Brian Wilson Once Told Don Henley to His Face That The Eagles Were Just “Good”, Not “Great”

Brian Wilson is one of the most influential musicians of all time. He is up there with classical greats such as Mozart and Bach, and is right on par with contemporary artists such as Paul McCartney and Chuck Berry. As a musician, a blessing from Brian Wilson is like receiving a blessing from the Pope himself. Needless to say, it’s a high honor, and consequently, they are hard to come by, as Brian Wilson only praised a handful of musicians during his lifetime. And one of them was The Eagles, well, kind of.

Every major band of the 70s was inadvertently a product of Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, or The Beatles. Hence, it is no surprise that Don Henley of The Eagles held such a deep admiration for the 20th-century virtuoso, Brian Wilson. Like many artists, Henley turned into a star-struck little kid when he first met Brian Wilson, and given his changed disposition from rock star to fan boy, Henley wanted Brian Wilson to sign his copy of the infamous Pet Sounds.

Wilson agreed and signed it with complimentary words. However, right after he finished writing the final word, he made one edit to the autograph. An edit that could be taken two ways.

Brian Wilson Didn’t Hold Back Any Punches to the Star Struck Don Henley

Recalling how the interaction went down, Wilson wrote in his book, I Am Brian Wilson, “I took a Sharpie from the table in the dressing room. There are always Sharpies around for signing things. I wrote on his record, ‘To Don: thanks for all the great songs. Brian Wilson,’ Don was so grateful. It was almost like he couldn’t talk.”

As soon as Don Henley turned around and went off on his merry way, Brian Wilson changed his mind about what he wrote on the record, as he seemingly believed it wasn’t honest. “He turned to leave. ‘Hey Don,’ I said. ‘Wait a second,’…I took the record back, crossed out ‘great,’ and wrote ‘good.’ As one could imagine, this probably would have stung, as there is a grave difference between “good” and “great”.

Though, Henley, being a good sport, didn’t react irrationally. Wilson recalled in his book, “Some people would have been mad, but Don just looked at it and laughed.” As stated previously, this can be taken two ways. The first way is that Wilson simply thought The Eagles were mediocre. Secondly, he could have thought that they weren’t quite there yet, but were close. Regardless, we will never know.

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