5 Songs You Didn't Know Glenn Frey Wrote For Other Musicians

Glenn Frey was a founding member of the Eagles in the '70s and a major presence as a solo act in the '80s. Yet he still had plenty of creativity left over to write songs for and with a variety of other musicians. As a guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Frey helped the Eagles dominate the '70s with their many No. 1 hits and also had a hand in so many of the band's under-the-radar tracks that should've been bigger. Needless to say, he simply loved to collaborate. Across his multi-decade career, he worked with solo artists to help them find their voice and their sound, contributing tracks that were more appropriate for their albums than any that might have bore his name or that of his mega-successful group.

Some of the biggest names in country rock, country, and soft rock landed many notable tracks, fan favorites, and minor hits when they opted to work with the rock legend. Here are the songs that Glenn Frey quietly helped pen for the likes of Jackson Browne, Nicolette Larson, and more.

Before he was famous, Jackson Browne co-wrote the iconic 1972 Eagles song "Take it Easy," brought to the band's attention by his upstairs neighbor, Glenn Frey, who overheard him working on it. Browne and Frey remained good friends throughout the 1970s, and when the former was readying what would be his smash album "Running on Empty" in 1977, he enlisted the latter's assistance on reworking and updating a dark old folk song he'd been performing live for a couple of years.

Browne knew the tune, about the dangerous lure of addiction, as "Cocaine Blues," recorded in 1965 by the Reverend Gary Davis (the original dates back to the early 20th century under the name "Coco Blues"). Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, and Johnny Cash all covered the song before Browne did, who simplified the title into just "Cocaine" while also making it more complex with the addition of new lyrics. Browne and Frey wrote those together, adding some words of warning while keeping the song mysterious and foreboding. "Cocaine" wasn't a hit single, although Browne very occasionally plays the song live.

Coming to the fore as a session artist and a sweet and soulfully voiced background singer for Neil Young, Nicolette Larson enjoyed a major push from Warner Bros. Records for her first, self-titled 1978 album. For example, Young wrote the LP's hit single "Lotta Love," while Glenn Frey, at the time a member of the Eagles, and his frequent songwriting partner J.D. Souther contributed the album-ending track "Last in Love." A poignant, sad, and poetic lament, "Last in Love" comes from the point of view of a heartbroken individual looking back on a recently failed romance and realizing they may never get over it.

"Last in Love" wasn't released as a single, so it didn't get a chance to hit the charts. But Frey's co-written song helped propel Larson's album to sales of 500,000 copies. Souther thought so much of the team-up with Frey that he re-recorded the song in 1979 for his LP "You're Only Lonely."

J.D. Souther was arguably Glenn Frey's most steadfast creative partner. The pair recorded an album together as Longbranch/Pennywhistle in 1969, and then Frey brought Souther into the Eagles fold, where he helped write hits like "New Kid in Town," "Heartache Tonight," and "Best of My Love." In 1979, Souther issued the solo LP "You're Only Lonely." Along with the slightly retitled "The Last in Love," previously recorded by Nicolette Larson, Souther utilized another fruitful Frey team-up, the B-side opener, "'Til the Bars Burn Down." It's both a slice-of-life depiction and a gentle character study of a group of anonymous heavy drinkers and barflies, a reluctant celebration of life on the booze-soaked fringes of society.

Extremely visceral and unflinching, "'Til the Bars Burn Down" wasn't chosen as a single, with Columbia Records opting for the melancholy and more radio-friendly "You're Only Lonely" instead.

In what he'd later identify as the event that allowed him to break into the musical mainstream, Jimmy Buffett (with his Coral Reefer Band) was asked to open for the Eagles in August 1975. "That was the beginning of a long and lovely friendship," Buffett told Billboard of his relationship with the Eagles' Glenn Frey, who was also his neighbor and who helped him land a high-powered manager. They were work associates, too — Buffett gave the Eagles' Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech and provided background vocals on the Eagles' 1979 song "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks." And for the tune "G****** in the Palace," from Buffett's 1985 LP "Last Mango in Paris," the two country rockers were songwriting collaborators.

It's a mischievous and nostalgic summation of their time spent together at the Mad Dog Ranch, a studio complex and musician hangout in the Rocky Mountains, which the duo lorded over as "the Order of the Sleepless Knights." Buffett issued the song as a single in 1985, and it was a minor hit, reaching No. 56 on the country chart.

Jack Tempchin worked often with Glenn Frey, both in and out of the Eagles. He earned songwriting credits on band classics like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Already Gone," and pieces for several Frey albums, including the title song on the 2012 LP "After Hours." When the Eagles reunited in 1994, it halted work, ultimately permanently, on a long-form collaboration between the two musicians, and after Frey's death in 2016, Tempchin found the project's demos. Among the tracks was a never fully-recorded song, "Once More Time With Feeling." The tune is "kind of a classic, simple lover story with a great groove," Tempchin explained to Billboard. "You can hear Glenn in it a lot. It was just a thrill to finish it."

Tempchin completed the Frey co-written track for a 2019 solo album, which he named after the song. Public consumption of the LP was made possible by another longtime Frey associate: Jimmy Buffet's Mailboat Records made and distributed the album.