own in 1979 with the Roy Orbison-inspired ballad “You’re Only Lonely.”
What was news to me, and may be to a lot of people, is that for the past 30 years, the celebrated, 69-year-old inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame has spent a month or two in the summers writing songs in the pastoral seclusion of a friend’s West Marin cattle ranch.
“She keeps a couple of houses for writers,” Souther told me while on a business trip to New York, speaking from 73rd floor of a building overlooking Central Park. “The ranch is in that beautiful hill country way back off the road between Petaluma and Point Reyes. I’ve been writing up there since 1987 or ’88. I still go up there and write.”
Souther has famous friends and associates, but he’s one of those low-key talents whose songs are better known than he is. When he made his Sweetwater Music Hall debut in late March, touring in support of his new album, “Tenderness,” old friend Linda Ronstadt was in the audience of the Mill Valley club. When they were young and broke and at the beginning of their careers, they lived together in a bungalow in a little courtyard tucked on a lane behind the Hollywood Bowl. Jackson Browne was their neighbor.
“The first Eagles rehearsals were in the house that Linda and I shared,” he said. “We’d go to the movies in the afternoon and the guys would rehearse in our house.”
Troubadour days
They were all part of the L.A. country rock posse that performed and hung out at the famed West Hollywood club the Troubadour.
“If you think back to that time, ’69, ’70, when we here hanging around the Troubadour, we saw every great songwriter you can think of that came through there — Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Kris Kristofferson, Elton John, Carole King, Tim Hardin. It just went on and on. We were all young songwriters trying to get better at what we do, and it was a great place for a songwriter to go to school. We had a very nice blend of competition and support. We all wanted to show each other how good were and we were all on each other’s side.”
During this time Souther and friend Glenn Frey formed Longbranch/Pennywhistle, a short-lived folk-rock duo whose lone album featured Ry Cooder, drummer Jim Gordon, Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw and the all-time great guitarist James Burton. But their record label was small and the album, despite its all-star cast, didn’t sell.
Southern went on to land a solo deal with David Geffen’s new Asylum Records, recording an eponymous debut solo album that showcased his talent as a songwriter. Frey formed the Eagles with Don Henley.
Not a good fit
Geffen thought Souther would fit right in as a member of the Eagles, joining Frey, Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner. But neither Souther nor the band shared his enthusiasm.
“They had a perfect four-piece band,” Souther said. “They didn’t want or need me and I didn’t want or need them. We were quite happy to continue our friendship and our working relationship as writers.”
Undeterred, Geffen also hooked him up with Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield, Poco) and Chris Hillman (the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers), in the short-lived Souther Hillman Furay Band. After two albums and promising first year of touring, personality clashes and songwriting problems sent the three stars on their separate ways.
“My temperament then was not very well suited to being in a band,” Souther said. “And we never developed as co-writers.”
Souther has always done well enough on his own, and two years after he scored his first solo hit with 1979’s “You’re Only Lonely,” a duet with James Taylor on their song “Her Town, Too,” also soared high into the top 40.
‘The missing years’
After his critically acclaimed 1984 album “Home By Dawn,” though, he quit recording and touring and wouldn’t make another solo record for 24 years, contenting himself to write songs for others, including hits for George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Brooks and Dunn and the Dixie Chicks. He had three songs on Don Henley’s monster solo album, “The End of the Innocence.”
Without the demands of a band, he retreated into the Hollywood Hills to build a dream house he calls “my album for the ’90s.”
“It’s a fantastic house,” he said. “It really was an artistic endeavor. It’s a combination of country and modern Japanese with lots of light. It has very modern shapes with earthy materials — fine-grained Douglas fir with floors that are these beautiful pieces of slate. It’s quite a place.”
But the house couldn’t hold him in L.A., and, like many songwriters, he eventually moved to Nashville, where he still lives.
“After I moved to Nashville I went to Ireland for a month, ostensibly to collect a bunch of poems into a volume,” he said. “But I stayed two months, met a girl and fell in love. We ended up moving to Tennessee and getting married. I sold the house in L.A. because I like Tennessee. I miss L.A. I miss the ocean. But it’s hard to miss the traffic.”
No longer married, he and his ex-wife have a 17-year-old daughter who’s studying ballet at a private dance academy.
“We amicably parted and we have a great kid we’re both in love with,” he said. “So it’s all good.”
A jazzy twist
In 2008, he returned to the studio, recording “If the World Was You,” a jazz album the Tennessean called “either the jazziest singer-songwriter record of our time or the most literate and lyrically sophisticated new jazz record on the market.” For the on the 2011 album “Natural History,” he recorded stripped-down renditions of his hits. It was followed by “Midnight in Tokyo,” recorded live in Japan with a jazz trio.
His new album, “Tenderness,” was influenced by the tunes from the great American songbook he heard his parents play growing up. It’s full of elegant original songs of love and loss, joy and heartbreak set to lush instrumentation, including a string quartet arranged by jazz pianist Billy Childs.
“I was out to tell a particular story with a broader range of instruments and moods but with simple melodies,” he explained. “It’s been described as ‘cinematic.’”
The record has him back on the road, touring with a trio through California, Arizona and Texas with a stop at Sweetwater on July 9.
“It requires a certain mindset to deal with the road,” he said. “You can tolerate the travel if you can still be thrilled by performing, by being on stage playing music with your friends.”
Contact Paul Liberatore at liberatore@marinij.com or 415-382-7283, follow him @LibLarge on Twitter, read his blog at http://blogs.marinij.com/marinmusicman
