Few sounds in rock history are as instantly recognizable as the goosebump-inducing opening acapella of the Eagles "Seven Bridges Road."
However, what millions of fans came to know as a towering highlight of Eagles Live wasn't developed in a recording studio or born from weeks of songwriting sessions. In fact, the song wasn't even meant for the public to hear, nor was it earmarked as a hit.
Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, Randy Meisner, and Timothy B. Schmit were the band's core members when they recorded tracks for what would become their first live album. Selections from the track list were recorded from shows dating back to both 1976 and 1980.
Before each show, the band's five members gathered in a circle, stripped of guitars and studio tricks. One of their favorite songs to sing was Steve Young’s "Seven Bridges Road." The song began strictly as a vocal warm-up, but it quickly reached legendary status.
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"Seven Bridges Road" was written and recorded by Young, who was living in Montgomery, Alabama in 1969 when he was inspired by a real road that crossed seven bridges, according to Alabama Live. Young told The Gadsden Times, as quoted by Alabama Live, "Consciously, when I wrote it, it was just a song about a girl and a road in south Alabama. Now I think there's almost a mystical thing about it."
The Eagles developed their famous five-part a cappella arrangement of the song by adopting the vocal style of British folk singer Iain Matthews. Matthews recorded the tune, produced by Monkees singer and songwriter Michael Nesmith, in 1973.
According to Rhino Records, Nesmith was quoted as saying the following about the Eagles rendition. "Son of a gun if Don or somebody in the Eagles didn’t lift [our] arrangement absolutely note for note for vocal harmony. If they can’t think it up themselves [and] they’ve got to steal it from somebody else, better they should steal it...from me, I guess.”
The song became part of Eagles lore in the '70s. Don Felder said in the book Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974–2001) that when the band began performing at stadiums, they would warm up singing the song. Then, each show would open with the group singing that song into a single microphone.
He wrote that it "blew [the audience] away. It was always a vocally unifying moment, all five voices coming together in harmony."
Eagles Live contains tracks from the Long Beach Arena, the Forum, and the Santa Monica Civic Center. However, there are two bassists on the record, per Rhino, because between 1976 and 1980, the Eagles' original bassist, Meisner, was replaced by Schmit.
"Seven Bridges Road" scraped the Top 20 of Billboard's Hot 100 in February 1981. The song was the final major hit for the Eagles before they disbanded in 1980.
Related: A Country Icon's 'Surreal' Role Saved The Eagles After Glenn Frey's Passing
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