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Eagles

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The Eagles redirects here. For the British band of the same name, see The Eagles (UK band). For other uses of the word "Eagle", see Eagle (disambiguation).
Eagles is an American rock music group that was formed in Los Angeles, California in the early 1970s.

Contents

Overview

Their early music was a hybrid of country and bluegrass instrumentation grafted onto the harmonies of California surfer rock, producing tender ballads and soft top-down country-flavored pop-rock about relationships, cars, and the wandering life. The originators of this genre were gifted singer/songwriters, among them Gram Parsons, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and Warren Zevon. The Eagles took the singer-songwriter ethos to a group setting with increased emphasis on arrangements and musicianship, and the group's early sound became synonymous with the southern California country rock. On later albums the band dispensed with bluegrass instrumentation and gravitated to a more straight-ahead rock sound.

Band members

1971 - 1974
1974 - 1975
1975 - 1977
1977 - 1982
1982 - 1994 Band not active
1994 - 2001
2001 - present

History

Success & breakup

The band formed in 1971 when Linda Ronstadt's then-manager, John Boylan, extracted Frey, Leadon, and Meisner from their affiliations. They were short a drummer until Frey phoned Henley, whom he had met at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. The band backed up Ronstadt on a two-month tour, then decided to form their own band, the Eagles.

Their first album, Eagles, was filled with pure, sometimes innocent country rock; their second, Desperado, was themed on Old West outlaws and introduced the group's penchant for conceptual songwriting. Those two albums were produced by Glyn Johns, who previously worked with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. The band wanted to rock, but Johns tended to extract the lush side of the band's double-edged music.

To record their third album, On the Border, they at first worked with Johns but after completing two tracks, 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 and he accepted. On the Border yielded a #1 Billboard single in the song "Best of My Love", which hit the top of the charts on March 1, 1975.

Their next album, One of These Nights, had an aggressive, sinewy rock stance. Between the album and the subsequent tour, Bernie Leadon left the group, disillusioned about the direction the band's music was taking. The group replaced Leadon with Joe Walsh, a veteran of such groups as the James Gang and Barnstorm and a solo artist in his own right. The addition of Walsh made the group's aim perfectly clear: they wanted to rock. The title track from One of These Nights hit #1 on the Billboard chart August 2, 1975. By this time, the people in the band started clashing with each other and there were intra-band fights.

Meanwhile, in early 1976 Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) was released. It went on to become the biggest-selling album in US history, selling over 29 million copies.

The group's next album, Hotel California, came out in late 1976. "New Kid in Town" was a #1 hit in Billboard on February 26, 1977 and "Hotel California" on May 7, 1977. The striking, mournful ballad "Wasted Time" closed the first side of the record, while an instrumental reprise of it opened the second side. The album concluded with "The Last Resort". In all Hotel California is generally considered to be the Eagles' masterpiece, and has appeared on several lists of the best albums of all time; it is also easily their best-selling studio album.

During the final leg of the ensuing tour, however, Randy Meisner decided he had had enough hotel rooms in his seven years as an Eagle and left the band for the relative quiet of Nebraska to recuperate and instigate a solo career. The Eagles replaced Meisner with the man who had succeeded him in Poco, Timothy B. Schmit. 1977 saw (what was at the time) the entire Eagles line-up performing instrumental work and backing vocals for Randy Newman's album Little Criminals. However, the album credits them as individual performers rather than as the Eagles, possibly to avoid a contract dispute with the Eagles' record label.

In February 1978, the Eagles went into the studio to produce their final studio album, The Long Run. The album took two years to make, but yielded the group's fifth and last #1 single in Billboard, "Heartache Tonight" (November 10, 1979). The tour to promote the album intensified personality differences between band members, made worse on the night of November 21, 1980 when Henley was arrested for cocaine, Quaalude, and marijuana possession after a nude 16-year-old prostitute had drug-related seizures in a hotel room. Henley was subsequently charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In addition, Glenn Frey and Don Felder had to be separated by police and fellow band members backstage at a 1980 fundraising concert for California Senator Alan Cranston. Frey claimed that he confronted Felder after he heard him insult Senator Cranston under his breath.

The tour ended on July 31, 1980 in Long Beach, California, when tempers boiled over into what Bill Szymczyk memorably described as "The 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 just as they began to sing "The Best Of My Love." As soon as the show was over, mayhem broke out. Frey launched an assault on Felder, who protected himself with his guitar. Within seconds, the rest of the band had joined in. It took a dozen roadies to pull the warring factions aparthttp://www.eaglesfans.com/info/articles/old_devils.htm

It was the end of the Eagles, although the band still owed Warners 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." After credits that listed no less than five attorneys, the album's liner notes simply said, "Thank you and goodnight."

Resumption

In 1993, an Eagles country tribute album [[Common Thread: The Songs of The Eagles|Common Thread]] was released. Travis Tritt insisted on having the Long Run-era Eagles in his video for "Take It Easy."

After the "Take It Easy" video was completed the following year, the band reunited, after years of public speculation that it would. The personnel was the five Long Run era members, supplemented by additional players on stage. The ensuing tour spawned a live album entitled Hell Freezes Over (named for Henley's statement that the group would get back together only when hell froze over), and two singles -- "Get Over It" and "Love Will Keep Us Alive".

Controversy followed on September 12, 1996 when the band dedicated "Peaceful Easy Feeling" to Saddam Hussein at a United States Democratic Party fundraiser held in Los Angeles.

In 1998, the band was 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. Several subsequent reunion tours would follow, notable for their record-setting ticket prices.

The Eagles were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001.

In February 2001, Don Felder was fired from the group; Felder and the Eagles filed lawsuits against each other. In 2003 the Eagles released a new single, the September 11th-themed "Hole in the World".

As of 2005 the Eagles consist of Frey, Henley, Walsh, and Schmit. On their Farewell Tour I they are supplemented by eight additional players: a drummer/percussionist (Scott Crago), a guitarist named Steuart Smith (to play Felder's parts), two keyboard players (Michael Thompson and Will Hollis), and a four-person horn section (Al Garth, Bill Armstrong, Chris Mostert and Greg Smith) that also can play violin and additional percussion.

On June 14th, 2005, the Eagles released a new DVD entitled Farewell 1: Live from Melbourne featuring two new songs: Glenn Frey's "No More Cloudy Days" and Joe Walsh's "One Day at a Time". The band will tour Europe in the summer of 2006.

Don Henley has recently said a new Eagles album is on the way and they are aiming for it to be out by this Christmas. The new album will be titled The Long Road To Eden.

Discography

US chart positions are Billboard Hot 100 unless otherwise noted

Studio albums

Compilations and lives

Hit singles

See also

References

External links

Official Websites

Fansites

Others

Eagles
Glenn Frey | Don Henley | Joe Walsh | Timothy B. Schmit | Randy Meisner | Bernie Leadon | Don Felder
Discography
Studio albums: Eagles | Desperado | On the Border | One of These Nights | Hotel California | The Long Run | The Long Road To Eden
Live albums: Eagles Live | Hell Freezes Over
Compilations: Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) | The Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

 

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