Andrew Vaughan - The Eagles FAQ: All That’s Left to Know about Classic Rock’s Superstars

Copyright 2015 by Andrew Vaughan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2015 by Backbeat Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Except where otherwise noted, all images in this book are from the authors personal collection.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Snow Creative Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vaughan, Andrew
The Eagles FAQ : all thats left to know about classic rocks superstars / Andrew Vaughan.
pages cm. (FAQ)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4803-8541-2
1. Eagles (Musical group)Miscellanea. I. Title.
ML421.E14V39 2015
782.421660922dc23
2014044253

www.backbeatbooks.com

To Michael, my son

Contents

Living as we do in the information age, research for this book has come from a variety of sources, from online blogs, Facebook pages, YouTube clips, and forums to newspapers, magazines, and, of course, books.

Marc Eliots To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles (Da Capo Press) remains the definitive work on the bands early years. Rolling Stone magazine legend Ben Fong-Torres personal take on Henley & co., Eagles: Taking It to the Limit (Running Press), was illuminating, as were Barney Hoskyns classic on California rock in the 1970s, Hotel California (Wiley), and Peter Doggetts Are You Ready for the Country: Elvis, Dylan, Parsons, and the Roots of Country Rock . I drew on my own book The Eagles: An American Band (Sterling) as well as Don Felders Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (19742001) . Also very useful were Pete Frames Complete Rock Family Trees (Omnibus), John Einarsons Desperados: The Roots of Country Rock (Cooper Square), and Don Henleys Heaven Is Under Our Feet: A Book for Walden Woods (Longmeadow Press).

Thanks also go to Linda Ronstadt and her memoir, Simple Dreams: A M usical Memoir (Simon and Schuster), for painting such a vivid picture of 1960s Los Angeles. History of the Eagles: The Story of an American Band (Showtime, 2013) was a great source of background information, as was the BBC documentary Hotel California: L.A. from the Byrds to the Eagles .

Thanks to music critics and entertainment reporters from magazines and newspapers. Some publications are now gone, like City Limits , International Musician Circus , and ZigZag ; those and others like Rolling Stone , the Daily Mail , the New York Times , the Daily Telegraph , the Independent , the Tennessean , the Daily Mirror , Modern Drummer , and numerous regional publications, were invaluable.

Online research reveals all kinds of valuable sources of information, from in-depth fan sites to casual bloggers and writers with captivating insights to industry movers and shakers like Bob Lefsetz. Thanks to Nancy and Lisa, who run two exemplary Eagles sites, EaglesFans.com and EaglesOnlineCentral.com. The information and passion they channel is simply awesome.

Special thanks to the University of Florida Archives, the Nebraska Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (facebook.com/NebraskaRocks), the Randy Meisner concerts page (angelfire.com/rock3/deliverin/MEISNER/randyconcerts.htm), and some excellent online music sites like UltimateClassicRock.com, Gibson.com, NME.com, and RollingStone.com.

As a music critic for over twenty years, I have had many conversations to draw on for this book, and Id like to thank the many fascinating people who have regaled me with some of the stories that appear in this book or provide background for the tales it tells. They include John Tobler, Al Perkins, Shannon McCombs, James Stroud, Lee Williams, Ricky Skaggs, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam, Michael Nesmith, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Bob Saporiti, Bernard Doherty, Richard Wootton, Timothy White, Tony Bywoth, Chris Charlesworth, Michael Snow, Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, Byron Berline, Bernie Leadon, John Boylan, Jim Ed Norman, Don Felder, J. D. Souther, Jimmy Bowen, Mason Williams, Peter Rowan, Tanya Tucker, Clint Black, and many more.

Id like to thank Robert Rodriguez for inviting me into the FAQ family and Bernadette Malavarca for being the most patient and understanding editor. Special thanks to super-diligent copyeditor Tom Seabrook, and to my project editor Jessica Burr, who brought to this process a terrific eye for detail and a genuine feel for the subject. Finally, I want to thank my son, Michael, for continually teaching me about courage and tenacity.

The Eagles are the most popular American band in rock-and-roll history. No band before them had sold over ten million copies of two different albums, as the Eagles did with Hotel California and The EaglesTheir Greatest Hits 19711975 . Indeed, the latter album is now certified twenty-nine-times platinum by the RIAA, which means twenty-nine million copies sold in the United States, a figure equaled only by Michael Jacksons Thriller .

The Eagles have scored twenty-one Billboard Hot 100 hits between 1972, when their debut cut Take It Easy climbed to #12, and 2003, when Hole in the World made the chart. Ten Eagles singles have made the Top 10, with five of those becoming #1 hits. On top of that, when it comes to their individual careers, the members of the Eagles have chalked up an impressive forty solo hits between them. Don Henley, not surprisingly, leads the pack with fifteen. The statistics go on and on. The Eagles have had seven #1 albums, and since their 1994 comeback, they have topped touring gross lists every year theyve been on the road.

In 2008, they grossed over seventy million dollars in the U.S. alone, beaten only by Madonna and Celine Dion. Their most recent album, Long Road Out of Eden , sold exclusively through Walmart and went straight to #1 on its release in 2007. Looking at the Eagles album sales in total, the band are in the Top 5 of the best-selling artists of all time in the U.S., right behind the Beatles, Elvis, Garth Brooks, and Led Zeppelin.

The Eagles surfaced from the folkie, hippie scene of the late 60s in L.A. and turned their mellow, country-rock sound into a worldwide brand, culminating in the international epic Hotel California.

Dont be fooled by the outlaw/cowboy image. The Eagles, especially Don Henley and Glenn Frey, were part of a savvy new breed of rock-and-roller who understood the business side of music and demanded a fair share of the financial action. Teaming up with David Geffen, one of the toughest of all the 70s music execs, gave the band a degree of power and leverage unknown in popular music.

The story of the Eagles is also the story of most artists of their time. The drugs, the music, the excesses, the piles of cashit affected them all. But the Eagles took it to the limit. And in Henley and Frey, they had two songwriters who intuitively understood and accurately portrayed the changing America they were living in. They perfected the California sound, shifted the power from record company to artist, and pioneered the FM sound. Eagles songs of the period are incredibly memorable, while their most popular album, Hotel California , is a timeless record of the decadence of the 70s.