Eagles member takes flight with solo album

Schmit deliberately did not involve his fellow Eagles on the project, in part because he viewed it as a modest hobby with "zero pressure." Also, his bandmates scatter to the four winds when they're off the clock.

Even though Schmit cut his teeth in the country rock genre, first with the Buffalo Springfield offshoot Poco and then in a watered-down hugely commercial fashion with the Eagles, "Expando" showcases his first love: folk music. As the comically funky autobiographical track "White Boy From Sacramento" goes, "I think the Kingston Trio is so gear."

"The first singing group I was in, we were such fans of the Kingston Trio that we dressed exactly like them and sang their songs," he recalled, pulling out a photo of his 14-year-old self rehearsing for his group's first gig. "Don't get me started! They were definitely a big influence on me."

Schmit befriended Kingston Trio co-founder Nick Reynolds in the six months before he died last October, and is the proud guardian of the tenor guitar that Reynolds played on such hits as "Tom Dooley."

Schmit veers toward the introspective on such tunes as "Compassion," "Melancholy" and "Downtime." And he croons sweet nothings to his wife of 25 years in "Ella Jean," not that it gets him out of doing the dishes.

"She's not particularly impressed, in general," he said. "The first night I met her, I asked her if she wanted to hear some music. She said, 'Sure.' She thought I was going to play her some tapes or something. Well, I picked up the guitar and started singing. She was so unimpressed, which completely attracted me."

He makes it a family affair on "White Boy From Sacramento," which features lead guitar from his youngest son Ben, a 19-year-old student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

With the Eagles off the road until "some time next year," Schmit will hit the road with a small band to play a selection of club shows, beginning Wednesday in Los Angeles.

"I don't have a big solo record of hits," he said. "I'm going to hit this album a lot, and hopefully have a good time doing it."