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10391 - DON HENLEY - CASS COUNTY (DELUXE EDITION) (2015)

DON HENLEY
''CASS COUNTY''
SEPTEMBER 25 2015
62:38

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1 Bramble Rose (Feat. Mick Jagger & Miranda Lambert) (Tift Merritt) 04:30
2 The Cost Of Living (Feat. Merle Haggard) (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 03:38
3 No, Thank You (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 03:44
4 Waiting Tables (Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, Steuart Smith) 04:47
5 Take A Picture Of This (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 04:06
6 Too Far Gone 03:42
7 That Old Flame (Feat. Martina McBride) (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 04:24
8 The Brand New Tennessee Waltz 03:19
9 Words Can Break Your Heart (Don Henley, Stan Lynch, Steuart Smith) 03:38
10 When I Stop Dreaming (Feat. Dolly Parton) 03:04
11 Praying For Rain (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 04:58
12 Too Much Pride 03:46
13 She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune 03:15
14 Train In The Distance (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 04:45
15 A Younger Man (Don Henley, Stan Lynch, Steuart Smith) 04:19
16 Where I Am Now (Don Henley, Stan Lynch) 02:34

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OFFICIAL TRACKS INFO

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Matt Allen/Percussion
Jeff Babko/Pump Organ
Gregg Bissonette/Drums
Richard Bowden/Guitar (Electric)
Michelle Branch/Vocal Harmony
Pat Buchanan/Guitar (Electric), Harmonica
Bill Chaplin/Percussion
J.T. Corenflos/Guitar (Electric)
Richard Davis/Cello, Keyboards, Organ
John Deaderick/Keyboards
Milo Deering/Fiddle, Pedal Steel
Jerry Douglas/Lap Steel Guitar
Dan Dugmore/Pedal Steel
Sally Dworsky/Vocal Harmony
Molly Felder/Vocal Harmony
Shannon Forrest/Drums, Percussion
Vince Gill/Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Vocal Harmony
Marco Giovino/Percussion
Merle Haggard/Featured Artist, Vocals
Alex Hahn/Drums
Tony Harrell/Organ, Piano
Don Henley/Vocals
Will Henley/Drums
Jim Hoke/Mandolin, Pedal Steel
Chris Holt/Guitar
Rob Ickes/Dobro
Mick Jagger/Featured Artist, Harmonica, Vocals
Jamey Johnson/Vocal Harmony
Jimmy Johnson/Bass Guitar
Aaron Kelley/Guitar (Electric), Mandolin
Gordon Kennedy/Guitar (Electric)
Alison Krauss/Vocal Harmony
Miranda Lambert/Featured Artist, Vocals
Stan Lynch/Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Percussion
Gale Mayes/Vocal Harmony
Martina McBride/Featured Artist, Vocals
Jerry McPherson/Guitar (Electric)
Ashley Monroe/Vocal Harmony
David Moran/Hammer Dulcimer
Greg Morrow/Drums, Percussion
Russ Pahl/Pedal Steel
Dolly Parton/Featured Artist, Vocals
David Piltch/Bass
Angela Primm/Vocal Harmony
Mike Rhodes/Bass
Mike Rojas/Organ, Piano, Wurlitzer Piano
Jimmie Lee Sloas/Bass
Steuart Smith/Bass, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric)
Bryan Sutton/Guitar (Acoustic), Mandolin
Lucinda Williams/Vocal Harmony
Lee Ann Womack/Vocal Harmony
Glenn Worf/Bass
Trisha Yearwood/Vocal Harmony

