Tom Petty, Eagles, John Mayer Headline 2012 New Orleans Jazz Festival : December 14, 2011

As it so often has in recent years, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest has quite a lineup for this year, with the Eagles, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, John Maye [...]

The Eagles Plan 40th Anniversary Tour for 2012 : November 18, 2011

Joe Walsh, guitarist for mega selling classic rock band the Eagles, has announced that the group plans to tour next year to celebrate its 40th anniversary as a group. [...]

Don Henley Books California Gigs Without the Eagles : July 03, 2011

In recent years, most of Don Henley's time on the road has been spent touring as a member of the Eagles. However this fall, he will be taking some time away to perform s [...]

The Eagles Team Up with Keith Urban, Dixie Chicks for Stadium Tour : March 17, 2010

Have you ever wondered how many acts you have to pack onto a bill to fill up a stadium? Well evidently it is three. The Eagles, Keith Urban and the Dixie Chicks will be h [...]

Fleetwood Mac, Eagles Plotting Summer Tour? : December 27, 2009

Will Stevie Nicks and Don Henley share the limelight and stage, as the rumored Fleetwood Mac and Eagles co-headlining tour of classic rock appears to be close to being of [...]

The Eagles Stage 3 Nights at the Hollywood Bowl : December 05, 2009

Its been about a year since the Eagles were touring the US on their Long Road Out of Eden Tour, and they are ready to storm the stage once again. This time its the Hollyw [...]

Eagles, Kid Rock Join CMA Awards Show Performers : October 17, 2008

According to a recent press release, the Eagles are one of the recently announced acts that will be performing at the CMA Awards 42nd Annual awards ceremony which will be [...]

the eagles Biography

The Eagles is a Grammy Award winning American rock band hailing from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1971, the band consists of Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner. They hold the record for having the best-selling album in the US, which is just one of the many accolades they have collected throughout their four-decade career. With six no. 1 albums, five chart-topping singles, six Grammy Awards, five AMAs and having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, there is no doubt that The Eagles is one of America’s best-selling and most critically acclaimed rock bands of all time.

It was Rock n’ Roll music’s matriarch and first lady Linda Ronstadt that brought The Eagles together, for which the budding country-rock quartet played as her live music crew. After a year of touring and playing with Ronstadt and with her encouragement as well, they started to write their own songs (with a little help from Frey’s neighbor, friend and fellow musician, Jackson Browne) which appeared in the band’s eponymous 1972 debut. The album, which contained the hits ‘Take It Easy’ (charted at no.12), ‘Witchy Woman’ (no.9) and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ (no.22), entered the Billboard 200 at no.22 and served as the band’s breakout material and would pave the way for their mainstream recognition particularly in the Southern California country rock scene, thanks to their laid-back harmonies and bluesy melodies.

Their second studio effort, 1973’s ‘Desperado’, marked a significant change in the band in terms of their songwriting style and the personalities or responsibilities assumed by each eagle. While adapting the concept of the “Wild Wild West” as personified by the Doolin-Dalton gang, Henley and Frey started what would become the band’s main songwriting mechanism – a creative partnership that would result to many of the band’s most beloved and iconic hits such as ‘Tequila Sunrise’ and ‘Desperado’, both of which appeared in the sophomore album. Although those two tracks became among the band’s most popular works, the album from which it was spawned didn’t do well in the Billboard 200, charting at only no.41.

‘On the Border’ (1974), the Eagles’ follow-up to ‘Desperado’, signaled the band’s sound transition from blues and country rock to hard rock, greatly emphasized by the addition of the fifth eagle, guitarist Don Felder. The change apparently paid off as ‘On the Border’ gave the band their first no.1 hit, ‘Best of My Love’. In 1975, their fourth release, ‘One of These Nights’ was the last to feature Bernie Leadon and the first to feature Joe Walsh. The album, which produced three top 5 hits including the chart-topping titular track, further marked the band’s departure from its original country rock sound, emphasized by the addition of Felder and Walsh to the lineup.

In 1976, they released a compilation that would give them the distinction of having the best-selling album in US history and would solidify their position in music history as the most successful band of the ‘70s, ‘Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975’ which sold 29 million copies in the US and 42 million more all over the world. But it didn’t stop there, for in the same year, they released the chart-topping and multi-platinum certified studio album, ‘Hotel California’, which spawned two more no.1 hits for the band – ‘New Kid in Town’ and the titular track which later on became their trademark single, whose cryptic, metaphoric lyrics were cause for several reinterpretations, including controversial, satanic interpretations. However, Henley explained to “60 Minutes” what the song really was about, “It's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America, which was something we knew about,” he said. The album, which earned the band a Grammy for Record of the Year, was the last to include Randy Meisner and the first to feature Walsh extensively. They followed the album with another successful release, 1979’s ‘The Long Run’, further cementing their hard rock sound with top 10 hits like ‘Heartache Tonight’, ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ and the titular track. It was the first album to include Timothy B. Schmit who replaced Meisner.

Come the ‘80s, feuds within the band started to ensue beginning with Frey and Felder’s documented verbal altercation during a show in Long Beach, CA, with Felder threatening Frey by saying, "only three more songs until I kick your ass, pal.” This won’t be the last of The Eagles’ documented rifts as twenty years later, Felder went up against the entire band by suing them, with Henley and Frey being singled out in the suit. He was seeking $50 million worth of damages for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of implied-in-fact contract and wrongful termination after he was fired from the band in February 2001. Through their joint attorney, Henley and Frey responded by saying that Felder’s termination from the band was completely warranted due to irreconcilable creative, chemistry and performance differences, adding that “this has been happening with rock 'n' roll bands since day one”. In 2002, after the court consolidated the cases into a single one, that single case was dismissed and was concluded with an out-of-court settlement.

In 2003, the band’s most extensive and perhaps most encompassing compilation to date, the two-disc ‘The Very Best of the Eagles’, hit the shelves. It includes all of their hits from from 1972 to 1994’s ‘Hell Freezes Over’, the band’s chart-topping live album which also featured four studio originals, two of which charted at the top 40 - ‘Get Over It’ and ‘Love Will Keep Us Alive’. It was also the band’s first release after a 14-year breakup (or hiatus, depends on who’s being asked). Their ‘Very Best’ compilation was followed by their first studio album in 28 years, ‘Long Road Out of Eden’ (2007), another chart-topper. And although they have never stated with absolute certainty, Henley said in a CNN interview that ‘Eden’ is “probably the last Eagles album that (they’ll) we'll ever make”. However in 2010, both Schmit and Walsh have said in separate interviews that another studio album could possibly be in the works before they retire from recording, with finality.