The
Eagles are an American
rock band formed
in Los
Angeles
, California
in 1971 by Glenn Frey,
Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner.
With five number one singles and six number one albums, the Eagles
were one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s. At
the end of the 20th century, two of their albums,
Their Greatest
Hits and
Hotel
California, ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the
U.S. according to the
Recording Industry
Association of America.
Hotel California is ranked
37th in
Rolling Stone's
500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and the band was ranked #75 on
the magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
They also have the best selling album in the U.S. to date with
Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975.
The Eagles broke up in 1980, but reunited in 1994 for
Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and
new studio tracks.
They have toured intermittently since then,
and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1998. In 2007, Eagles released
Long Road out of
Eden, their first full studio album in 28 years. The next
year they launched
The
Long Road out of Eden Tour in support of the album.
The tour
continued on into 2009, crossing North America and Europe, with its last date on July 22, 2009 in
Lisbon,
Portugal
.
First incarnation
The seeds for the band were planted when
Linda Ronstadt and then-manager
John Boylan recruited session
musicians Glenn Frey and Don Henley in the spring of 1971. Bernie
Leadon and Randy Meisner would join her group of performers by the
summer tour. The original Eagles would play only once together as a
live unit backing Ronstadt, but all four appeared on her
eponymous 1971 album. After their
tenure with Ronstadt and with her encouragement, they decided to
form their own band, signing with
Asylum
Records, the new label started by
David
Geffen. Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts also initially
managed the band.
Eagles (1972)
The group's eponymous debut album was recorded in England in
February of 1972 with producer
Glyn Johns
and released on June 17, 1972.
Eagles was filled with natural,
sometimes innocent country rock , and yielded 3
Top 40 singles. The first single and lead track,
"
Take It Easy", was a song written by
Glenn Frey and his neighbor and fellow country-folk rocker
Jackson Browne. Browne had written the first
and third verses, and the chorus, but his work on the song had
stalled. After giving Frey permission to work on it, Frey added the
second verse. The song reached #12 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and propelled
the Eagles to stardom. The single was followed by the bluesy
"
Witchy Woman" and the soft country
rock ballad "
Peaceful Easy
Feeling", charting at #9 and #22 respectively.
The Eagles were a major force in popularizing the Southern
California
country rock sound.
Rolling Stone magazine's 2003
list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranked
Eagles at number 374.
Desperado (1973)
Their second album,
Desperado, was themed on
Old West outlaws, drawing comparisons between their
lifestyles and the lifestyles of modern rock stars. This album
introduced the group's penchant for conceptual songwriting. It was
during the recording sessions that
Don
Henley and
Glenn Frey began writing
with each other, co-writing 8 of the album's 11 songs, including
two of the group's most popular songs: "
Tequila Sunrise" and "
Desperado". The bluegrass songs
"Twenty-One," "Doolin' Dalton" and the ballad "Saturday Night"
showcased guitarist Bernie Leadon's abilities on the
banjo,
fingerpicked
guitar and
mandolin.
Throughout the album, the story of the notorious Wild West
"Doolin-Dalton" gang was the main focus,
featuring in the songs "Doolin-Dalton," "Bittercreek" and
"Desperado". The album was less successful than the first, reaching
only #41 on the U.S.
pop album charts,
and yielding only 2 singles, "
Tequila Sunrise," which reached #61
on the
Billboard charts,
and "
Outlaw Man," which peaked at
#59.
The album marked a significant change to the band, with Henley and
Frey co-writing the bulk of the album, a pattern that would
continue for years to come. Subsequently, the pair began to
dominate the band in terms of leadership and songwriting, turning
the focus of the band away from Leadon and Meisner despite early
presumptions that it would be Leadon and Meisner who would steer
the band.
On the Border (1974)
For their next album,
On the
Border, Henley and Frey wanted the band to break away from
the
country music style they were
known for, moving more towards
hard rock.
Initially, the Eagles started off with
Glyn
Johns producing, but he tended to emphasize the lush side of
their double-edged music. After completing only two songs, the band
turned to
Bill Szymczyk to produce the
rest of the album. Szymczyk brought in
Don
Felder to add
slide guitar to a
song called "
Good Day in Hell," and
the band was so impressed that two days later they invited Felder
to become the fifth Eagle. He appeared on only one other song on
the album, the uptempo breakup song "
Already Gone," where he performed
the guitar duet with Glenn Frey.
