Arriving in Los Angeles from Texas in the late 1960s, the singer-songwriter JD Souther became part of the burgeoning California music revolution that would include Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.
When he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame half a century later, Souther, who has died aged 78, was declared “a principal architect of the Southern California sound and a major influence on a generation of songwriters”.
Many of those artists found a home at David Geffen’s Asylum record label, and Souther was one of its earliest signings. In 1972 Asylum released his debut solo album, John David Souther (subsequently he would bill himself as JD Souther, in homage to JS Bach). This was not a commercial success, though the song How Long would eventually win a Grammy award when it was recorded by the Eagles for their 2007 album Long Road Out of Eden.
Souther would enjoy his greatest success with his songwriting work, especially his close collaboration with the Eagles. He was among the songwriting credits on their second album, Desperado (1973), and played a more significant role on On the Border (1974), co-writing the songs James Dean, You Never Cry Like a Lover and their first US No 1 single, Best of My Love.
On the band’s finest hour, Hotel California (1976), he co-wrote the chart-topping New Kid in Town as well as Victim of Love. He was part of the Eagles’ final No 1 single when he helped write Heartache Tonight, from The Long Run (1979). In addition, he co-wrote several songs for the solo albums of the Eagles’ Don Henley, including the Top 30 hit The Heart of the Matter from The End of the Innocence (1989).
In 1973, Souther joined with Chris Hillman (formerly with the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and Stephen Stills’s Manassas) and ex-Buffalo Springfield and Poco member Richie Furay in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. Their first eponymous album reached 11 on the US chart, and also produced a Top 30 single with Fallin’ in Love, but the follow-up, Trouble in Paradise, barely scraped into the Top 40.
Souther dated Stevie Nicks and the singer-songwriter Judee Sill, but had an especially close romantic and professional relationship with Ronstadt, who recorded many of his songs including Faithless Love, White Rhythm and Blues, and Simple Man, Simple Dream. He duetted with Ronstadt on his song Prisoner in Disguise, the title track of her million-selling 1975 album that reached No 4 on the US album chart. They also duetted on Hearts Against the Wind, which was featured in the film Urban Cowboy (1980). The Eagles’ Glenn Frey once joked that “one of the reasons JD didn’t have a bigger solo career is because he gave us or Linda Ronstadt most of his best songs”.
Souther would release a further seven solo studio albums. Black Rose (1976) is frequently cited as his finest work, and You’re Only Lonely (1979) gave him his only Top 50 success, reaching 41. The latter’s title track gave him a Top 10 single, and in 1981 he reached No 11 with his collaboration with Taylor, Her Town Too.
Souther was content with his place in the music business, which brought him hefty royalty payments from songwriting while allowing him to lead a comparatively quiet life. “I don’t really want to be stopped when I’m in the grocery store and have somebody pay a bunch of attention to me,” he told the Creative Independent website in 2019. “It’ll be nice if that happens, but it’s not what I want.” He released his final album, Tenderness, in 2015.
Born in Detroit, he was the son of Loty (nee Finley) and John Souther, a big-band singer whose stage name was Johnny Warren, and who was regularly away on tour. Loty grew tired of her husband’s frequent absences, and the family moved to her native Texas, initially Dallas and then to Amarillo, where John opened a music shop, The Texas Musical Instrument Co. It was the ideal place for his son to be exposed to a broad variety of music. “The first songs I heard growing up were all jazz songs and opera songs,” Souther later commented.
He began to play the violin aged eight, and moved on to drums, piano, saxophone, guitar and clarinet. He went to Amarillo College, but music was his chief interest and he abandoned his studies to join his first band, a local outfit called the Cinders. As John David and the Cinders, they released the single Day Before Tomorrow, on Warner Bros records. This was recorded at Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico, named for its proprietor, who had been Buddy Holly’s producer.
Souther then moved to Los Angeles, where he struck up a relationship with Alexandra Sliwin, who would become his first wife in March 1969. This led to him meeting the future Eagle Frey, since Alexandra’s sister Joan had been Frey’s girlfriend in their native Detroit. The Sliwin sisters were members of the all-girl group Honey Ltd.
Souther and Frey shared an apartment, where the yet-unknown Browne lived on the floor below them, and they formed the duo Longbranch Pennywhistle.
In 1969 they released their sole album on the Amos label, run by the producer Jimmy Bowen (among whose many achievements was producing Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night), but Longbranch Pennywhistle disbanded in 1970.
Frey’s next move was to create the Eagles with Henley. At one point there was discussion about Souther joining the band, but all parties thought better of it. “I wasn’t a band creature,” said Souther. “My report card from school always said the same thing: ‘Does not work well with others’.”
He enjoyed a secondary career as an actor. In 1989 he was cast as John Dunaway in the TV drama Thirtysomething, and in 2012 he had a recurring role as Watty White in the TV country music series Nashville (he would return for the fifth season in 2017). He also appeared in several films, most notably Mike Nichols’ Postcards from the Edge (1990).
He and Sliwin divorced in 1972, and his second marriage, to Sarah Nicholson, also ended in divorce. He is survived by his sisters, Susan and Shari, and a stepdaughter, Anja, from his second marriage.
• JD (John David) Souther, singer, songwriter and actor, born 2 November 1945; died 17 September 2024
