Jack Tempchin
Eagles songwriter Jack Tempchin was living in Bankers Hill and eating lunch at Der Wienerschnitzel on Washington and First when he was inspired (by two pretty girls walking by, he says) to begin writing the lyrics to “Peaceful Easy Feeling” on the back of a concert flyer. When he later performed the song at Jackson Browne’s house and fellow friend Glenn Frey got his first earful, Frey pitched it to the Eagles, whose recording of the tune became immortalized on one of the top-selling greatest hits albums of all time (which also contained their version of Tempchin’s “Already Gone”).
Thanks to the melodic sentiment occasioned by those two pretty passersby, the longtime Encinitas resident has been able to parlay “Peaceful Easy Feeling” into a career cornerstone, with a same-named Cabernet Sauvignon launched by Temecula’s South Coast Winery and a tribute album from last summer, Peaceful Easy Feeling: The Songs of Jack Tempchin, featuring guests like fellow San Diegan Chris Hillman (the Byrds, etc.), Rita Coolidge, Herb Pedersen, and Janiva Magness. His Peaceful Easy Feeling 45th Anniversary Tour includes a February 17 date at Carlsbad’s Museum of Making Music, which just announced a slate of upcoming concerts to include Linda Ronstadt songwriter Karla Bonoff, honkytonk gypsies Velvet Caravan, folk-blues singer-guitarist Chris Smither, and pop cellist Ashley Bathgate of Bang on a Can All-Stars.