On the Border yielded a
No. 1
Billboard single
("
Best of My Love"),
which hit the top of the charts on March 1, 1975, becoming the
Eagles' first of five
chart
toppers.
One of These Nights (1975)
Their next album,
One of These
Nights, had an aggressive, sinewy rock stance. The album
further displayed the growing strength of the Henley/Frey
songwriting team, particularly on the album's title track and the
Grammy Award winning "
Lyin' Eyes". "
One of These Nights" hit #1 on
the
Billboard chart on August 2, 1975. The song itself has
often been cited by Frey as his all-time favorite Eagles tune. The
album also contains the Leadon instrumental "Journey of the
Sorcerer," which is known to many as the theme to
The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy.
By this time, conflict within the band had escalated. Recording and
touring created stress; tempers were boiling over, and egos were
clashing. Between the release of
One of These Nights and
the supporting tour, Bernie Leadon left the group, disillusioned
with the direction the band's music was taking. The Eagles were no
longer concentrating on the country rock in which Leadon excelled,
and the hiring of Don Felder meant that Leadon's role had been
significantly diminished. Leadon was also dating
Patti Davis,
Ronald
Reagan's daughter, at the time – the two of them had
co-written "I Wish You Peace" on the album – which created
political tensions within the group.
Leadon left the band in December 1975, famously announcing his
resignation by pouring a beer over Frey's head. In order to
continue with their tour schedule, the group quickly replaced
Leadon with
Joe Walsh, a veteran of the
James Gang and
Barnstorm and a solo artist in his own
right, who (like the Eagles) was produced by Szymczyk and managed
by
Irving Azoff.
Meanwhile, in early 1976,
Their Greatest
Hits was released. It went on to become the best-selling
album in U.S. history, selling over 29 million copies in the United
States, 42 million copies worldwide to date.
Hotel California (1976-1978)
The group's next album,
Hotel
California, came out in December 1976. "
New Kid in Town" was a #1 hit in
Billboard on February 26, 1977, and the title track,
"
Hotel California" on May 7,
1977. Told during a
60 Minutes
interview (November 25, 2007) that "everyone wants to know what
this song [Hotel California] means," Don Henley replied, "I know,
it's so boring...It's a song about the dark underbelly of the
American Dream, and about excess in America, which was something we
knew about."
"
Life in the Fast Lane" was
also a major success, becoming a
catch
phrase in the process and established Joe Walsh's position in
the band with its more hard rock sound. The ballad "Wasted Time"
closed the first side of the album, while an instrumental reprise
of it opened the second side. The album concluded with "
The Last Resort", the song Frey, to
this day, refers to as Don Henley's greatest work.
The run out groove on Side Two has the words "V.O.L. Is Five-Piece
Live", this means that the song "
Victim
of Love" was recorded live, with just the band and no
overdubbing. Don Henley confirms this on the inner booklet of
The Very Best of
the Eagles.
Hotel California has appeared on
several lists of the best albums of all time. It is also their
best-selling studio album, with over 16 million copies sold to date
in the U.S.
After the
tour, Randy Meisner left the band and moved back to his native
Nebraska
, where he
began a solo career. The band replaced Meisner with the same
musician who had succeeded him in
Poco,
Timothy B. Schmit. In 1977, the group, minus Don
Felder, performed some instrumental work and backing vocals for
Randy Newman's album
Little Criminals, including the
controversial surprise hit "
Short
People" which has backing vocals by Frey and Schmit.
The Long Run and breakup (1979-1980)
In 1977, the Eagles went into a recording studio to produce their
next studio album,
The Long
Run. The album took 2 years to make, but yielded the
group's fifth and last #1 single in
Billboard, "
Heartache Tonight" (November 10, 1979).
"Heartache Tonight" was co-written by Frey and fellow Michigan
native Bob Seger.
The Eagles also contributed to
Boz
Scaggs' hit single
Look What You've Done to
Me, the love theme from the 1980 film
Urban Cowboy, and featured on its
soundtrack.