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ABOUT THE ALBUM/WIKIPEDIA

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REVIEW/AMG
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Don Henley doesn't move fast because he can afford not to hurry. He can spend the better part of a decade waiting out a record contract, labor on a 90-minute Eagles reunion for maybe half a decade, then take another eight years before returning with Cass County, his first solo album in 15 years and only fifth overall. That's the mark of a man who takes his time, but all that chronology pales compared to the true journey Cass County represents: a return to Henley's country roots, whether they lie in the blissed-out, mellow sunshine of Southern California or the Texas home that provides this record with its name. According to prerelease scuttlebutt, the album began as a covers project -- on the deluxe edition, there are remnants of this record, including a poignant "She Sang Hymns Out of Tune" and a duet with Dolly Parton on the Louvin Brothers' "When I Stop Dreaming" -- and the album does begin with a version of Tift Merritt's "Bramble Rose" that finds space for both Mick Jagger and Miranda Lambert, a sign of the star firepower on Cass County. Plenty of other guests pop up here, including Merle Haggard and Martina McBride, although there's no doubting Henley is the center of Cass County, but the nice thing about the record is that he's not calling attention to himself, not in the way he did when he loaded up albums with somber six-minute anthems. For the first time in decades -- four, to be precise; One of These Nights was the last time he explicitly dabbled in country-rock -- Henley prefers to paint on a small canvas, abandoning sociological epics for tales of longing and heartbreak. He'll still adopt a cynical sneer -- "No, Thank You" is quintessential spiteful contrarianism, salvaged by a boogie borrowed from "Achy Breaky Heart" -- and the elegiac "Praying for Rain" disguises its environmental activist heart in the form of sun-bleached hippie country, but the shift to expertly constructed miniatures benefits Henley considerably, pushing the focus onto his skill as a craftsman while also suggesting how, in the age of bro-country, this kind of cosmic American music functions as a traditional throwback. This is also where Henley's stubbornness winds up as an asset: he doesn't feel like he's succumbing to either nostalgia or the present; he stoically carries on according to the way things ought to be, and, against all odds, he winds up with a record that's not only easier to enjoy than most of his solo records, but also stronger song for song than many of the early Eagles albums.

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BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Don Henley anchored the Eagles as the band's drummer, frequent frontman, and co-leader. He wrote and sang many of their biggest songs -- "Hotel California," "Desperado," "The Long Run," "Best of My Love," "Life in the Fast Lane," "One of These Nights" were among his signatures, classic rock staples all -- but he also found considerable success on his own in the '80s following the group's disbandment. He established a distinctive, flinty voice right out the gate with "Dirty Laundry," the Top 10 hit from his 1982 solo debut I Can't Stand Still, but 1984's Building the Perfect Beast was a blockbuster, aided by the chilly, stylish MTV hit "Boys of Summer." Three other singles were pulled from the record -- the Top 10 "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," followed by the Top 40 "Not Enough Love in the World" and "Sunset Grill," all arriving in 1985 -- and he then labored on his third record, 1989's The End of the Innocence. Although this didn't have as many Top 40 hits -- the title track reached eight, followed by "The Last Worthless Evening" and "The Heart of the Matter," both peaking at 21 -- it was a bigger hit, going platinum six times, but after it ran its cycle, Henley decided to turn his attention to reuniting the Eagles in 1994, a project that kept him busy off and on for the next two years. His solo albums slowed -- he released Inside Job in 2000, 11 years after The End of the Innocence, and then took 15 years to record Cass County, his return to country-rock roots -- but he was never out of the spotlight thanks to ongoing work from the Eagles.

Born on July 22, 1947 in Gilmer, Texas, Don Henley was raised in Linden, a small town in Cass County, Texas. His parents -- his WWII veteran father ran an auto parts business, his mother taught -- instilled a love of music into him at an early age but despite having some piano lessons, he didn't take to playing music as a child. Henley instead was drawn to football and he played into high school, when he suffered an injury that led him to switch over to the marching band. There, he picked up drums and he took to it quickly, next playing in a group called the Four Speeds with his guitarist friend Richard Bowden. Soon, the band switched its name to Shiloh and the group was a going concern throughout high school but Henley put his music career on the back burner once he attended college. He spent a year at Stephen F. Austin University before transferring to North Texas State University, where he was an English literature major. Henley spent three semesters at North Texas State before returning home to Linden to attend to his ailing father and, while he was there, he began playing with Shiloh again. In 1968, Kenny Rogers -- who was then riding high after the Top 10 success of 1967's "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" -- caught a Shiloh show and encouraged the band to head out to Los Angeles to take a shot at the big time.

Once out in Los Angeles, Shiloh recorded an eponymous album for the independent imprint Amos in 1970, but the bigger breakthrough for Henley arrived when he met guitarist Glenn Frey, a native of Royal Oak, Michigan who had also recently relocated to L.A. and released an album on Amos. Singer Linda Ronstadt contracted Frey to assemble a touring band, so he asked Henley to join him, along with guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner, and this quartet supported the singer just once -- at a July 1971 show at Disneyland -- but they did back Ronstadt on her self-titled 1972 album. Before that album was released, this quartet became the Eagles, signing a deal with David Geffen's Asylum Records.

