Jack Tempchin

Jack Tempchin, the singer-songwriter who wrote Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and co-wrote the group's hit "Already Gone," among others, honors late friend and collaborator Glenn Frey with his sparse, poignant new version of "Part of You, Part of Me." The duo originally co-wrote the track for the 1991 road drama Thelma & Louise.

"Peaceful Easy Feeling" songwriter tells humorous stories behind the hits and details his upcoming LP saluting the late Eagle
In a video for the song, which marks the one-year anniversary of Frey's death earlier this week, Tempchin plays acoustic guitar as he gazes at the ocean. The song's wise, nostalgic lyrics take on new meaning in this context, as the songwriter croons, "Whatever time may take away, it cannot change the way we feel today."

The stripped-back "Part of You," out officially on January 20th, highlights Tempchin's upcoming Frey tribute LP, Peaceful Easy Feeling, tentatively slated for March. The album features new interpretations of the duo's most famous collaborations, including "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Already Gone" alongside Frey solo tracks like "The One You Love." The album will also include several previously unrecorded tunes they penned together.

On Wednesday, Rolling Stone premiered "Glenn Song," Bob Seger's tribute to the singer-songwriter. The tender song recounted the duo's long friendship, with Seger crooning, "When I think about you I always smile. You were strong/You were sharp/But you had the deepest heart." -RYAN REED #jacktempchin - ROLLING STONE

Singer-songwriter Jack Tempchin has built a distinguished discography out of the songs he's written for other artists, but he's a veteran recording artist in his own right — and we've got a taste of his latest effort, One More Song, right here.
The new album, available for purchase now, finds Tempchin rounding up some stray tracks from his back pages, revisiting old favorites and debuting new songs — including "Song for You," a number co-written with Celtic Thunder member Keith Harkin. "He’s an Irish guy and has an incredible facility melodically and also he made up the guitar part for that," Tempchin tells Ultimate Classic Rock. "And that was so strong I put it on there."
"Song for You," which you can check out above, fits in with a set of songs that deliberately hearken back to the period Tempchin refers to as his "coffeehouse days" — the late '60s and early '70s, when he made his musical bones alongside peers and friends like Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther and Glenn Frey.
"You got onstage and communicated with the audience, and that’s what I tried to recapture with this album," says Tempchin. "I even went back and recorded some songs that I had written back then that I’d never recorded. I tried to make it like you went into a coffeehouse and you kind of heard a set like you would have back then."

Our exclusive premiere of "Song for You" coincides with the 44th anniversary of the day Frey's Eagles debuted their version of Tempchin's "Peaceful Easy Feeling" — a single that earned a place of honor on the band's wildly popular Greatest Hits 1971-1975 LP. Fittingly, that earlier track started out in a coffeehouse too.
"I kind of put every beautiful girl I saw into that song. I used to carry around my $13 Stella guitar that I’d bought in a pawn shop and I would play it everywhere," Tempchin recalls. "I was staying up at Jackson Browne’s house in L.A., because he and Glenn and J.D. were going to introduce me to David Geffen to make me a star. Glenn came in and he heard me playing that song and he said, 'I’ve got a band that I’ve had for eight days. Do you mind if we work your song up?'"

The rest was rock 'n' roll history — and Tempchin's still writing it. Watch his new video for "Song for You" above, and find more details about One More Song at his site. - JEFF GILES - ULTIMATE CLASSIC ROCK

As the writer of such rock classics as the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Already Gone," Jack Tempchin is one of the most revered songwriters in the business — a songwriter who stumbled upon his job almost by accident.

"I was just a guy who went to the coffee house and listened to everybody," he tells Rolling Stone Country. "I didn't play guitar until I was about 18. I would play a blues song and my friends who were actually good players would come up and say, 'What the heck did you do to that song?' So I started just writing my own songs so no one could tell if I messed them up."

Those songs began gaining attention in the coffee houses of San Diego, where Tempchin and his pals were hanging out. That's where he met legendary singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton.

"He was a hero of mine and then became a friend of mine, and he was just awesome in concert," Tempchin recalls. "So I threw a little party after the gig, and he was there. I played this song for him ["Circle Ties That Bind"], and he started doing this song in his show. So it was other people wanting my songs, learning them and playing them and after that happened three or four times only then did I go, 'Oh, maybe I'm a songwriter.' Not like these days where everyone picks up a guitar and they just assume they are going to write all their own songs. It was different. I waited until people said, 'Yeah! We want to do these.'"

Over the years, Tempchin has had his songs recorded by a diverse list of artists, including George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, Tanya Tucker, Olivia Newton John, Tom Rush and Glen Campbell. It all started for him on the coffee house circuit in the late Sixties and early Seventies. "At one point, I was running open mic nights at three or four coffee houses and making a living doing that," he says. "And then Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther came down to play at one of the coffee houses. That's how I met them and Jackson Browne. . . Then I don't know why, but every coffee house in San Diego closed in 1972, so I was faced with the challenge of what to do with my life. That's when I started to go up to Los Angeles and hung around the Troubadour, which was really happening."

Tempchin's big break as a songwriter came when his pal Frey heard a new song he'd written and wanted to record it with a new band he'd just formed. "When Glenn put the Eagles together, he came by Jackson's house where I was and I was playing my new song. He asked what that was and I put it on a cassette for him. He said he had a new band and they'd only been together for eight days. They were working up some songs and wanted to play them for the record company and he wanted to work that song up. It was 'Peaceful Easy Feeling.' He came back the next day and said, 'Here's what we worked up. How do you like it?' I thought it was incredible! Then they took it to different label heads and they put them three feet from the band in this tiny little rehearsal thing. They did a show and got signed. . . and then they became the Eagles."

"Peaceful Easy Feeling" became the third single released from the Eagles' debut album and went on to become one of their most iconic hits. Temchin came up for the idea while playing a coffee house gig in El Centro, California. "The waitress said I could go home with her later, and then she disappears," he remembers with a laugh. "I'd already told my friends to leave, so I got stuck sleeping on the linoleum floor of this mini mall coffee house and that's when I started the song. I started writing all these lyrics on the back of a poster [advertising my show]. The poster is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame now. I wrote some really stupid lyrics at first that weren't any good and then I kept writing and all of a sudden I noticed I had written the phrase 'peaceful easy feeling.'

"When I went back to San Diego, I was falling in love with a lot of beautiful women, and I tried to put each one of them in the song," he continues, "but the rest of the story is my genius friend, Glenn Frey took the song and put just the right musical arrangement, just the right attitude. He recorded it in an amazing way so you feel like you are out in the desert. That's another reason why everybody likes the song is the amazing job he did of figuring out a perfect way to record it — and his great singing on it."

The Eagles, J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne and Tempchin are considered among the architects of the Southern California Sound that defined much of America's musical landscape in the Seventies. When asked if he was aware at the time the impact they would have, Tempchin replies that Frey "probably" did, only because of his vast knowledge of all genres of music.

"He knew all the players, all the songs, and he had a sense of bringing it all together, like country music that he loved," Tempchin says of Frey. "And then there were other people in front of the Eagles who were doing the same thing — the Byrds, Crosby, Stills and Nash. . . They were taking country and rock, and it was being blended. The times happen, and you are just on the train. Sometimes you see where it's going, sometimes you don't. But we knew it was great and we knew it was going somewhere."

Though Tempchin wrote "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and co-wrote another early Eagles hit, "Already Gone," with Robb Strandlund, it was 10 years before he and Frey started co-writing. "The Eagles took a vacation in 1980 and Glenn called and said, 'Come on over and lets write some songs. The first night I go over there, he has a hundred candles burning and some great bottles of red wine and I go, 'Glenn, what's going on? Do you have a date later?' He said, 'No man, the songwriter muse is up there. We're going to write some songs and I want her to come down and hang with us.' I think we wrote 'The One You Love,' our first hit that night. . . One thing about Glenn, unlike anybody else, he could somehow see and sniff out the woman's point of view to a song, like 'The One You Love' or 'Lyin' Eyes,' and it was just so fortunate for me that my great friend also turned out to be one of the greatest songwriters of our time. So together we started writing and we wrote most all of Glenn's hits [including] 'Smuggler's Blues' and 'You Belong In The City.' It was a fantastic time."


Tempchin's next album on Blue Elan Records will be a tribute to Frey, who passed away last January. "I've been working on this album of all the hits I wrote with Glenn and it's coming out in January," he says. "Some of the songs I did exactly like the Eagles, because that's the way we wrote them and that's the way I want to hear them. And then there's going to be five or six songs I wrote with Glenn that never got recorded Unfortunately, it won't be Glenn singing them. It will just be me, but I still want to get them out. I'm looking forward to that."

The Frey tribute follows One More Song, Tempchin's album released last month that finds him returning to his troubadour roots. He co-wrote the title track, a soulful story song, with Keith Harken of Celtic Thunder. [Watch the video for "One More Song" above.] And instead of typical album promotion for the project, he continues in his oddly wonderful tradition of playing pop up shows, where he writes songs on the spot and shares them immediately with the audience. "Everybody does crazy things and they don't know why," he says, laughing. "I like to play on the street and just have people walking by. I was up in L.A. and I passed this place that said 'for rent by the night,' so I rented it out for two nights and created a pop up club. It was free to get in and people just came in off the street. They didn't know what was going on. I make up all the songs, on the spot for the whole gig. I'm not going to play any songs I know or any songs I've already written.

"Why do I like doing stuff like that? I don't know, but I do," he continues. "I still go down to the beach every other day or so and play songs down there, and sometimes I go downtown and play on 5th Avenue in San Diego. It's just fun."

Tempchin is on the road this fall, where he actually will play tunes from One More Song. Check out his tour dates here. . . just don't check out his guitar playing too closely.


"I was never a very good player, and it didn't bother me. It's all about, 'Here's my new song and I'm trying to get it across. Do you feel my new song?'" Tempchin reasons. "If I had been a better guitar player, I'd been more concerned, 'Am I playing good?' If I'd been a better singer like millions of people are, they're going, 'How does my voice sound? How is my phrasing?' But I really wasn't. I was only concerned with reaching the people with the song and making that connection. That's what carries over for me and what's important about a song when I write it. There's a million ways to write a song. There's a million reasons. I always focused on the communication part. I try to get people's hearts and make them feel something that I was feeling when I wrote it. Maybe that's why my songs are still here." - DEBORAH EVANS PRICE - ROLLING STONE

On Jack Tempchin’s new album Peaceful Easy Feeling, he takes a crack at recording some of his songs that others, most notably the Eagles and his longtime collaborator Glenn Frey, immortalized. In an interview with American Songwriter, Jack talked at length about making this wonderful new album with special guests, his unique songwriting process with Frey, and some of the high points in his stunning songwriting legacy.