On July
31, 1980, in Long Beach, California
, tempers boiled over into what has been described
as "Long Night at Wrong Beach." Frey and Felder spent the
entire show describing to each other the beating each planned to
administer backstage. "Only three more songs until I kick your ass,
pal," Frey recalls Felder telling him near the end of the band's
set. Felder recalls Frey making a similar threat to him during "The
Best Of My Love."
It appeared to be the end of the Eagles, although the band still
owed
Warner Bros. a live record from
the tour.
Eagles Live (released
in November 1980) was mixed by Frey and Henley on opposite coasts;
the two decided they couldn't bear to be in the same state, let
alone the same studio, and as Bill Szymczyk put it,"The record's
perfect three-part harmonies were fixed courtesy of Federal
Express." With credits that listed no fewer than five attorneys,
the album's liner notes simply said, "Thank you and
goodnight".
Post-breakup (1980-1994)
After the breakup of the Eagles, each ex-member tried his hand in a
solo career. Joe Walsh had already established himself as a solo
artist in the 1970s before and during his time with the Eagles, but
it was uncharted waters for the others.
Joe Walsh released a successful album in 1981,
There Goes the Neighborhood
, but subsequent albums throughout the 1980s, such as
Got Any Gum? were less well-received.
During this time Walsh also performed as a session musician for
Dan Fogelberg,
Steve Winwood and
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, among
others, and produced and co-wrote
Ringo
Starr's "
Old Wave" album.
Don Henley achieved the greatest commercial solo success of any
former Eagle. In 1982, he released
I Can't Stand Still, featuring the
hit "
Dirty Laundry." That album paled
in comparison to his next release, 1984's smash,
Building the Perfect Beast
which featured
Billboard #5 hit and classic rock radio
staple, "
The Boys of
Summer," "
All She Wants
to Do Is Dance (#9)," "Not Enough Love In The World" (#34), and
"
Sunset Grill" (#22). Henley
would not release another album for 5 years until 1989's
The End of the
Innocence. This album was also a major success and
included the hits "
The
End of the Innocence," "
The Last Worthless Evening" and
"
The Heart of the
Matter". His solo career was cut short due to a contract
dispute with his record company, finally resolved when the Eagles
reunited in 1994.
Glenn Frey also found solo success in the 1980s. In 1982, he
released his first album,
No Fun
Aloud, which spawned the #15 hit, "The One You Love". He
followed this album with 1984's
The Allnighter, which featured
the #20 hit "Sexy Girl." He reached #2 on the charts with "
The Heat Is On" from the
Beverly Hills Cop
soundtrack. He had another #2 single in 1985 with "
You Belong to the City" from the
Miami Vice soundtrack, which
featured another Frey song, "Smuggler's Blues". He also contributed
the songs "Flip City" to the
Ghostbusters II soundtrack and "Part of
Me, Part of You" to the soundtrack for
Thelma and Louise.
In 1982, former music writer turned filmmaker,
Cameron Crowe, saw his first screenplay turn
into a feature length movie,
Fast Times at Ridgemont
High. Crowe was a fan and had written about the Eagles in
one of his articles, and as a result, Henley, Walsh, Schmit, and
Felder all contributed solo songs to the film's soundtrack. In
addition, the band playing the dance toward the end of the movie
covers
Life in the Fast
Lane.
Don Felder also released a solo album, and contributed two songs to
the soundtrack of the movie
Heavy
Metal: "Heavy Metal (Takin' A Ride)" (with Henley and
Schmit providing backing vocals) and "All of You".
Timothy B. Schmit had a Top 40 hit in 1987 with "Boys' Night
Out".
Randy Meisner had a #14 hit with the song "Hearts on Fire" in
1981.
Reunion (1994-present)
Hell Freezes Over (1994-1999)
Fourteen years after the breakup, an Eagles country tribute album
titled
Common
Thread: The Songs of the Eagles was released in 1993.
Travis Tritt insisted on having the
Long Run-era Eagles in his video for "Take It Easy" and
they agreed. After the "Take It Easy" video was completed the
following year, and following years of public speculation, the band
finally formally reunited. The lineup comprised the five
Long
Run-era members – Frey, Henley, Walsh, Felder and
Schmit – supplemented by additional musicians:
Scott Crago (drums),
John
Corey (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals),
Timothy Drury (keyboards, guitar, backing
vocals) and
Al Garth (sax, violin) on
stage.
