Eagles songwriter JD Souther will perform in Bonita Springs on Friday

Glenn Frey was JD Souther’s roommate, and the two would spend hours discussing, playing and listening to music.

The pair met in 1969 in Southern California, an already vibrant music scene that proved fertile ground for brilliant talents who lived and worked together.

“When Glenn and I met, we had both just recently left other bands,” Souther said in a recent telephone interview. He performs Friday night at the Southwest Florida Event Center in Bonita Springs.

“We were listening to a lot of acoustic music and we were hanging out together because our girlfriends were sisters. So Glenn and I had very little to do other than listen to music and play music.”

The two were born in Detroit but took different paths to arrive in the burgeoning Los Angeles music scene of the late 1960s and early ’70s.

While Frey — who later would help found The Eagles — grew up in Royal Oak, a Motor City suburb, Souther’s family moved when he was 3, first to Shaker Heights near Cleveland, then to Dallas and eventually to Amarillo, Texas, where he grew up up

Souther said his father was a big band singer and mostly on the road when he was a toddler. His father owned a music store in Amarillo, and Souther worked every day in the store from the time he was 10 to when he was 22 years old.

After Souther headed west to LA, he said, he needed a special guitar. So he drove back to Texas to buy a Gibson guitar from the store.

When he met up with Frey, he found a musical brother of sorts.

“We just listened to music and played all the time,” Souther said.

“We didn’t have very many gigs. We played open mic nights and pass-the-hat gigs. We just played for free. We played love-ins, we played everywhere.”

They lived in a “crappy apartment in Echo Park that was pretty beat up.” Souther said he was mugged in a nearby parking lot, the same place singer-songwriter Warren Zevon was once accosted.

“Neither of us had anything so they were totally unsuccessful muggings,” Souther said.

Frey and Souther eventually found their way to the Troubadour, a West Hollywood nightclub that helped launch the careers of Souther, Frey, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt and others.

“We didn’t have any money or anything or any other place to hang,” Souther recalled. “It was there or the beach.”

Souther said he opened for bands including the Flying Burrito Brothers, a country rock group.

“That was a pretty big time,” Souther said. “It was very competitive. Everyone was trying to write something that will make the other person sit up and go, ‘Geez, I wish I wrote that.’ There’s nothing like having other good people doing the same work around you to make you work harder.”

They bonded with other musicians, including Jackson Browne, Don Henley and Ronstadt.

“Coming out of the ’60s, there was “a great deal of hope in the air,” Souther recalled.

“There was experimentation and we didn’t feel constrained by anything. We never said anything bad about anyone else’s material. Don (Henley) was kind of the critic of the bunch. He was a sharp editor. And if the song was really good , Glenn (Frey) would say, ‘Those kids are going to love that!’ Those kids, we were 22.”

Music producer David Geffen, who co-created Asylum Records in 1971, befriended Souther, Frey and others in their music circle and Souther said it was unlike other music executives who constrained their talent.

“He basically said go make the records you want to make,” he added.

Souther mainly penned or co-wrote songs, including some that have become American classics from the Eagles: “Best of My Love,” “New Kid In Town” and “Heartache Tonight.” He also co-wrote one of Henley’s big hits, “Heart of the Matter.”

Souther wrote and performed his own hit in 1979 with “You’re Only Lonely,” a song similar in sound and style to one of Souther’s greatest influences, fellow Texan Roy Orbison.

Souther later dated and collaborated with Ronstadt, who often pushed him in his songwriting.

“I was lazy and a procrastinator, and Linda was urging me to finish the songs so she could record it,” he said.

Souther said his concert in Bonita will offer a mix of music and memories.

“I deliver two hours plus of really good music,” he said. “A lot of it is songs people know. I’m certainly going to play a good deal of my songs I know that influences people to buy tickets.”

“There’s going to be some surprises in shows,” he added, possibly some of the music he played with Frey — who died in 2016 — or maybe a tune from Hank Williams, another one of his musical heroes.

“I draw from all over the place. It’s a picnic. This is intimate, so yes, that’s the point, weave the stories together with some exposition, give the timelines and some context of some of the work.

“I never know where the show is going to go.”

When: 7 pm Friday, Oct. 25

Where: Southwest Florida Event Center, 11515 Bonita Beach Road SE, Bonita Springs

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Eagles songwriter JD Souther will perform in Bonita Springs on Friday

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