What made you decide to do this songbook style album at this point in your career?

Well, I have to admit that it was my record company, Blue Elan. They have been fabulous to me. And when they signed me, they wanted me to do an album of the hits I’d written. It’s just kind of obvious. But they actually let me make 2 ½ albums first of all original material. So that was a beautiful thing for them to do on my behalf. So then it came time to deliver the album that they really wanted.

It was very challenging having to do, for example, “Peaceful Easy Feeling” when everyone has already heard the exact record. I mean if I played “Peaceful Easy Feeling” with a band, the people want to hear the same guitar solo. They don’t want to hear some new version. So I had to decide how to do each song. Some of them, like “Peaceful,” I love the way the Eagles did it, so I just did it as closely as I could to that. And others I decided to take a completely different approach.

For instance, you return “Already Gone” to its roots as a country song here, after the Eagles famously turned it into a rocker.

That was very challenging. I’m thinking, “How am I going to do this? I can’t do it like the Eagles.” But when I got Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, we just got in the studio and knocked that out. They bring a total authenticity to whatever they’re doing. They are the real thing. And so I was so thrilled to get a version that I loved that’s different from the Eagles but still feels like me. I added an extra verse at the end that’s not in the original.

Was the extra verse something you wrote specifically for this project?

I had used it a couple of times over the years. So I just remembered it and decided to give them something they’re not expecting.

When you were writing songs like that, did you think about making them malleable enough to be changed around or was that just a natural quality in your songwriting?

I think it was natural because I did not think about that. And I did not know people would be recording the songs. I just hadn’t thought that far ahead.

I think people who hear the album might be surprised when they hear some of the hits that you wrote for others. Tell me about writing “Swaying To The Music (Slow Dancing)” and how it ended up in the hands of Johnny Rivers.

It started in a bar in El Cajon where my friend was playing. His band was playing and nobody would get on the dance floor until he played the slow songs. Then everybody got on. And I realized that people want to squish up against each other, so they wait for a slow song. I thought, “Hey, there should be a song called ‘Slow Dancing.’” I started writing it, and at the same time I was falling in love with my girlfriend who later became my wife. It just fell together. It took me about three days of writing it constantly every minute. It’s a very simple song, but it just all fell together exactly the way I wanted it to.

I record it with the Funky Kings, the band I was in, and it was produced by Paul Rothchild. We were on Clive Davis’ label and it got up to #60 in the Billboard chart with me singing it. And then it kind of stalled. But Johnny Rivers heard it on the radio. He wrote “Poor Side Of Town,” but most of his songs he was famous for just finding. I think he was probably the first to record a song by Jackson Browne, by all kinds of people. He made a lot of songs famous and he’s got a really good song sense. So he said, “This is a pretty good song. Too bad that I can’t record it. It’s already a hit.” Somebody told him, “No, Johnny, it’s not a hit. It only got up to #60.” So he recorded it and he actually made it a hit by personally taking it to every radio station in the South. He really worked it. But the main thing of course is that he made a fantastic version of it. I didn’t know him at the time, but since then we’ve come really good friends and written a lot of songs together.

The press release for the album mentions the style you had of writing songs with Glenn Frey as “El Blurto”. What was that process like?

First thing I should say is that Glenn Frey was the funniest person I ever knew. He would always have names for every procedure and for everybody. Everybody had nicknames, and, he’d say, you know, “Let’s run this play now.” He was an organizer and a leader, but very, very funny. “El Blurto” was his name for what we did when we just got in a good mood, sat there with a couple of acoustic guitars, and just made stuff up. Just make up songs, and then sometimes we’d record them on a cassette. We’d write it all down and then look at it later and pick the good parts. And then over morning coffee with a yellow pad, we would work on what we had done the night before with “El Blurto.”

But you have to trust the other person. When you’re “El Blurto-ing,” you say a lot of really stupid things. It’s hard to maintain any dignity. Fortunately Glenn and I had been friends for ten years before we ever started to write songs together. So we were quite comfortable and that’s how we did it.

I was really struck by how the songs you chose captured kind of the essence of your writing partnership with Glenn, with the soulful songs like “The One You Love” and “Soul Searchin’” joined by gritty, harder-rocking tracks like “Privacy” and “Party Town.” Was it important to strike that balance?

Yeah, I wanted to represent what we did. I upped the heat on some of the songs, made them more rocking like “Privacy.” I actually have a whole second album of hits with him, like “You Belong To The City” and some of our biggest hits that I didn’t even put on there. And there are four bonus tracks that aren’t on the CD but you get on iTunes. One of them was “Somebody,” that was on the Eagles last album.

I started this album six months or so before Glenn died. And I talked to him about it. “You know, I’m doing an album of all our stuff,” and he said, “Great.” So it’s not like something I did after the fact.

You get some help from some special guests on the album like Chris Hillman and Rita Coolidge. That must have been a thrill to have them join you on this special project.

It was fantastic. I knew Chris before because I’d written a song with him for the Desert Rose Band. But when he said that he would record some things with me, he and Herb Pedersen, I was just thrilled. The other collaborations came about through the record company. Blue Elan signed Rita Coolidge. I hadn’t met her before. She came up and sang on “Slow Dancing,” and she was great.

And then Janiva Magness, they suggested I have her sing on some stuff. And it was really cool, because, first of all, I altered some of the lyrics for the song “I Found Somebody,” which is one of the bonus tracks, and made that into a duet. “Soul Searchin’” starts with Janiva singing, and as soon as she went in the booth and started singing this record – oh man, she is the real thing as far as a blues artist and a fabulous vocalist.

I don’t think there will be too many dry eyes among people who hear your version of “It’s Your World Now.” Obviously when you and Glenn wrote that song, you couldn’t have ever expected the poignant turn it would take. The emotion in your voice is audible on the record when you perform it. Was performing it almost like a therapeutic thing to help you deal with Glenn’s passing?

That was done after he died, and it was one of the last things I did. I struggled with it. It’s the last song on the last Eagles album. He did it with a mariachi band. So I just looked at it and I said, “Well, I don’t think I can really pull that off.”

But I remember every minute of siting in my little house in LA when we were writing that song. And it was coming together and I was thinking this is a parent’s song to their kid. Glenn’s song to all his kids. But there was no clue at point that Glenn wasn’t going to be around. I was just kind of thinking this is the way it is: Raise your kids and at some point you step out of the picture.

And then he came up with the lines: “It’s your world now/ Use well your time/ Be part of something good/ Leave something good behind.” And we were sitting there and I just got a chill when he came up with those lines. I don’t know, he just wanted to say something, and we wrestled with it and we got it.

Doing it myself with Chris Hillman, I just sang it. And I found it very moving, you know. Chris played bass, like he did with The Byrds. And when you listen, it’s not like anybody else playing bass. So I was so happy with the way that came out.

I’m sure this album was like that as whole for you, where every song brings with a different memory.

I remember writing the songs. And I would sit there late at night, and the producer had gone home and I’d listen to something and just say, “Oh my, look where we are now.” You know Glenn’s gone. It was quite a journey.

This album presents a pretty impressive songwriting legacy. Could you have ever imagined that was coming when you first wrote “Peaceful Easy Feeling” all those years ago?

I think I had no idea at all. And having no idea kind of went through every stage of what I did. But I got to do everything I wanted. I spent years as an opening act for big acts. I opened for Christopher Cross and Ringo. So I got to travel the country and play all these famous places. And I got to make records. But I never knew what was coming next. -JIM B. - AMERICAN SONGWRITER

This is a subtly superb release from a guy who will always be associated with and known for his song-writing with one of modern music’s hugely successful US bands, the Eagles. The title track remains one of the Eagles all-time great numbers and Tempchin was the guy who fleshed it out with a lazy, West Coast feel and understanding.

Tempchin has a career that now reaches back around half a century, a career often fuelled, no doubt, by dope but always driven by music. The Eagles-sounding delivery and style echoes clearly, resonating throughout this release. At times, Tempchin draws on a stylistically modern country undercurrent with some quality pedal and lap-steel sliding through the mix. Country queen Rita Coolidge pops up on shared vocals on one track, “Slow Dancing,” while blueslady Janiva Magness features on another, “Soul Searchin’.”’ Chris Hillman also helps out, guaranteeing a stamp of quality.

For the most part, and as a memorial tribute to his old buddy, Glenn Frey of Eagles frontman fame, the songs included here represent and reflect Tempchin’s shared writing with Frey, who passed away in 2016. And though Tempchin is always linked to the legendary band, he has also written extensively and successfully down the years with material covered by many greats including Emmylou Harris, Glen Campbell, Tom Waits and a host of others.

Peaceful Easy Feeling is just that, an album that smacks of laid-back skill and ability, a mature confidence and a self-assured delivery that simply glows and glistens track on track. A little bit of beauty, for sure.

—Iain Patience - ELMORE MAGAZINE

With the release of Peaceful Easy Feeling: The Songs of Jack Tempchin, the soulfully seasoned singer-songwriter is experiencing a career renaissance that defies the conventional musical biography story. You know the one. It tells how the songwriter rides into the musical sunset of obscurity. But if Tempchin has been anything, he's been tenacious. There's been no sunset or obscurity here. Case in point: Tempchin has turned out a new album that is inspired, energized as it honors his good friend and collaborator, Eagle co-founder, the late Glenn Frey. The album's dedication is to Frey and it could just as easily been a tribute to him as it displays Tempchin's considerable contributions to music since his arrival on the music scene nearly five decades past. Peaceful Easy Feeling is a reminder of how diverse and versatile a songwriter can be. The test of any one known for this craft is how well their songs hold up being covered by other artists from different genres. This has been one of his trademark skills, the ability to hear and create the song as it then becomes a vehicle for the interpreter. Here, Tempchin digs deep into his treasury. He comes up with a collection of his hits and best known songs. The album reveals that Tempchin has traveled in the shadows of the music industry bringing light with an eye (and ear) for what makes for a timeless and enduring song.