"For the record, we never broke up, we just took a 14-year
vacation", announced Frey at their first live performance in April
1994. The ensuing tour spawned a live album titled
Hell Freezes Over (named for Henley's
recurring statement that the group would get back together "when
hell freezes over") which debuted at #1 on the
Billboard album chart, and included 4 new studio
songs, with "
Get Over It"
and "
Love Will Keep Us
Alive" both becoming Top 40 hits. The album itself proved as
successful as the reunion tour, selling 6 million copies in the
U.S. While the tour was briefly interrupted in September 1994 due
to Frey's serious recurrence of
diverticulitis, it resumed in 1995 and
continued into '96.
In 1998,
the Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. During the induction ceremony,
Frey,
Henley,
Felder,
Walsh and
Schmit performed together, and
former members
Bernie Leadon and
Randy Meisner rejoined the band for
the performance, where the band played "
Take It Easy" and "
Hotel California". Several subsequent
reunion tours followed (without Leadon or Meisner), notable for
their record-setting ticket prices.
The new millennium (1999-2001)
The Eagles
performed at the Staples
Center
in Los Angeles on December 31, 1999. This
concert marked the last time
Don Felder
played with the band and these shows (including a planned release
of the video) would form a part of the lawsuit that Felder later
filed against his former band mates.
The concert was released on
CD as part
of the four-disc
Selected
Works: 1972-1999 box set in November 2000. Along with the
millennium concert, this set included the band's hit singles, album
tracks, as well as outtakes from
The
Long Run sessions.
Selected Works sold
approximately 267,000 copies at about $60 a unit.
The group resumed touring once more in 2001 with a line up
consisting of Frey, Henley, Walsh, and Schmit, along with
Steuart Smith (guitars, mandolin, keyboards,
backing vocals; who unofficially replaced Don Felder who was fired
in early 2001), Michael Thompson (keyboards, trombone), Will Hollis
(keyboards, backing vocals),
Scott Crago
(drums, percussion), Bill Armstrong (Horns) Al Garth (sax, violin),
Christian Mostert (sax) and Greg Smith (sax, percussion)
Don Felder sues the Eagles (2001-2002)
On February 6, 2001,
Don Felder was fired
from the Eagles. Felder responded by filing two lawsuits against
"Eagles, Ltd., a California corporation; Don Henley, an individual;
Glenn Frey, an individual; and "
Does 1-50",
alleging wrongful termination, breach of implied-in-fact contract,
and breach of fiduciary duty, reportedly seeking $50 million in
damages.
In his complaint, Felder alleged that from the 1994
Hell Freezes Over tour onward, Henley
and Frey had "... insisted that they each receive a higher
percentage of the band's profits ...", whereas the money had
previously been split in five equal portions. Felder also accused
them of coercing him into signing an agreement under which Henley
and Frey would receive three times as much of the
Selected Works: 1972-1999
proceeds than Felder.
On behalf of his clients Henley and Frey, attorney
Daniel M. Petrocelli stated:
[Henley and Frey] felt — creatively,
chemistry-wise and performance-wise — that he should no longer
be part of the band...They removed him, and they had every legal
right to do so.
This has been happening with rock 'n' roll bands since
day one.
It was also reported that Don Felder usually did not agree with the
rest of the band concerning touring or recording schedules. The
rest of the band members wanted the freedom to tour or record as
they wanted on their own terms.
Henley and Frey then countersued Felder for
breach of contract, alleging that Felder
had written and attempted to sell the rights to a "tell-all" book.
The book,
Heaven and
Hell, was published in the United Kingdom on November 1,
2007. The initial U.S. release was canceled after publisher
Hyperion elected to back out,
in September, when an entire print run of the book had to be
recalled for further cuts and changes. The American edition of
Heaven and Hell is now slated for publication by
John Wiley & Sons on April 28,
2008, with Felder embarking on a full publicity campaign
surrounding its release.
On January 23, 2002, the Los Angeles County Court consolidated the
two complaints, and the single case was dismissed on May 8, 2007
after being settled out-of-court for an undisclosed amount.
