By BETH HARRIS
LOS ANGELES — John Mayer and the Dixie Chicks helped guide Don Henley on a trip through his musical memories that left the singer-songwriter feeling ‘‘very strange.’’ They joined Henley’s Eagles bandmate Timothy B. Schmit, Sam Moore, Keb Mo, Trisha Yearwood, Michael McDonald, Shawn Colvin and Seal in launching Grammy weekend by honoring the 59-year-old Henley as MusiCares Person of the Year on Friday night.
Surrounded by his wife, three daughters and son, Henley listened as the biggest hits of his career with the Eagles and as a solo artist were interpreted in the city where the band formed in the early 1970s.
His favorite? ‘‘The End of the Innocence,’’ performed in drawn-out fashion by Colvin.
Seal offered up his take on the Eagles hit ‘‘Best of My Love.’’ Later, Henley told the crowd, ‘‘I used to hate that song and now I like it again.’’
Mayer’s guitar work highlighted ‘‘Dirty Laundry,’’ Henley’s scathing indictment of television news. Moore, half of the 1960s duo Sam and Dave, did a soulful version of the Eagles’ hit ‘‘The Long Run.’’
The opening chords of the songs, a soundtrack of the 1970s and ’80s, triggered cheers, including ‘‘Desperado,’’ by the Dixie Chicks, who like Henley, are from Texas.
‘‘It’s a very strange sort of out-of-body experience,’’ Henley told more than 2,000 people at the Los Angeles Convention Center. ‘‘I feel like I’m at my own memorial service. It would be nice to have a funeral like this. I actually started to like some of these songs again.’’
AP
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