As the writer of The Eagles 1972 hit song,“Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” he walks the talk of a great songwriter who has honed his craft over the years. The term ‘great’ is not used casually here. It has happened over time and with help from friends. Since the late 1960s, when he first met Glenn Frey, a unique friendship began to take hold. It was a friendship that would help shape the future of American rock music. But it happened over a period of years in mostly unassuming ways. The musical chemistry became a bond that kept them working together until Frey’s untimely death in 2016.

Tempchin, in 1969, was the quintessential counter-culture hippie complete with a van, a huge old house that included a candle factory, which he described as his ‘beloved hippie crash pad.’ When Frey’s band with J.D. Souther folded, Tempchin made his way from San Diego to Los Angeles. In 1971, Linda Ronstadt was beginning her solo-career. She was looking for a tour band when she met J.D. Souther and Glen Frey. She hired Frey for his guitar skill along with Bernie Leadon and a Texas singer-songwriter drummer named Don Henley. She had her band. Soon, The Eagles were formed and began their own flight as a band from Los Angeles to be reckoned with.

One day when Tempchin and Frey were in Jackson Browne’s house in the L.A. district, Echo Park, Jack played him a song he had written at a San Diego Weinerschnitzel. The song was meant to woo and win over a waitress. It was “Peaceful, Easy Feeling.” It was the third hit song from The Eagles’ eponymous debut album. According to Tempchin, he had written it with just guitar and vocal. Tempchin recorded it on a small cassette player for Frey. When he returned with the finished version by The Eagles, Jack was nearly speechless. He said the vocal harmonies and the arrangement lifted the song to a new level.



1972 began Tempchin’s professional career as a songwriter. Since that time his songs have been recorded by Glen Campbell, Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Rivers, Tanya Tucker, and Tom Waits among many others.

During the Eagles’ 14-year hiatus-from 1980 to 1994-Tempchin and Frey seamlessly continued their songwriting team. They wrote songs like “Soul Searching” “Smuggler’s Blues,” “You Belong to the City, and “Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody.” These songs sent Frey into a successful solo career and solidified Tempchin’s status as a songwriter.

Now into his 45th year as a songwriter Tempchin has embarked on a new chapter in an already storied career. In 2014, Jack was signed to a new dream deal with the upcoming Los Angeles based, Blue Elan Records. The label has focused on Americana, alt country and a new generation of singer-songwriters.

The move resulted in a new breath of life for Tempchin’s creativity and energy. He is still at the top of the songwriting game. Since 2014, he has released four albums of mostly new material with a contemporary feel to them.

However, Peaceful Easy Feeling: The Songs of Jack Tempchin consists of re-recordings of classic songs some of which may come as a suprise to the casual listener. The selections include collaborations with Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen on an acoustically-based rousing version of “Already Gone.” Rita Coolidge sounds as soulful than ever as she duets with Tempchin on the Johnny Rivers hit, “Slow Dancing.” Tempchin recreates the gospel-R&B feel of “Soul Searching,” with vocalist, Janiva Magness.

The album has its share of rockers including blues-rocker, “Everybody’s Gonne Love Somebody Tonight,” “Party Town,” and “Privacy.” The ballads go as mellow as “Slow Dancing,” and “Your World Now.” The country songs are beautifully driven with mandolins and finely honed acoustic guitar and a fine undertow of a pedal steel playing throughout.

Although he’s now a veteran of the Laurel Canyon Sound and the San Diego music scene, this new release has shown that it’s never too late to start again. Especially when the road behind and, I’d wager, the one ahead is strewn with songs that carry the depth and breadth of this unique songwriter. With the spirit of Glenn Frey echoing in his voice, Jack Tempchin is on a path that will inevitably lead him to the Great American Songbook. -TERRY ROLAND - NO DEPRESSION

The secret to success as a songwriter is pretty simple, according to veteran musician Jack Tempchin, who wrote or co-wrote monster hits for the Eagles including “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Already Gone,” not to mention numerous others for that group’s co-founder Glenn Frey as a solo artist.
As he told an audience Wednesday at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, "Just make friends with a lot of really great songwriters and do it 10 or 20 years before they all become famous."
The San Diego native was referring, of course, to the friendships he cultivated starting in the mid-1960s with the likes of Frey — before he and Don Henley started the Eagles — plus celebrated Southland singers and songwriters such as J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne and others who came to define the Southern California rock sound of the 1970s.
Tempchin is an affable fellow who knows how to tell a story. He has plenty to share from his 50-plus-year career. He had numerous collaborations with Frey, including "The One You Love," "You Belong to the City," "Smuggler's Blues" and "Soul Searchin,'" and also penned "Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancing)," a 1977 hit for Johnny Rivers, and others for a slew of country artists.
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During his question-answer session with the museum's executive director, Scott Goldman, Tempchin was illuminating about the art of songwriting, but generally kept the tone light, such as when asked about his writerly discipline.
He responded saying he had experimented with writing daily regardless of what else was going on, yielding a raft of songs "that I threw out because they were no good."
Tempchin said that in his case, inspiration is at least as crucial as perspiration.
Much of the evening's discussion revolved around his friendship and working partnership with Frey, who died last year at 67 from rheumatiod arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia. The group is resurfacing this weekend for the Classic West Festival on Saturday and Sunday, when the revived act will be joined by country singer Vince Gill and Frey's son, budding musician Deacon Frey, who will share vocals on the many Eagles hits Glenn Frey sang.
Tempchin said that despite having provided the Eagles with a couple of early hits, his songwriting partnership with Frey didn't start until the Eagles went on hiatus in the early '80s. Because of the celebrated creative tension that often was part of the Frey-Henley songwriting process, "Glenn just wanted to have some fun, so he called me and asked me to come over and try writing together."
Tempchin said that when he arrived at Frey's Hollywood Hills house, he encountered a dark, atmospheric room illuminated by candles and filled with flowers.
"I said to him, 'Do you have a date coming over later?' He said, 'No, it's the muse, man! She's coming down to visit someone tonight, and I want to make sure it's us!'"
Tempchin's forthcoming Aug. 25 album, "Peaceful Easy Feeling: The Songs of Jack Tempchin," features his versions of his best known songs, many of which he never recorded. The work boasts guest singers including the Byrds' Chris Hillman, Rita Coolidge, Herb Pedersen and Janiva Magness.
"This record hasn't been released yet," he quipped, "but it's already full of hits." As Tempchin notes in the album's booklet, "Except for my song 'Slow Dancing,' all the songs on this record were either recorded by or written with Glenn. Glenn and I always had a fabulous time writing songs together. First we would talk about our lives and laugh. He was the funniest person I ever had the pleasure to know.
"Then we would sit around my kitchen table or in his little green house in Hawaii or in a rock star mansion he rented in the Hollywood Hills, and we would pick up several small Martin guitars and star noodling and jamming .… It was my good fortune that my buddy happened to be one of the best songwriters of our time and that I got to work with him." - RANDY LEWIS - LOS ANGELES TIMES

Jack Tempchin and Glenn Frey had much in common when they struck up a lifelong friendship at a San Diego music club called the Candy Company in the late 1960s.

It was a few years before Frey co-founded the Eagles, whose classic songs “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and ”Already Gone” Tempchin wrote and co-wrote, respectively. And it was more than a decade before he and Tempchin teamed up to write a slew of Frey’s solo hits, including “Smuggler’s Blues,” “The One You Love” and “You Belong To The City” (which has been sampled by Jay-Z, Coolio, DJ Fresh and others).

At the time of their first encounter in San Diego nearly 50 years ago, Tempchin and Frey were gifted young singer-songwriters dreaming of fame and fortune. Both were working on the fringes of the music industry — Tempchin as a local solo act, Frey with fellow troubadour J.D. Souther in the Los Angeles country-rock duo Longbranch​​ ​​​​​Pennywhistle.

“Glenn and J.D. had made an album in 1969 for Amos Records. But for all intents and purposes, they were unknown, just like me,” Tempchin recalls of Souther and Frey, who died in early 2016 at the age of 67.

“I saw them play at the Candy Company, and I thought: ‘These guys are really something very special and interesting.’ I invited them to stay at my house — a hippie crash pad with a candle factory in the garage, on Center Street, a block off Park Blvd. — and we just really hit it off.”

Just how well is vividly demonstrated on the new album, “Peaceful Easy Feeling — The Songs of Jack Tempchin.” Due for release Friday on Blue Élan Records, it’s a touching musical valentine to his friendship and creative partnership with the former Eagle. Tempchin will perform a free record release show Friday night at Lou’s Records in Encinitas.

Apart from “Slow Dancing,” the Tempchin-penned song that was a Top 10 hit for Johnny Rivers in 1977, the new album consists entirely of Tempchin’s recently recorded versions of songs he and Frey co-wrote. It also features his fresh takes on “Already Gone” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” as well as cameos by Rock Hall of Famer (and former Rancho Santa Fe resident) Chris Hillman, Fallbrook resident Rita Coolidge and other musical guests.

As an added bonus, the album also includes “Privacy” and “Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody Tonight.” Both are vibrant, hard-rocking songs by Tempchin and Frey that have never appeared on record before.

Glenn Frey (left) and Jack Tempchin are shown in 2013 in Los Angeles at the 27th annual Charles Dick
Glenn Frey (left) and Jack Tempchin are shown in 2013 in Los Angeles at the 27th annual Charles Dickens Dinner presented by the USC Thornton School of Music. (Steve Cohn Photography)
“I didn’t write anything with Glenn until I’d known him for more than 10 years,” said Tempchin, whose songs have also been recorded by Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Olivia Newton John, Patty Loveless, San Diego’s The Paladins, the late Glen Campbell and others.

“Glenn did ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ and ‘Already Gone’ with the Eagles, but we never tried to write a song until they broke up (in 1980). Once he got in the Eagles, he was busy! It didn’t occur to us to write together before then.”

Tempchin co-wrote songs on all six of Frey’s solo albums, including 11 on 1992’s “Strange Weather,” six on 1984’s “The Allnighter,” and the torch ballad-ish title track for “After Hours,” Frey’s 2012 album of classic jazz ballads. Apart from Eagles’ co-founder Don Henley, Frey co-wrote more songs with Tempchin than anyone else.

“I’d heard Glenn say the first song he and Don Henley wrote together was ‘Desperado’,” Tempchin recalled.

