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"The Eagles" redirects here. For the British band of the same name, see The Eagles (UK band). For the bird, see Eagle. For other uses of "Eagle", see Eagle (disambiguation). Eagles are an American rock music group that was formed in Los Angeles, California in the early 1970s. With five number one singles and four number one albums, the Eagles were among the most successful recording artists of the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 and Hotel California, ranked among the ten best-selling albums according to the Record Industry Association of America. Their best-selling studio album Hotel California is rated as the 37th album in the Rolling Stone list The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. They are also the best-selling American band ever (followed by Aerosmith), with Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 being the best selling album in the US to date (at more than 29 million copies sold, and 45 million units sold worldwide, making it the 2nd best selling album of all time after Thriller by Michael Jackson). After their reunion they have toured regularly making new fans in the process and setting records for collection through their concerts.
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. Formation and success 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, and yielded three Top Forty singles. 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. On the Border yielded a 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". 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 Meanwhile, in early 1976, Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) was released. It went on to become the best-selling album in US history, selling over 29 million copies to date. The group's next album, Hotel California, came out in late 1976. "New Kid in Town" was a 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 Break-up 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 apart. 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 fewer than five attorneys, the album's liner notes simply said, "Thank you and goodnight." Resumption In 1993, an Eagles country tribute album 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. "We never broke up, we just took a 14 year vacation" announced Frey at the taping of their first live performance in April, 1994. The ensuing tour spawned a live album entitled Hell Freezes Over (named for Henley's recurring 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, where the band played "Take it Easy" and "Hotel California". Several subsequent reunion tours would follow, notable for their record-setting ticket prices. 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 11-themed "Hole in the World". As of 2006 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), guitarist 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 14, 2005, the Eagles released a new DVD entitled Farewell 1 Tour-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 is reportedly titled The Long Road To Eden. Band members Awards Discography US chart positions are Billboard Hot 100 unless otherwise noted. Studio albums Image:The Eagles - The Eagles.jpeg| (June 1, 1972) Image:The Eagles - Desperado.jpg| (April 17, 1973) Image:The Eagles - On the Border.jpg| (March 22, 1974) Image:The Eagles - One of These Nights.jpg| (June 10, 1975) Image:TheEaglesHotelCaliforniaalbumcover.jpg| (December 8, 1976) Image:The Eagles The Long Run.jpg| (September 24, 1979) Live albums Image:The Eagles - Eagles Live.jpg| (November 7, 1980) Image:The Eagles Hell Freezes Over.jpg| (November 8, 1994) Image:Eaglesfarewell.jpg| (July 18, 2005) Compilation albums Hit singles From Eagles From Desperado From On the Border From One of These Nights From Hotel California Non-album single From The Long Run From Eagles Live From Hell Freezes Over From The Very Best of the Eagles See also Official websites Fansites Others | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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