Who is Don Henley : The Voice of a Generation

"A Month Of Sundays"

"The Last Worthless Evening"

"The Heart Of The Matter"

Following the breakup of Eagles, Don embarked on a productive solo career, the most commercially successful of any of the Eagles. His first solo release, 1982's I Can't Stand Still, was a moderate seller. "Dirty Laundry", a denunciation of local TV news, received the most airplay. Henley and his erstwhile lover, Stevie Nicks, would duet on her Billboard Hot 100 No. 6 hit "Leather and Lace" that same year.

This was followed in 1984 by Building the Perfect Beast, which featured layered synthesizers and was a marked departure from the Eagles' country-rock sound. The single, "The Boys of Summer", reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song's haunting rhythms and lyrics of loss and aging, capped by seeing "a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac," immediately connected with a certain age group. The music video for the song was a striking, evocative, black-and-white, French New Wave-influenced masterpiece directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino that won several MTV Video Music Awards including Best Video of the Year. Henley also won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for the song. The album's "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," (No. 9 on Hot 100), "Sunset Grill," and "Not Enough Love in the World" also received considerable airplay.

Henley's next album, 1989's The End of the Innocence, was even more successful. The title track, a collaboration with Bruce Hornsby, is a melancholy, piano-driven tale of finding happiness in a corrupt world, and reached No. 8 as a single. The End of the Innocence was dedicated to all the farmers who were losing their farms because of the terrible loan conditions brought about by the Savings and Loan crises of the late 1980s. The lyrics called out then-President Ronald Reagan for pouring money into such defense projects as the missile defense shield rather than helping the struggling American farmer: "Oh Beautiful, for Spacious Skies but now those skies are threatening. Beating plowshares into swords for the this tired old man that we elected King." The hit follow-up, "The Heart of the Matter," is an emotive chance remembrance of a lost love. Both songs use the effective technique of varying the words in the chorus each time it is sung, to advance the song's narrative. The album's "The Last Worthless Evening" and "New York Minute" were among other songs that got radio airplay. Henley again won the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance Grammy for the album.

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