“But, apparently, over the years it became more difficult for them to write together. So Glenn just wanted to have some fun with me.”

It’s been nearly 40 years since the two got together to write songs for Frey’s debut solo album, 1982’s “No Fun Aloud.” Tempchin​​ still​​​​​ vividly recalls the details.

“Glenn called me and I came up to the house in the Hollywood Hills he was renting. It used to belong to James Cagney and had one giant room with a huge fireplace,” Tempchin said.

‘I was making up songs before I even got to the door and Glenn just loved that. He said: ‘Hey, it’s not going to be hard!’ He lit 100 candles and had some great bottles of red wine ‘to attract the muse.’ Glenn said: ‘It must be up there — and since a lot of guys are writing songs tonight — we’d like the muse to come down and hang with us!’

“We blurted out two songs — ‘The One You Love’ and ‘I Found Somebody’ — the first night, so he was thrilled. And every song was different.”

In 1976, Tempchin formed the Funky Kings with fellow singer-songwriters Jules Shear and Richard Stekol in Los Angeles. Released the same year, the Funky Kings’ self-titled debut album for Arista Records remains an unsung country-rock classic.

Alas, despite being publicly cited by Arista honcho Clive Davis as an act destined for major stardom, the group’s career was short-lived. In 1978, Tempchin released his self-titled debut album, which went largely unnoticed. The Eagles disbanded two years later and he subsequently received the fateful phone call from Frey to get together to write some songs.

Jack Tempchin on the cover of his self-titled 1978 solo debut album.
Jack Tempchin on the cover of his self-titled 1978 solo debut album. (Arista Records)
Tempchin lives in Encinitas with his wife, Sheryl. A late-bloomer, he didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 18. But Tempchin soon developed a talent for writing well-constructed, no-nonsense songs that struck a strong emotional chord.

Frey, conversely, began piano lessons at the age of 5 and guitar soon thereafter. His teaming with Tempchin — who graduated from SDSU with a triple major in music, psychology and English — clicked for several reasons.

“I think it was an advantage we became friends before he became famous, because you have to trust each other to write together,” said Tempchin, who in 1973 co-wrote and performed the song “Tijuana” with fellow San Diego troubadour Tom Waits.

“Not everybody can do it, but Glenn was confident he could say anything to me — in terms of making up stories and songs — and I felt the same way. It’s hard to do that with people you don’t know as well. He had a million opportunities to write with other people the whole time he was with me. And, sometimes, he did.”

Tempchin, who now has 13 solo albums to his credit, chuckled.

“My joke,” he said, “is if that if you want to make it as a songwriter, meet a couple of super-famous rock stars and get to know them 10 years before they get famous!”

He grew more serious.

“In the 47 years I knew him, Glenn didn’t seem to change. He was a master — not a jack — of all trades, including everything having to do with people. He was an extremely funny guy. And, on any project, he was like the quarterback. He’d call the plays, knew how to pick the players and make them function as a team.

“Irving Azoff, the Eagles’ manager, said Glenn taught him more than anybody else about business. As Glenn got more and more famous, he had to deal with a million things. But our relationship stayed the same. We’d usually sit down, just the two of us, and write songs for days. We’d hang out in this magical place of our friendship and work together.”

‘Peaceful Easy Feeeling’ soars with the Eagles

One of Frey’s gifts was his ability to quickly sense how an embryonic new song should sound in its final form. He had the acumen to turn those initial concepts into polished realities.

Tempchin learned this first hand after Frey heard him play “Peaceful Easy Feeling” when both were at Jackson Browne’s Los Angeles apartment in early 1972.

“Glenn said: ‘I like that.’ Then he had me play the song again and recorded it on a cassette. The next day, he said: ‘I have a new band that’s been together for eight days, and we worked up your song.’ He played it for me. I loved it.

“It was the way I wrote it. But I did not have a sense of what the drums or bass would play, or how the harmonies would go, and that was one of Glenn’s super strong points. They used to call him ‘The Lone Arranger!’ ”

Jack Tempchin performs in 2016 in front of the shuttered Hillcrest Wienerschitzel, where he complete
Jack Tempchin performs in 2016 in front of the shuttered Hillcrest Wienerschitzel, where he completed writing the Eagles' hit "Peaceful Easy Feeling" in 1972. (David Brooks / Union-Tribune)
The origin of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” — which Tempchin began writing in El Centro and completed at the now defunct Der Wienerschitzel in Hillcrest — is a story in itself.

"People then would have (perceived) me as a weirdo, longhair hippie guy with a guitar. Unless they were one, too, in which case they would have looked at me, and thought: 'Cool guy!'," Tempchin recalled in a 2012 Union-Tribune interview about the song that put him on the map.

The Union-Tribune article about the genesis of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” caught the attention of then-San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and some Wienerschnitzel executives.

In late 2012, Tempchin was honored with a proclamation issued by Sanders declaring "Peaceful Easy Feeling Day" in San Diego.

The ceremony was held in front of the Hillcrest Wienerschnitzel outlet, where the fast-food company dedicated a table to Tempchin, replete with a plaque commemorating the writing of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” at the location. For good measure, the company also presented him with its highest honor, the Golden Wiener.

Alas, the plaque — which had been welded to the table — was subsequently stolen. By spring of 2016, the Hillcrest Wienerschnitzel location had been shuttered.

“I’m flattered by the fact someone wanted that plaque!” said Tempchin, who still has his Golden Wiener.

Tempchin cites several pretty young women as the initial inspiration for “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Given the benefit of hindsight, he cites another, more significant, inspiration as well.

“I’ve come to think that, really, where that song came from was my father,” Tempchin said.

“My dad earlier in his life, was on track to be a professional baseball player. But then World War II came along and, by the time he came back, that (baseball career) was not an option. So he became a milkman to support his family. He just had an attitude about life where he wanted to avoid conflict and he wasn’t ambitious like most people. He just wanted his family to be provided for.

“So, I realized later that the whole ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ approach to life, well, that was him. And I did get to share that with him.”

The deluxe version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling — The Songs of Jack Tempchin” features four bonus songs. It does not include “Smuggler’s Blues,” “True Love” and some of the biggest hits he and Frey co-wrote.

“I have enough to do ‘Vol. II,’ but that’s up to the record company,” said Tempchin, who did not choose the title for “Peaceful Easy Feeling — The Songs of Jack Tempchin,” but feels its is appropriate.

“Basiclally, as a recording artist, I’m still totally unknown. So I thought: ‘Let’s just tell people, right here on the (album) cover what this is’,” he said.

“I did have a lot of serious thoughts of my friend Glenn when I did this new record. Especially when I was singing, I was trying to do them like he did. It was an amazing experience to re-live all my memories of him.”

You don’t know Jack (Tempchin, that is)

1. He was the second manager of the Back Door, the legendary (now sadly defunct) live music club at SDSU.

Tempchin: “I did that for about two years. starting in the late 1960s. I began by rebuilding the whole place, including the stage and sound booth. Glenn (Frey) helped me get a 30-foot high pile of carpets into my truck and then into the Back Door; it was a hell of a job! I did all the promotion and booked all the acts, including Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, David Blue, Tom Waits and Glenn and J.D. (Souther). Glenn played there on his own one time and he was there the night Robb Strandlund and I wrote and first played ‘Already Gone’.”

2. He co-owned Stingaree, one of the most popular bars and live music clubs in North County.

Tempchin: “I bought it with two partners and they ran it. This was in 1976 and ‘77, the same time I was in (top Los Angeles country-rock band) the Funky Kings. We only played there once. Rosie and The Screamers, with Rosie Flores, was the Stingaree’s house band, and it was packed every night for two years. The Stingaree seemed like it was profitable. But we didn’t really know how to run a bar, so it ended up losing money. It’s still there — it’s called First Street Bar — and looks the same.”

3. In 2000 and 2001, he led the all-star Big Monday house band for two years at The Joint in Beverly Hills.

Tempchin: “I paid the band and put everything together. The core band was Waddy Wachtel on guitar, Phil Jones on drums, Rick Rojas on bass, Terry Reid and Bernard Fowler on vocals, and me. We played 100 shows there and I encouraged guests to drop by. Johnny Rivers and George Thorogood sat in a lot. We also had Donovan, George Clinton, Roger Daltrey Darryl Jones, Joe Walsh and a bunch of other people. ... The guests were doing it for free, because they loved the music.”

4. In 1992, after becoming disillusioned with music, he briefly tried real estate.

Tempchin: “I bought a couple of houses and rented them out. I thought I’d wait and flip ‘em when the time came, and make some money doing that. Sure enough, I made money, because everybody made money flipping back then. I got the money, looked at the experience, and said: ‘Where’s the thrill in this?’ I took me eight to nine months to get my guitar playing back in shape. I said: ‘Never again.’ And I’ve never put the guitar down again.

5. During his hiatus from music in 1992, he wrote an unfinished play called “Candy Land.”

Tempchin: “It started off well, but the plot didn’t go anywhere.”​​​​

- GEORGE VARGA - SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE

Forty-five years ago, the Eagles’ hit “Peaceful Easy Feeling was birthed, and instead of this writer giving you the story behind the song, here is Jack Tempchin’s own exclusive words as well as a premiere of his current video of the Eagles classic (above).

