Eagles member takes flight with solo album

Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit performs during the soldout second stop of the band's "North American Tour 2002" at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas June 1, 2002. [Agencies]

LOS ANGELES - He's the Eagle who isn't Don Henley or Glenn Frey or Joe Walsh.

That would be Timothy B. Schmit, the bass player who joined the mega-selling rock band in time to record one album before it broke up in 1980, a split that left him "pretty shocked."

To make matters worse, he was undergoing a divorce at the time, and he struggled to stay afloat in the ensuing decade as he rebuilt his life with a new family.

No job was too small for his ageless tenor vocal and multi-instrumental prowess. Japanese albums. Records for Twisted Sister and Poison. Tours with Toto and Jimmy Buffett.

He released three solo albums before the Eagles reunited in 1994. A fourth followed in 2001, and his fifth one comes out next Tuesday through Lost Highway Records, making him the only Eagle to release any solo discs this millennium.

Schmit, 61, recorded "Expando" on his own dime at his home studio in Los Angeles during breaks from the Eagles, who have been on the road on and off since May last year.

He recruited some high-profile friends for select tracks, including Graham Nash, Dwight Yoakam and Kid Rock on background vocals; blues guitarists Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Keb' Mo'; Van Dyke Parks on accordion; Gary Burton on vibes; and keyboardists Garth Hudson of the Band and Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers.

"ORGANIC" RECORDING

Unlike the 2007 Eagles album "Long Road Out Of Eden," for which Schmit co-wrote the title track, the recording was not done through the exchange of email files.

"As corny as it sounds, I wanted to keep it as organic as possible," Schmit told Reuters in a recent interview. "Everybody who did appear on the record came through my studio doors here."

That includes the Blind Boys of Alabama, who showed up in their van -- someone else was driving -- singing along to a Schmit demo that was blasting from their CD player.