This week: a song from 1974 that literally came in through The Back Door!

Back in 1968, Songwriter Jack Tempchin was managing a folk music club at San Diego State University called…The Back Door.

One night, he and a friend, Robb Strandlund, were in the kitchen cooler looking for something when they found a jug full of hard cider.

Neither of them had ever tried it before, and it tasted so good, they forgot what they were originally looking for and as they slipped into “tipsyness,” they thought it would be fun to write a country song.

It ended up being about a guy who heard through the grapevine that his girl was about to dump him…but it didn’t matter…because he was “Already Gone!”

Jack would perform the song occasionally at the club, but nothing really came of it until a few years later when he got a phone call from an old friend–Glenn Frey of the Eagles.

At this point in the story, it’s important to note that Jack had previously written “Peaceful Easy Feeling ” for the group…hence the connection,

So Glenn told Jack the band thought “Already Gone” would make a great ROCK song…but Jack was a little dubious…until Glenn played the Eagles’ newly recorded ROCK version for him over the phone.

“Already Gone” was indeed a GREAT rock song…and when it was released as a single from the 1974 album “On the Border,” it was an instant hit on album rock FM stations, but it also made Billboard’s Hot 100, peaking at #32.

Today, “Already Gone” by The Eagles remains a classic rock staple–and possibly the only “Great Song of the ’70s” to sneak through The Back Door!

For the stories behind more than 1.300 Great Songs of the ’70s and ’80s, visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MichaelCuuuk/