“I was playing the coffeehouse circuit and folk music clubs in San Diego, California, where I grew up. A friend made a poster with false quotes about me, all lies that he made up and attributed to various famous people. The poster found its way to a coffee house called The Aquarius in El Centro, California. I guess the owner believed it, because he hired me!
“The Aquarius was a small club in a mini mall. It was my first time out in the desert, and the view of the stars was amazing. I was attracted to a waitress there, but unfortunately, I guess she did not feel the same way about me, because she went home without me. I wound up sleeping on the floor in the club with my guitar instead of the girl. It was then that I started writing ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’ It was right on the back of the poster my friend made. Some verses weren’t good at all, but as you can see, I did get the phrase, ‘peaceful easy feeling.’
“I went back to San Diego where I was living in a big house with a lot of other guys… music hippies like myself. We’d sit in front of the picture window and watch the beautiful girls on the bus stop bench and fall in love with them until their bus came. We talked in those days about how love never seems to show up until you stop looking for it. But, as young guys, we were unable to stop looking for love, even for one day.
“Next, I went to a street fair in Old Town and saw a girl wearing turquoise earrings against her dark skin. I never spoke with her but I put her in the first line of the song. I guess I was trying to distill the beauty of every girl I saw into words on paper and then into a song.
“Soon, Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther were helping me to hook me up with a record deal in Los Angeles. I was staying at Jackson’s tiny apartment in Silverlake and sitting in his piano room playing my new song. Glenn Frey heard it and came to ask me what it was. He said he had a new band [Eagles] that had only been together for eight days and he wanted to know if I’d mind if they worked it up.
“The next day he brought me a cassette of what they had done with it. It was so good I couldn’t believe it. A few months later, they went to the UK and recorded their first album. When they got back, Glenn played some of the cuts for me—“Take It Easy,” “Witchy Woman,” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” As I listened to these amazing cuts, I immediately knew it was the best record I had ever heard.
“That same year, my girlfriend and I traveled in a Volkswagen bus across the U.S. About halfway up the California coast, in somebody’s kitchen that we met on the road, I heard ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ playing for the first time over the airwaves by the Eagles. It was coming out of a small transistor radio that was sitting on top of their refrigerator. I will never forget that moment.
“Since then, the song has found a life of its own out in the big world… Like a kid who leaves home and does great things. I’m so glad to share the story with you of how, when and where it was written. And how, thanks to Glenn Frey and the Eagles, it soon became ‘everyone’s song’.” - MIKE RAGOGNA - HUFFINGTON POST

Some would judge Tempchins narratives as marginally cynical. Id counter that his grasp of lifes realities is truly level headed. -Arthur Wood - MAVERICK MAGAZINE UK

"The result is a dozen songs — each performed and recorded with impeccable taste — that subtly unfold with repeated listenings. Matters of the heart predominate." -San Diego Union Tribune Sunday feature by George Varga (view more at link) - San Diego Union Tribune

"Both (CD & EP) find Tempchin in fine artistic fettle, emboldened by a restless creative spirit and stubborn refusal to rest on his lofty laurels..."

His name may not be familiar to most music fans but over the past for decades the extraordinary body of work by singer/songwriter Jack Tempchin has served as the musical soundtrack for millions of listeners around the globe.

His C.V. is impressive, notching covers by the likes of Eagles, Emmylou Harris, Glen Campbell, Johnny Rivers and co-writes with a who’s who of music including Tom Waits, the Eagles’ Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner, George Jones, Desert Rose Band, J.D. Souther and others.

Perhaps best known for penning the Eagles monster hits Peaceful Easy Feeling and Already Gone and Swayin’ To The Music (Slow Dancin) by Johnny Rivers, Jack Tempchin is a formidable artist in his own right. He’s just released a new EP, Room to Run with a full length CD, Learning to Dance, to follow in late August. Both find Tempchin in fine artistic fettle, emboldened by a restless creative spirit and stubborn refusal to rest on his lofty laurels...

Read interview at Rock Cellar Magazine. By Ken Sharp. - Rock Cellar Magazine

Jack Tempchin met Glenn Frey before he was famous. When Frey put together his band, The Eagles, they recorded Tempchin’s “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and forever forged Jack’s path as a songwriter.

When The Eagles recorded Tempchin’s “Already Gone,” another song was plucked from obscurity and became an unlikely hit. Something about Frey’s voice, wrapped in those amazing Eagles harmonies, on Tempchin’s words and music, was both haunting and inviting. So when The Eagles broke up, he turned to Tempchin to co-write solo material, including the decade-defining “You Belong To The City,” composed for “Miami Vice,” as well as “Smuggler’s Blues,” “The One You Love,” “I Found Somebody” and “True Love.”

Born in Ohio, Tempchin was raised in San Diego, where he had a big house by Balboa Park – with a candle factory in its garage – that became a beloved hippie crash pad. Frey, who was in a duo then with J.D. Souther called Longbranch Pennywhistle, spent the night at Tempchin’s house. Tempchin played them “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and Frey loved it so much he taped it. The next day Frey told him he had a new band that had been together eight days, and they wanted to record the song. Tempchin’s reaction: ““Whoa, yeah!”

Tempchin wrote “Peaceful Easy Feeling” during a gig in El Centro. “The waitress I was gonna take home changed her mind,” he says. “So I just picked up my guitar and wrote some really stupid lyrics. You have to write a lot of really bad stuff before you come up with good stuff. I was falling in love with every woman I saw, even from a distance and put them into the song. I wrote the final verse at the Weinerschnitzel on Washington Avenue waiting for a Polish hot dog. If you were a woman in San Diego around that time, you could be in this song. But you’d never know.”

Frey and The Eagles went to England to record the first album. When they came back, Frey played it for Tempchin who was overwhelmed: “I told him it was the best thing I had ever heard! I had heard Glenn play solo, but I had no idea he was such a great arranger, and harmony singer … I felt it was the best album ever.”

Asked why he wasn’t in The Eagles, he said, “Because I wasn’t good enough.” As for “Peaceful,” he never expected it to be a hit: “It is not a normal love song. But the Eagles, with their arrangement, breathed all this life into it. I remember when Glenn first heard it, he suggested I make it a little more vague, so more people could relate to it.”

It was with his pal Robb Strandlund that Tempchin wrote a country song that became a pop hit: “We got drunk in a back room in a coffee house at San Diego State,” remembered Jack, “and wrote ‘Already Gone.’ In about fifteen minutes. It just kind of came right out.”

When it came time for the third Eagles album, Frey turned again to Tempchin for material. He called and said, “You know that country song? I think we want to make it a rock song.” That was “Already Gone.” As Tempchin recalled, “I thought this is gonna be a piece of cake, this songwriting thing! Glenn and I called our songwriting method ‘El Blurto.’ Just blurt out anything. Then type it up.”

“You Belong To The City” was blurted out when Tempchin and Frey were sent a tape of a new TV show called “Miami Vice.” “The sax,” he said, “the whole feel, was inspired by the style and vibe of that show. We wrote it quickly.”

His biggest non-Eagles hit is “Swaying To The Music (Slow Dancing).” Recorded first by his own band The Funky Kings, which also featured Jules Shear, it later became a hit for Johnny Rivers. It was born at a San Diego club upon recognition that people waited for the slow dance, so as to get close to the girl they loved: “I thought, there needs to be a slow dancing song. And also I was just falling in love with the woman who became my wife, and it all ended up as ‘Slow Dancing.’”

Johnny Rivers heard the Funky Kings version on the radio, and discovering it was not a hit yet, recorded it and made it a hit: “[Johnny] has a way of interpreting a song where you don’t think he’s a great singer, you just think, ‘Wow, that is a great song.’”

Besides writing classic songs for and with others, Tempchin continues to seriously write ones for his own, and his most recent album is Learning To Dance, filled with beautifully crafted and inspired songs.

“There’s really nothing in the world like songwriting,” he said. “It has given me this wonderful life. To spend your days writing songs that the world can share, that is a good life. And, to this day, there’s nothing I love more than being in my car and listening to what I call Jack radio, all my demos and recordings of my songs. I never get tired of hearing them.”

Asked how he first started writing songs, he said, “I heard a Bob Dylan album at a party. Everyone was saying, ‘Nawww – that guy sounds funny!’ And I thought, ‘Whoa – that’s it.’ So I tried to be Bob Dylan over and over again in my life. And it always never worked. ‘Cause I am not him.” - American Songwriter

"The threads that weave through Tempchin’s earlier work and his newer material are the quality of his narrative storytelling and the crystalline musical sound of every one of the songs."

Mention Jack Tempchin, and the words “Peaceful Easy Feeling” come immediately to mind. So do “Already Gone,” “Slow Dancin’ (Swayin’ to the Music),” “Smuggler’s Blues,” and “You Belong to the City,” among many, many others. He’s written songs that have been recorded by artists as diverse as Emmylou Harris, Tom Rush, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Patty Loveless.

Yet, Tempchin doesn’t sit still and doesn’t want to live in the past, and he’s just released an EP, Room to Run, of four new songs that he either wrote himself or co-wrote with others, and his new album, Learning to Dance, hits the store shelves on August 21. “I have millions of songs rushing through my head today, and a real passion for recording them and playing them live.”

The threads that weave through Tempchin’s earlier work and his newer material are the quality of his narrative storytelling and the crystalline musical sound of every one of the songs. His reflective songwriting on his EP runs from the personal—in “Room to Run” he meditates on the relationship between a father and son: "My daddy always gave me room to run"—to the universal—in “Jesus and Mohammed,” he ponders what might happen if Jesus and Mohammed sat down together and looked at all the discord their followers are now sowing in their name: “Jesus and Mohammed/Sitting underneath a tree/Mohammed said they’re fighting/Over you and me…How did all our words of love/Bring us to this day?”

Tempchin remains deeply passionate about the power of songs: “Songs change people. Songs enlighten and delight. Songs bring lives together.”

I caught up with Tempchin by phone recently, and he shared his infectious enthusiasm for writing, music, and his two new projects.

By Henry Carrigan. Read Interview at No Depression... - No Depression

A Conversation with Jack Tempchin

Mike Ragogna: Jack, what got you into music?

Jack Tempchin: Probably listening to Harry Belafonte. I think he had the number one album in this country for seven years or something.

MR: I imagine you were exposed to that through your parents?

JT: Yeah, and listening to music on the transistor radio under the covers and hearing all different kinds of music and just walking around trying to whistle out songs. Then I bought a harmonica and started playing it on the street, walking around. Then the whole music thing happened with Bob Dylan and the folk era and eventually I started being a blues harmonica player, then I moved in to being a guitar playing songwriter and then full-on head or what they call now a "hippie." That era came along and I was ahead of the curve, being a little older than the other people. I was a year ahead of everybody else at taking drugs, having long hair, being free.

MR: So you were there to watch the folk scare turn into the country rock scare.

JT: Oh yeah, I was there through that whole thing. I was an avid folk guy, mostly I was into the blues at first, discovering Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Johnson and all those guys, and then all the other music came along. My roommate got a KLH stereo, which was a turntable with a couple of speakers all packed together in a little suitcase. He took the speakers off and spread them on either side of the room and suddenly we had stereo. It was the best thing I'd ever heard. He brought home Jimi Hendrix's first record and we'd listen to it and go, "Wow." The music that kept coming in was so mindboggling. But meanwhile I was playing folk in coffeehouses, meeting people like Hoyt Axton. Then I met a duo that came down from LA called Longbranch Pennywhistle, which was J.D. Souther and Glenn Frey. I invited them to stay with me in my big hippie pad where we had a candle shop in the garage, we made candles and sold them at the Del Mar Fair here in San Diego. Those two guys became my good friends and still are to this day. That was about five or six years before the Eagles got put together.

