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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, The 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.

To record their third album, On the Border, the group selected producer Glyn Johns, who previously worked with 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. After completing two thirds of the album with Johns, 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 blown away. Two days later Felder became the fifth Eagle. 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 28 million copies.

The group's next album, Hotel California, came out in late 1976, and was about the pursuit of the American dream ? 1970s style. Using California as a metaphor for the nation, the Eagles wrote about innocence ("New Kid in Town", a #1 hit in Billboard on February 26, 1977) and temptations ("Life In The Fast Lane" and the classic title track, a #1 hit in Billboard on May 7, 1977) of that pursuit. 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", an epic tale of the loss of American paradise. 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.

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2
Album Review

Eagles: Legacy

Read "Legacy" reviewed by Doug Collette


Sometimes a gift box is just a gift box and that's certainly true of Eagles' Legacy. Not to disparage its ample resources, this is not quite the definitive history of these commercial kingpins of the Seventies. But then, there's never been one, at least in any format similar to this: Selected Works (Elektra, 2000) comes close, but, in keeping with its title, the thematic collation of music on CDs curtails its comprehensive historical potential, as do the alternately fawning and ...

4
Album Review

Eagles: Hotel California: 40th Anniversary Expanded Edition

Read "Hotel California: 40th Anniversary Expanded Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette


Anyone inclined to cast aspersion on the integrity of the Eagles might well avail themselves of the 40th Anniversary Expanded Edition of Hotel California and go straight to the concert content on the second of the two CD's. Roughly forty-five minutes in duration, the ten tracks recorded live at the Los Angeles Forum in October of 1976 include two numbers from the group's iconic album eventually released two months later. Healthy retrospect reveals “New Kid in Town" as ...

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Performance / Tour

Eagles Of Death Metal Returned Paris For Concert Last Night

Eagles Of Death Metal Returned Paris For Concert Last Night

Source: HypeBot

Eagles of Death Metal performed Tuesday night in Paris for their first time since the November 13, 2015 terrorist attack that targeted their show at the Bataclan Concert Hall. "Bonsoir Paris, we're ready for this!" frontman Jesse Hughes told the crowd at the Olympia concert hall as the band took the stage, according to the Associated Press.  The concert saw armed police guards at the venue's entrances and concertgoers went through three bag and body searchers before entering and the city ...

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Recording

Trio \ Def (Drouin/Eagles/Froman) Release Debut Album

Trio \ Def (Drouin/Eagles/Froman) Release Debut Album

Source: Wayne Eagles

Groove-laden tracks, textural scenarios, and multi-hued passages are all front and center on (Drouin/Eagles/Froman)—the debut album from trio \ DEF. The cooperative threesome of bassist Marc-Andre Drouin, guitarist Wayne Eagles, and drummer Ian Froman digs deep, delivering music that’s alternately menacing and disarming, barbed and beautiful, and patient and restless. High-octane jams, earthy encounters, and airy ideals all come to the fore at one time or another as this band takes flight on this compelling date. The members of trio ...

1

Interview

JazzDoc: Byrds to Eagles

JazzDoc: Byrds to Eagles

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In the mid-1960s, Los Angeles and its surroundings became a haven for emerging folk-rock musicians. New York's Greenwich Village—the heart of the '50s folk movement—had grown hostile to folk artists who embraced the electric guitar and other rock trappings. Resistance by the old guard was largely political. The generation of Depression-era folk artists who came up in the late '40s and '50s had created protest music reflecting the struggles of union workers, farm laborers and other groups advocating for workplace ...

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For Sale

Elvis Presley "Jailhouse Rock" Original Dance Sequence Costume and The Eagles Don Henley's Handwritten "Hotel California" Working Lyrics Hit the Block for the First Time on Gotta Have Rock and Roll's "The Rock and Roll Pop Culture" Auction

Source: Susan Blond, Inc.

On Wednesday, March 21st over 700 rock and roll and pop culture original artifacts including an Elvis Presley iconic “Jailhouse Rock" costume will hit the auction block in the Rock and Roll Pop Culture Auction online at gottahaverockandroll.com. Also up for auction is a spectacular line up of rock and pop culture memorabilia that is as legendary as the stars themselves. Lots offered here include: Elvis Presley's owned and signed blue suede shoes, Paul McCartney's earliest known handwritten letter with ...

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Music Industry

The Eagles' Don Henley Declares "Time Has Come" to Prepare for Battle with Record Labels

The Eagles' Don Henley Declares "Time Has Come" to Prepare for Battle with Record Labels

Source: HypeBot

"The time has come" for artist to prepare for a potential battle with the record labels, warns The Eagles' Don Henley.  While Henley certainly could recite a litany of grievances, the battle he's warning about is the provision in U.S. Copyright Law that could allow musicians to gain control of their masters 35 years after they were released. The clock started ticking in 1978. So in 2013, the major labels could potentially loose the right to release classic 1978 albums ...

289

Music Industry

Live Nation's Stock Drop 16% Due to Concert Cancellations

Live Nation's  Stock Drop 16% Due to Concert Cancellations

Source: All About Jazz

Concert touring giant Live Nation, a Wall Street darling for much of the past year as it far outperformed the S&P 500 index, has hit some sour notes of late.

Widespread reports of a poor summer concert season -- including high-profile cancellations, poor ticket sales and the move by the company to drop its $13 per ticket service fee -- have hit the company's shares hard. Since April 1, Live Nation shares have fallen 16 percent compared to a 5 ...

143

Performance / Tour

Eagles Summer Tour

Eagles Summer Tour

Source: All About Jazz

The Eagles, Dixie Chicks and Keith Urban will be touring together for the first time when they hit the road on June 8th for a North American stadium concert tour.

The Eagles - Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit - will perform hits from their more than 35-year career, such as “Hotel California," “Desperado," “Life In The Fast Lane," “Lyin' Eyes," “Take It To The Limit," “One Of These Nights," “Heartache Tonight," and more.

The Dixie ...

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Performance / Tour

The Eagles Close out Their Hollywood Bowl Run

The Eagles Close out Their Hollywood Bowl Run

Source: Michael Ricci

On Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl, Glenn Frey welcomed Eagles fans to the final show of the bands three-night stand there with a bit of sly self-deprecation. We are the ancient ones, he said. And this is the Eagles assisted-living tour. As lines go, its a good one, and it drew sympathetic laughs from an audience seemingly packed with well-preserved old-timers from the groups days on the early-70s L.A. club scene. Yet if the joke acknowledged the improbability of ...

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Performance / Tour

Eagles/Fleetwood Mac Tour

Eagles/Fleetwood Mac Tour

Source: JamBase

SEVENTIES GIANTS UNITE TO STOMP AROUND ARENAS

Eagles It'd be tough to find two bigger bands in 1970s, and neither Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles has seen any real drop-off in popularity in the ensuing years. Next summer the two behemoths will join for forces for a massive stadium tour, including multi-night stands in some major markets. The Eagles last tour, 2008's Long Road Out of Eden Tour, grossed over $57 million in just over 50 nights of touring, and ...

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May 31 Fri
Jun 13 Thu
Steely Dan, Eagles
Gelredome
Arnhem, Netherlands

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