Eagles frontman Don Henley revisits rural east Texas roots as inspiration for new solo album

Don Henley, original member of the Eagles, has returned to his rural roots to find inspiration for his first solo album in 15 years, Anthony Mason reports for CBS News. The album, "Cass County," is named after the east Texas county where Henley grew up in the 1950s and 60s. (Wikipedia map: Cass County, Texas)

Henley told Mason, "After singing the Eagles material, some of which we've been singing for over 40 years now, I really need some other songs to sing. Even some of my solo stuff is three decades old now. So I want new songs to sing." Henley said he wanted to write the kind of songs he grew up listening to with his parents, an auto parts dealer and a teacher. He said he found those new songs through his childhood home, of which he says, "You can't really describe it. You have to bring them here. I just tell them, 'It's a magical place, and you've never seen anything like.'"

For Henley, "resuming his own successful solo career has meant returning to Cass County—where he started a foundation to preserve Caddo Lake—and to Linden," reports Mason. "Henley, who lives several hours away in Dallas with his wife and three children, has bought the land the old movie theatre used to stand on. He also owns the barber shop and several other buildings."

"He bought those buildings to help his hometown, but the farmland, Henley says, he bought for himself and his family," Mason reports. Henley told him, "This is gonna be my retirement place, I think. My big dream that I hope to accomplish in the next few years is to have a cornfield like my father had. That was my field of dreams when I was growing up. You could lie on your back and look up through the tassels at the sky. I don't think I've ever had a sense of well-being to equal that." (Read more) (YouTube video)