"Hole in the World" (2003-2006)
In 2003, the Eagles released a new greatest hits album
The Very Best of the
Eagles. The two-disc compilation was the first that
encompassed their entire career, from
Eagles to
The Long Run. The album also included a
new single, the
September
11-themed "
Hole in the World".
The album debuted at #3 on the
Billboard charts and eventually gained
triple platinum status.
Also in 2003,
Warren Zevon, a longtime
Eagles friend, began work on his final album,
The Wind, with the assistance of
Henley, Walsh, and Schmit.
On June 14, 2005, the Eagles released a new 2-
DVD set titled
Farewell 1 Tour-Live from
Melbourne featuring 2 new songs: Glenn Frey's "
No More Cloudy Days" and Joe Walsh's
"One Day at a Time."
A special edition 2006 release exclusive to
Wal-Mart
and
affiliated stores also included a bonus audio CD with three new
songs: a studio version of "No More Cloudy Days" plus "Fast
Company" and "Do Something."
Long Road Out of Eden (2007-present)
In 2007, the Eagles consisted of Frey, Henley, Walsh, and Schmit.
On August 20, 2007, "
How
Long," written by
J. D. Souther –
who had previously worked with the Eagles co-writing some of their
biggest hits including "
Best of My Love," "Victim of
Love," "
Heartache Tonight" and
"
New Kid in Town" – was
released as a single to radio with an accompanying online video at
Yahoo! Music and debuted on television on
CMT during the
Top 20 Countdown on August 23, 2007.
The band performed the song as part of their live sets in the
early-to-mid '70s, but did not record it at the time due to J.D.
Souther's desire to use it on his first solo album.
On October 30, 2007, the Eagles released
Long Road Out of Eden, their
first album of all-new material since 1979.
For the first year
after the album's initial release, it was available in the U.S.
exclusively via the band's website, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. It was commercially
available through traditional retail outlets in other countries.
The album debuted at #1 in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia,
New Zealand, Netherlands and Norway. It became their third studio
album, seventh release overall, to be certified at least seven
times platinum. In an interview with
CNN, Don
Henley declared, "This is probably the last Eagles album that we'll
ever make."
The Eagles made their awards show debut on November 7, 2007, when
they performed "How Long" live at the
Country Music Association
Awards.
On January 28, 2008, the second single off
Long Road Out of
Eden was released. "
Busy Being
Fabulous" peaked at #28 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs
chart and at #12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary
Tracks chart.
The Eagles won the 2008
Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with
Vocal for "How Long." It was the band's fifth Grammy
Award.
On March
20, 2008, the Eagles launched their world tour in support of
Long Road Out of Eden at The O2 Arena
in London, England. Long Road out of Eden Tour
concluded their last currently scheduled American venue on May 9,
2009 at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah. It was the first concert
ever held in the new soccer stadium.
The group was touring
in Europe, their last tour date scheduled on July 22, 2009 in
Lisbon,
Portugal.
Band members
- Current members
- Glenn Frey – vocals, guitars, keyboard, harmonica (1971–1980, 1994–present)
- Don Henley – vocals, drums, percussion, guitar (1971–1980,
1994–present)
- Joe Walsh – guitars, vocals, keyboards
(1975–1980, 1994–present)
- Timothy B. Schmit – bass,
acoustic guitar, vocals (1977–1980,
1994–present)
- Former members
File:Glenn Frey.jpg|
Glenn Frey
File:Don Henley.jpg|
Don Henley
File:Joe Walsh.jpg|
Joe Walsh
File:Timothy B. Schmit.jpg|
Timothy B.
Schmit
Eagles performing in December 2008.
Awards
- Eagles have won six Grammy awards:
- The
group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
- On December 7, 1999 the Recording Industry of America honored
the group with the Best Selling Album of the Century for
Their
Greatest Hits .
- Eagles were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in
2001.
- The group ranked number 34 on CMT's 40
Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. They were one of four
artists who were either a duo or a group on the list with the
others being Alabama at number
eleven, Flatt & Scruggs at
number 24, and Brooks & Dunn
at number 25.
Discography
Notes
See also
External links
has a public
park containing a large mural
commemorating the song Take It Easy.
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