MR: Did you write together often?

JT: I wrote one song in the interim with J.D. I'd only written one or two songs with him, one was recorded by Trisha Yearwood. I didn't start writing with Glenn until I'd known him for ten years and the Eagles had broken up. They had recorded a couple of my songs, and then he had a song I'd given him that he was going to put on his new solo album, so he called me to come over and write. We wrote two hits the first day, it was just fabulous. We were already great friends, so that was just a beautiful thing. We wrote for about fourteen years, which I guess is the time the Eagles were broken up. I think it was that long. I co-wrote most of the stuff on his solo records and we had a couple hits too.

MR: That was an interesting period. It almost seemed like the Eagles served as a hub for a lot of acts, J.D. Souther being one. Even Randy Newman with "Short People" and "Rider In The Rain." That must have been one hell of a time.

JT: It was one hell of a time. Some things are planned, some things are business, but none of this was. This was organic and it was about the music. All these people really, really knew each other very well and were very good friends. Also being inspired by all the work that everyone was doing. It was real in that sense. The record business wasn't pulling the music, the music was pushing the record business. The music was coming out of the musicians and going to the people who were then buying it and telling the record companies where to go. It wasn't the other way around.

MR: And that's obvious to see, we're in an era now where everything has fallen apart. People like to blame it on piracy but I would add major labels abandoned the fans--in their case, customers who were loyal and already liked to buy records and CDs--by cutting maturing acts loose.

JT: And at some point, I woke up and said, "What happened to Kris Kristofferson?" You love these people, you know they're still writing, they think of themselves as writers. But like you say, the music business just abandoned that. Frank Sinatra, he just kept making albums, but no one's interested in the Eagles' new material.

MR: Out of sight, out of mind.

JT: You kind of go, "Wait, how did the music ever get into the driver's seat in the first place?" When I talk to my son and I say, "it's kind of hard to get paid anymore," he says, "Well, you know, Dad, the period where writers got paid was kind of just in your lifetime. It didn't happen that much before and it's not going to happen after. You just have to look at that as an anomaly."

MR: Your son's a musician?

JT: No, he's not a musician, he's a computer guy.

MR: Cool. That was a really interesting observation.

JT: I guess so. You'd like to jam with your kid, but he sees music as a limited art. You just write the song and it stays right there and doesn't react. A program is the real art form.

MR: Right on. Hey, "Peaceful Easy Feeling" was your first real big hit, right?

JT: Oh, yeah!

MR: And then you went on to have a career at Arista when Clive Davis had taken interest in singer-songwriters. Where did you take Jack Tempchin as a recording artist after that?

JT: Well, I made a few albums but none of them had any hit singles on them. I made a couple albums for Arista, one with The Funky Kings, we had that single "Slow Dancing" that Johnny Rivers made into a hit later. Our version only got up to number sixty. I did go out on the road as an opening act for about ten years. My manager managed Kenny Loggins, so I started going on tour with him. I did the first Christopher Cross tour when his album first came out. I opened for everybody from Tower Of Power to Chicago, I was a solo opening act until '95 when I was the opening act for the Ringo All-Starr Tour.

MR: Oh, nice! What was it like traveling around with that entourage?

JT: It was fantastic, I've got to tell you, it was fantastic. Felix Cavaliere, Mark Farner, Randy Bachman and John Entwistle were all in Ringo's band. Hanging with those guys, hearing them tell stories of the band... It was great.

MR: Joe Walsh?

JT: Not in that band. Ringo has a different band every time. Of course, I know Joe, he's now Ringo's brother-in-law, that's a great development there. I did a lot of touring then. Around 1980, I got back with Glenn and we wrote songs for those years, so I would also go in and be there during the recording of the whole album, mostly because I was learning how to make records. I took time doing that and then things shifted. I started going to Nashville every year for a while. I tried writing songs with some of those professional Nashville writers. I met some great friends there and some guys who were really good, so that was a lot of fun. I just try to keep reinventing myself as a guy who has something to do. In my latest project I've just kind of reduced it to taking any songs I write and doing a solo video of the songs and putting it up on YouTube so people can get the song. Making an album doesn't seem to make any financial sense anymore. It's hard to know what to do now because everything's so different. I can't quit though! I feel like my brain is exploding with new material, and I'm just as good if not better than I ever was. Maybe the world doesn't care, I don't know, but you just have to keep finding a way to have something to do and maybe find someone who's interested.

MR: Lately, you've brought video-recording into your life. What's the story on this new venture?

JT: I'm also a consumer of music, too, and it's real enjoyable to cruise YouTube and see stuff. I'd just been thinking about the video aspect for a long time. I just feel good about it. If I make a video it only takes a day or two. And it's satisfying, because then you get it done and that song's done, whereas an album takes a really long time and it's really a lot of work. It's great, but f you put one out and nobody listens to it you start thinking, "Wow, do I want to do that again for three months, or maybe I'll just proceed one song at a time." I also feel like I try to raise the quality of the video so it catches the nuances of the audio things that I'm doing. It makes the song and the delivery more powerful--until I get a video where I watch it and say, "Okay, here's the star. I did it real good, I was thinking about the song the whole time, and boom, there it is. It's done and it's ready for people to like it if they're going to." Then I can just keep doing it here and see what reaction it gets. I have a Facebook page that my manager Bradshaw [Lambert] mostly runs for me. We've got a hundred thousand likes, I don't know what that means but I think it's pretty good. They like it so they're in the stream or whatever. But where does it all go these days? I don't know. One guy in a movie goes, "I don't care about the money, money's just how you keep score." But the money is kind of a way that says, "Hey, a whole bunch of people liked that song." In a way, that's what you're really looking for.

MR: Has it been satisfying?

JT: Oh yeah, it's wonderful. The only thing I'm trying to avoid is sitting down and writing a song and saying, "Hey, I've got this, this is good, I like it," and then having no one to hear it. If you start doing that a whole bunch, that's what takes away from you being able to keep making songs and being happy. If I put it up there, it'll go, "Oh, sixty people looked at it." I've played a lot of gigs in my life that had less than sixty people there. It just gives me a little bit of proportion. That's a lot of people to enjoy something. It's much more satisfying. I just put up a song called "Ain't Nobody Like You," and I'm going, "Boom, end of the line." People can go up there and dig it and tell me they dig it and complete the circle.

MR: You've had so many hits with Glenn Frey, like "You Belong To The City," "Smuggler's Blues," "The One You Love," "I Found Somebody" and more. You must be kind of happy about that, no?

JT: Oh yeah, it was a dream! I'm writing with my friend but my friend happens to be one of the best writers there is. And he's also an artist and producer who can make hits out of the stuff we write. For a writer, it doesn't get any better than that. That's just amazing, really.

MR: After having co-written "Already Gone" and other hits, did you feel it was cool to have a lower profile life? You know, like being able to have any kind of life you wanted since you weren't in the spotlight like an Eagle?

JT: That's right. There's an interesting movie called Twenty Feet From Stardom you probably saw, it's about background singers and how great they are, but it also talks about why they're not the front man if they're only twenty feet away. It asks the front men, it asks Bruce Springsteen and it asks Sting and those guys and they're saying, "Well, yeah, but that twenty feet is a long way." What I'm trying to say, really, is that I wasn't cut out to be one of those guys. Having been close to the Eagles and seeing that happen and being close to their famous bands and all, I just have to say that those guys work ten times as hard as I'm even able to work. They have a different temperament. Those guys can take it. They can take it again and again and again and never stop. I just feel like I'm right where I should be, because man, I couldn't do that. I'm staring to write a song now called "Ordinary, Everyday, Run-Of-The-Mill, Man Of Steel."

MR: [laughs] Nice.

JT: It's my admiration for these guys. Everybody thinks you stumble into success, but I don't think so. The first thing is they always outwork the other guy by ten to one. I just thought, "This is where I belong." I'm Midnight Jack, I stay up late, I have to do what I can with the limited energy I've got, I don't thrive on conflict, you know what I'm saying? These are all things you can't be a rockstar with. Rockstars get up early, they fight all day. I don't know how to put it, but I think it answers your question. I just feel like yes, it's great not having all the acclaim I wouldn't have wanted and couldn't have handled anyway.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

JT: Wow. I noticed you asked Irving Azoff that and he said, "Be born thirty years earlier."

MR: [laughs] Yes he did!

JT: But actually, for the first time, they're going to have something called Songwriter Camp in Las Vegas next month--this guy puts on rock 'n' roll fantasy camps, so I'm going to go mentor some songwriters and see how that goes. But I'll tell you this. What I think is everything in the music field is actually better than it ever was. I can go on Spotify and I can follow the trail of any kind of music I want, and I can listen to it right now. We used to have to go down to the store and try to find a record. The Stones spent half their time trying to get a blues record over to England. In a lot of ways the music thing is great. The only way it's not great is getting paid. I'll be damned if I can think of any way to get paid. But what I think is the wheel is turning about that. First it was just songwriters and musicians, now movie people, too. The digital wave moves through everything. it's changing everything. I hope that getting paid wheel moves along and people can get paid. Otherwise, they've stolen their own dreams. It used to be one in ten thousand people wanted to be a musician and be a rock star. Now it seems like it's a career choice. There's a school. "Oh, you want to be a rock star? Well go to this school and learn how to play." There are so many people doing it and yet none of them know that there's no money anymore.

MR: I always felt there's a bit of a vulture culture going on there. Is it fantasy camp or a predatory school?

JT: Uh-huh. They could've achieved some of that dream, but--I'm not against people downloading for free, I don't blame the people. You opened up the company store at night with nobody there, so people went in and got stuff.

MR: Well, in my opinion, Napster sort of threw a brick through the window. Labels just didn't have the foresight to lock the front doors in a credible way.

JT: Right. They created this environment, it's all good but the people who collect the music and present it to you get all the money and none of the creators right now. But then the question is, "What does a guy do?" and I don't know. A guy can proceed full-on in music but just be aware that it's going to be really difficult to get any money. I don't know if Kickstarter is the answer or what.

MR: If your son had decided to go into music instead of computers, would this have been the frank conversation you would've had with him?