the Eagles' self-titled 1972 debut kicked off a decade of dominance for the band. This debut featured the Top 10 hit "Witchy Woman" along with the Top 40 hits "Take It Easy" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling," a good start that was slowed somewhat by the underperforming Desperado; it'd later eclipse its predecessor in platinum certifications, but it went no further than 41 upon its 1973 release, and none of its singles cracked the Top 10. Things started to rebound with 1974's On the Border, which gave the group its first number one Billboard hit with the Henley-sung ballad "Best of My Love." One of These Nights was a major hit in 1975, reaching the top of the Billboard charts thanks to "One of These Nights," "Lyin' Eyes," and "Take It to the Limit." All these early hits were gathered on 1976's Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975), a compilation that bought the band time as they worked on their fifth album but wound up eclipsing all their other records in popularity. Not only was it the first album certified platinum by the RIAA, it would go on to sell 42 million copies worldwide, 29 million of those in the U.S., placing it in a dead-heat with Michael Jackson's Thriller as the biggest album of all time. Before Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) reached such heights came Hotel California, the album that turned the Eagles into superstars. Released in time for Christmas 1976, Hotel California had a pair of chart-topping singles in "New Kid in Town" and "Hotel California" ("Life in the Fast Lane" went to 11) and it not only reached number one, it kept selling for decades, eventually earning 16 platinum certifications from the RIAA. One more studio album followed: 1979's The Long Run, another chart-topper that bore three Top 10 singles -- "Heartache Tonight," "The Long Run," and "I Can't Tell You Why" -- before the group split.

Henley launched his solo career in 1982, first appearing as Stevie Nicks' duet partner on the Top 10 single "Leather and Lace" and then releasing I Can't Stand Still, an album he co-produced with Greg Ladanyi and co-wrote in large part with Danny Kortchmar. Its first single, "Johnny Can't Read," didn't crack the Top 40 but "Dirty Laundry" became a big hit, reaching number three on Billboard (it'd eventually earn a Gold certification, the only Henley solo single to do so). Henley's big solo breakthrough arrived in 1984, when he released "The Boys of Summer" as the first single from Building the Perfect Beast. Accompanied by a sleek black & white video that ruled MTV (it won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1985, becoming the second video to take that category), "The Boys of Summer" climbed to number five and set up Building the Perfect Beast as a smash. Over the next year, it racked up sales -- it peaked at 13 on the Billboard 200 on its way to triple-platinum certification -- and also generated three additional singles in 1985: the Top 10 "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," "Not Enough Love in the World" (which peaked at 34), and "Sunset Grill" (which peaked at 22).

Four years after this successful run of singles, Henley returned in 1989 with The End of the Innocence, a moody, deliberative album that turned into his biggest solo success, reaching number eight on the Billboard 200. Ultimately, the album didn't generate as many hits as its predecessor -- the title track went to eight, the same position as its parent album, while "The Last Worthless Evening" topped out at 21; "I Will Not Go Quietly" and "If Dirt Were Dollars" were Top 10 hits on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart -- but the overall record performed better, going platinum six times. On the heels of this success, Henley slowly became entangled in a dispute over his record contract with Geffen Records, culminating in the label's 1993 breach-of-contract suit against the singer. While the legal battle played out, the singer mended fences with the Eagles, a development that was instrumental in the 1994 settling of the lawsuit. Geffen allowed Henley to leave the label in exchange for the rights to release Hell Freezes Over, a 1994 reunion album by the group featuring four new studio songs and 11 live acoustic renditions of their hits.

After Hell Freezes Over, the Eagles became a going concern, encompassing regular concerts and, in 2007, a double-disc album designed in part to be the band's last. As the Eagles rolled on, Henley continued with his solo career. He had an adult contemporary hit with "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat," taken from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Leap of Faith, and he released Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits in 1995, supported by the single "The Garden of Allah" (this reached 16 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart). Over the next few years, Henley was quiet but he finally returned in 2000 with Inside Job, his first album for Warner Bros. Supported by the number one adult contemporary single "Taking You Home," the album entered the Billboard charts at seven and was certified platinum. Another prolonged period of solo inactivity followed -- much of this time was devoted to political concerns and the Eagles -- but in the early years of the 2010s, he began working on a new country-oriented album called Cass County. Co-produced by former Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch, Cass County featured guest spots by Merle Haggard, Mick Jagger, Miranda Lambert, Dolly Parton, and Martina McBride, and saw release in September 2015.

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WIKIPEDIA

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WEBSITE

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