JT: Yeah, I would have to sit down and say, "How do you think you're going to go about earning a living from this?" [laughs] Of course, my parents did that, too. There was no answer, but now it's even like if you have a success and you don't get paid, then in that sense, how are you going to earn a living? Then you try to get a viral video. I talked to my friend Tom Rush, he had a viral video but it didn't do him any good.

MR: What are you going to do to capitalize on the promotion you'll get from going viral?

JT: Sometimes there's something you can do and sometimes there isn't. He already had a whole career, he's been a folk guy for many years.

MR: His version of your song "East Of Eden" was great.

JT: Yeah, it's very nice. But then you just go, "Never mind on me getting a viral video, then," and what do you try to do? I guess the answer is, "Everything you can think of."

MR: I think after all the self-promotion, there has to come a point where it's, "Okay, now that I've done that, what is it that I really want accomplished?"

JT: I used to run this club called The Backdoor at San Diego State University but nobody would show up. I had Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and all these great concerts I promoted. I thought it was the way I was advertising the shows, so I figured out a way to put posters on the stairways into the college so that I only needed ten posters and everyone saw--It still didn't work. Finally, I put on a show one time that was old movies and free popcorn for twenty-five cents. The place sold out and we had a huge line of people who couldn't get in. I realized that I wasn't giving the people what they wanted. It wasn't the advertising, it wasn't the promotion, it was what I was selling and they didn't want it. As soon as I gave them something they wanted, bam, they were there by the hundreds. That's the whole thing about self promotion on the internet, everybody I know is sitting there trying to figure out how to make a webpage because they think they should have one and I just don't know if it's going to do them any good.

MR: It can be so quick, temporary, then devastating.

JT: Yeah, it's like, "Boom, you're ready for the big time!" Wait a minute, there are no places to play for people to work out how to be a player. I used to get fifty bucks to play the blues in a bar 35 years ago. If I go out now I'll get paid maybe fifty bucks. I'm just noticing that all the other numbers have gone up by a factor of twenty to thirty to forty since that time, but the amount that I get paid stays the same.

MR: Do you think that's because there's too much musical proliferation? Maybe music is now supplying another kind of need, like a rite of passage for kids going through an artistic phase and using that medium?

JT: Boy, I don't know about that. That would be kind of sad. At a certain point, some people are writing songs and then I see these apps come out that will write a song for you, all you have to do is dictate the words. I dictate in the words and it comes out with a pretty cool song with a backing track and everything and I'm going, "Okay Jack, everyone always said they're not going to be able to make a computer to write songs," and I've always said, "Yes, they will, it'll just take a while and I'd like to write as many cool songs as I can before that happens."

MR: So what's the future beyond videos for you?

JT: Well I'm pondering that right now. I'm going to do a show in Nashville on October 4th, which is put on by the Bluebird, it's called Bluebird On The Mountain. But in terms of my general future, these videos may be it for a while. I'll just keep doing those, and then I'd like to build up so when I go out and play I have a playing audience that comes and sees me, I'd like to make that a little bigger and do some more playing. Maybe if I write something that I think could be a little movie or cool little short video with a story or something, I might try to get into something like that. I'll just try to get the songs to keep coming through and put them in any project I can. - The Huffington Post

As a songwriter, Jack Tempchin has had plenty of big hits with the Eagles, Glenn Frey, Johnny Rivers and others. But for his new solo album, One More Song, due Sept. 2 through Blue Elan Records, Tempchin preferred a smaller way of doing things.

"This is a lot less produced. It's more back down to the man and the song," Tempchin tells Billboard about the follow-up to last year's Learning To Dance -- an approach showcased in the track "Song For You," which is premiered exclusively below. "I've got about four songs on this with bass and drums; The others are just me and a guitar, me and a piano," he says. "I'm kind of getting back to my musical roots of the coffee house days, where it's just a guy and a song. It just seemed like the last five, six years I've been playing solo instead of with a band, so it's where I'm at. I go down to the beach and jam with my guitar every day, so that's how I feel comfortable."

One More Song is titled after one of the nine new songs on the set, which has previously been recorded by former Eagles' bassist Randy Meisner and Kate Wolf and performed live by Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt. The album also includes a re-recording of Tempchin-penned Rivers hit "Slow Dancing," while the gentle, reassuring "Song For You" was co-written with Keith Harkin of Celtic Thunder and was inspired by Alex Woodard, creator of the For The Sender music and book initiative.

"He stopped writing songs for himself and started writing songs based on letters his fans would send him, and he put together a group of Grammy-winning friends of his to make an album, and I'm part of that group," Tempchin says. "Basically other people's lives are in trouble and he writes a song for them. So I was thinking about (Woodward) and what he does when I wrote 'Song For You,' and it all seemed to fit well together into a song."

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Tempchin is shooting a video for One More Song's title track and will be playing live throughout the year and into 2017. We won't have to wait long for his next release, either; In January, Tempchin is putting out an album featuring recordings of the hits he wrote for others, as well as some songs intended for other artists that were never recorded. "I'm really excited about this album," says Tempchin, who's still in the recording process.

"I'm doing some of the songs just like the Glenn Frey version or just like the Eagles version, and then other songs I'm doing them a little bit differently. It just depends on how I want to hear them." There will also likely be some songs he and Frey, who passed away in January, never got around to tracking. "There are a few of those, just songs I wrote with Glenn that never got recorded," he says. "So I'm going to have a couple new Glenn Frey/Jack Tempchin songs that no one's ever heard on this album, which I think will be of interest to a lot of people." - Billboard

Many songwriters are unsung heroes. Many write award-winning lyrics, but remain in the shadows. However, hitmaker Jack Tempchin doesnt fall into any of these categories. Tempchin, a vessel for sun-soaked messages and slow, mellow rhythms, manages to stay in the forefront, a lyricist with a passion for performing. With hits like Peaceful, Easy Feeling and Already Gone, he blazed a trail for easy-listening country rock and has been penning timeless, sterling tunes ever since. The prolific songwriter recently took time to speak to Examiner.com about his career... - Examiner.com

The CD/DVD set Live at Tales From the Tavern captures Jack Tempchin performing some of his best-known songs and a few other quirky originals in front of an audience. Tempchin’s contributions to the Eagles catalog included “Already Gone” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling. He also wrote big hits with Glen Frey, including “The One You Love” and “You Belong to the City.” The best moments may be his rendition of “Slow Dancing” and “Amy,” an ode to infidelity with women of the same name. It’s a fun and intimate performance, and the stripped-down versions are often revealing. - SUN209.com - Ken Paulson

Peaceful Easy Feeling wine takes its name from Tempchins classic song, which The Eagles recorded in 1972 and subsequently featured on their 'Greatest Hits' album. Tempchin also co-wrote another Eagles hit 'Already Gone' as well as co-writing some of the biggest solo hits by Eagles mainstay Glenn Frey.

"I just sent Glenn a few bottles," Tempchin said. "I called him last year and asked, to make sure it was OK with him for me to do this in the first place. He said: 'Hey, its your song, man'. Basically, he was saying (The Eagles) don’t mind a bit. I sent him a few bottles, so he can check it out before the wine hits the world... - San Diego Union Tribune

Room To Run looks to distant horizons and suggests that this distinguished songwriter has plenty more exceptional music yet to come...

After making his mark as a songwriter of note for the Eagles (“Already Gone,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling” et. al.) as well as for Tom Waits, J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne and other harbingers of the fabled Laurel Canyon sound, Jack Tempchin returns with a modest four song EP that bodes well for a full slate of promised upcoming new releases. Tempchin’s solo recordings have been somewhat hit-or-miss over the past few decades, but happily, Room to Run shows there’s been no lapse of quality from those earlier endeavors.

Read ROOM RUN review by Lee Zimmerman at Elmore Magazine. - Elmore Magazine

“Jack is a guy who doesn’t get enough credit. What a great songwriter he is!” said Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, who lived near Tempchin in Encinitas between 1995 and 2001... - San Diego Union Tribune

As a hit songwriter best known for his era defining co-writes for the Eagles, “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Already Gone,” Tempchin could probably sleep as late as he wishes. But he is a creative man of action. In Los Angeles, he performs at the Hotel Cafe or The Piano Bar, and he is priming a secret Hollywood locale for invitation-only after-hours confabs. In Nashville, he commands the stage at the fabled Bluebird Cafe. - Music Connection Magazine

Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but there’s a bootleg recording from 1973 of Jack Tempchin (with his friend Tom Waits) performing a song called “Tijuana” at Lou Curtiss’ Folk Art Rare Records. The mood of the song is playful, homespun, and jocular as the two San Diegans harmonize about the challenges of driving home after a bender down South. The recording was made just before the two made history of their own.

Jack Tempchin’s life after 1973 would be a whirlwind of rock star fantasies. He would write some of the finest and best-selling pop songs of the last 50 years. He would tour with the likes of Ringo Starr. He would spend the next 35-plus years in the spotlight as a performer and bandleader.

Much of that changed, however, a few years ago when Tempchin decided to go back to his folk roots. Instead of performing with a backing band, Jack began gigging solo, alone on stage with just his voice, an acoustic guitar, and his harmonica. This is the Jack Tempchin that first began playing the San Diego folk circuit in the mid-’60s at places like La Mesa’s Candy Company and SDSU’s Backdoor.

The latest chapter in this new phase is the album titled Live at Tales from the Tavern. (Tales from the Tavern is a venue in Santa Ynez, near Solvang, California, which regularly features an all-star who’s-who from the 1960s and 70s folk-rock scene including David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Herb Pedersen.) The Tempchin CD also comes with a DVD recording of the same show.

The album features 11 songs that are sure to take any Tempchin fan down memory lane. Hits such as “The One You Love,” “Already Gone,” “You Belong to the City,” “Slow Dancing,” and of course “Peaceful Easy Feeling” weave their magic throughout the set while appearing fresh and new, due to the fact that now there is no backing band, no vocal harmonies. It’s just Jack, alone, and stripped down to his bare essence.

Alternating with the usual hits are little surprises such as “Amy,” a song that Jack wrote as part of his Song a Day journal. (“Amy,” a very clever piece of narrative storytelling, is journal entry #23 in case you want to look it up on Jack’s website.)
Another highlight is “Bender” from Jack’s 1995 Lonely Midnight album. This belt-’em-out blues shows that Tempchin isn’t all about easy-feeling rock and slow songs. Here he musters up the greatest ghosts of the Mississippi Delta to howl about a night (or a week) of drinking not unlike the night recalled in 1973’s “Tijuana.”

Rounding out the set are some of my personal favorites, including “Loneliest Piano in Town,” “Jazzbird,” “Lovers Like Us,” and “Jesus and Mohammed.” The end result is a masterful tour de force by a master songwriter and country-rock journeyman.

Missing are “Smuggler’s Blues” from the 1980s TV show Miami Vice and a personal favorite of mine “Out in the Desert” from Jack’s 2007 album Songs. But, then again, hey, a guy who has written hundreds of songs and is now dedicated to writing one song per every waking day can’t include everything from his repertoire. Besides, now there’s a reason to release a follow up album some day soon…hopefully, very soon. -Raul Sandelin - San Diego Troubadour

Jack Tempchin is primarily known as a songwriter. His greatest fame came for his songs recorded by The Eagles and Glenn Frey; but other artists such as George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood, Tanya Tucker, Kate Wolf, Tom Rush, Richie Havens, and a host of others have recorded his material.

Every once in a while he steps out of the background and issues an album of his own. On September 25, he will release his eighth album titled Jack Tempchin - Live At Tales From The Tavern. It is the latest in the Tales From The Tavern series, which records artists in intimate settings at small clubs. Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Jon Dee Graham, Chris Hillman, and Steve Forbert have all recorded for the series and now Jack Tempchin joins their ranks.

His new release is a CD/DVD combo which presents him at his simple best as he sings a number of his well known songs and combines them with some newer material. It is just his voice, guitar, and harmonica, which puts a new spin on many of the tracks as it keeps the focus on the lyrics and his skill as a songwriter.

Two of his most famous Eagles compositions highlight the album. "Peaceful Easy Feeling" was made for his laid back approach but "Already Gone" is transformed from rock to a folk interpretation. Two songs associated with Glenn Frey, "The One You Love," and "You Belong to the City," receives similar treatment.

I had forgotten he wrote the Johnny Rivers hit, "Slow Dancing." Here he presents a gentle version of Rivers' mid-tempo pop rocker. When you add in such lesser known tunes such as "Bender," "Loneliest Piano in Town," "Jazzbird," and "Jesus and Mohammed," you have a fine collection of well-crafted songs.

Tempchin's approach is about as laid back as they come, but he is perfect for a small club setting. His patter and stories between the songs only add to the atmosphere. Live At Tales From The Tavern is a heartfelt live presentation by Jack Tempchin of some of his notable material. It is a fine way to spend an hour. -David Bowling


- Seattle Post-Intelligencer / Blogcritics

A skeleton has nothing to hide. And a stripped-down acoustic run-through of a famous song is similar. Jack Tempchin has penned many of those songs, most notably the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Already Gone” and “The One You Love.” On his new CD, Live At Tales From The Tavern, Tempchin reveals the soul of the skeleton.

Right off the bat on the opening track “The One You Love,” I instantly find myself humming the Eagles version in the back of my mind. I can’t seem to help it, 80’s rock radio tattooed that one permanently into my brain. However, as Tempchin starts moving through the first verse, with his slow, soft and eloquent approach, I now hear only the words. The subtle accent of the acoustic guitar and a soothing harmonica riff to help sell the famous harmony is a nice touch, further separating the song from its famous Glenn Frey/Don Henley vocals. And suddenly, it becomes the “who ya gonna choose” tragic love song it was all along. And that right there is the strength of the record and the ace in Tempchin’s deck. He’s a master songwriter, a crafter of songs that feel tranquil but run layers deep.

With Live At Tales From The Tavern, Tempchin returns a bag full of his famous hits to their roots. No longer is the Glenn Frey Miami Vice theme song “You Belong To The City” a glitzy over-produced pop song. Here, Tempchin strums a moody guitar while creating a lonely longing tale from the streets delivered with a layer of grime. The 1977 Johnny Rivers top ten hit “Slow Dancing,” becomes even more graceful with Tempchin’s reading accenting its romantic underpinnings. And the mega-famous Eagles hit “Already Gone” transforms into a hootenanny sing along of independence celebration. With a comfortable straight ahead approach, Tempchin reclaims these songs, returning them to their rightful owner and exposing the beauty in their craft.

Tempchin also gives you a two-song glimpse at his blues abilities. The slide guitar work he does on “Bender” jumps out, and when he throws his head back and howls out the chorus, you can really feel it. The second blues number on the record “Loneliest Piano in Town” not only displays enough of Jack’s comfort with the blues but also shakes up the tempo of the whole CD. Tempchin’s two passes at the blues leave you wondering what an entire record of original penned blues songs coming from him would sound like.

The Live At Tales From The Tavern CD rounds out with Tempchin singing “Peaceful Easy Feeling”–a perfect homage to the man’s persona. Tempchin’s vocal timber is warm and inviting, and sung in his thick lower register, it creates the perfect nightcap to the evening.

The album package also comes with a live DVD of the night which offers an even more insightful glance at the artist. It’s the full run of the album’s songs with added between-song banter that shows off Tempchin’s dry wit. You also get a glimpse behind the creations of some of the songs. Tempchin’s warm personality and wise sage-like vibe are contagious; once you see the DVD, you instantly miss it when listen to the recording.

Tempchin is a San Diego treasure who, for years, has relied on the lasting power and longevity of a well-constructed song to cement his legacy. Live At Tales From The Tavern throws a tight spotlight on Tempchin and his songs and serves as a showcase to his far-reaching talents. -Rick Ostop - SD Rock N Roll: We Get Inside The Music

He was visiting Jackson Browne's home when Frey dropped in. Tempchin performed the song he wrote for Frey's tape recorder. "[Glenn] came back the next day and said, 'Well, Jack, I got a new band. We've been together for eight days, and we just worked up your song.' Then he played it for me on the cassette [player]. He went to England and recorded [the Eagles] first album."
- AOL Spinner.com

Tempchin’s songs have been covered by locals the Paladins and Chris Hillman, as well as by George Jones, Glen Campbell, Tanya Tucker, Emmylou Harris, and Trisha Yearwood. - San Diego Reader

Jack Tempchin, who performs Wednesday at the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla with his band, should merit at least a few chapters when the definitive history of rock 'n' roll in San Diego is compiled.

A mainstay of the local scene since the 1960s, when he and musical pal Tom Waits completed the song “Tijuana” just moments before first performing it on stage, Tempchin managed the Back Door at SDSU during its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later co-owned the Stingaree in Encinitas, one of North County's most popular live-music clubs.

His first band of note, the Funky Kings, recorded a lone album — 1976's “Funky Kings” on Arista Records — that was so full of terrific songs, including the future chart-topper “Slow Dancin',” that stardom seemed assured. They were promised as much by Arista president Clive Davis , the man who'd previously signed such budding stars as Janis Joplin , Santana, Chicago, Aerosmith and Earth, Wind & Fire.

“When the Funky Kings finished making our album, Clive sat us down in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Tempchin recalled. “He said, ‘Look, you guys, you're all going to be hugely famous, and I hope you can handle it.’ Why that didn't happen, I still don't know.”

Yet, while fame eluded Tempchin, he struck gold as one of pop's most gifted and prolific songwriters. And while his latest album, 2007's self-produced “Songs,” is only his third solo outing since 1978, its title captures the essence of what he does best.

Indeed, it is Tempchin's gently infectious songs that strike a resounding chord with listeners, especially the versions recorded by other artists.

His songwriting credits include Johnny Rivers' “Slow Dancin' (Swayin' to the Music)” and The Eagles' “Already Gone” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” Together with Glenn Frey , whom he met here in the late 1960s before Frey joined The Eagles, Tempchin co-wrote “Smuggler's Blues” and “You Belong to the City” (which later were sampled on records by hip-hop stars Coolio and Jay-Z, respectively).

Other artists who have recorded songs by Tempchin over the years range from George Jones and Emmylou Harris to Richie Havens and such San Diego-bred artists as The Paladins and former Byrds member Chris Hillman. Songs written or co-written by Tempchin have been featured on the soundtracks of such films as “The Big Lebowski” and “Thelma and Louise.” He also co-wrote the “Seventh Heaven” TV series theme song.

“Jack is one of the greats,” said fellow San Diego troubadour Steve Poltz, during a Sunday songwriting panel with Tempchin at the North Park Music Thing.

“I used to hear (The Eagles') ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ all the time, and they didn't do a lot for me. But then I heard Jack do them live at the old Casbah (in the early 1990s) and he owned those songs. It was the same with ‘Slow Dancin'.’ I didn't think much (of Rivers' version), but when Jack did it, it was the sexiest song I've ever heard.”

A San Diego native who now splits his time between Encinitas and Los Angeles , Tempchin celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary on Aug. 5. For the past decade, he has performed most Tuesday nights at Calypso Cafe in Encinitas with his local band, Rocket Science. For his 21-and-up Green Flash concert series gig Wednesday night at La Jolla's Birch Aquarium, he'll play with his four-man Los Angeles band, which features Neil Young bassist Rick Rosas and guitarist Burton Averre of The Knack.

“I always thought of myself as a performer,” Tempchin said. “I didn't think of being a writer until I wrote a bunch of songs and people said: ‘Hey, I'd like to sing that.’ After a while, I thought, ‘Maybe I can be a songwriter.’ ”

In 1967, Tempchin befriended Frey after the future Eagle began playing gigs here with J.D. Souther. Tempchin invited the duo to crash at his combination “hippie pad and candle factory” in North Park, and he and Frey became fast friends.

Tempchin co-wrote two songs on 2007's “Long Road Out of Eden,” The Eagles' first new studio album since 1979. With two of his earlier songs featured on “Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-1975,” which has sold nearly 30 million copies in the U.S. alone, he could have retired long ago. But his passion for making music continues unabated.

“I'm 62, but nobody wants to quit,” said Tempchin, who laments the lack of opportunities for young and veteran singer-songwriters alike.

“In the 1960s, people dug the music, but they didn't all want to be rock stars. Now, it's a ‘career path,’ but there's no money for songwriters (in a digital music age). If I'm having trouble geting my songs placed, what can these people who don't have a bunch of hit songs in their pocket do? It's pretty frightening.”

San Diego Union-Tribune - San Diego Union Tribune