1971–1973: Formation, Eagles and Desperado The Eagles had their origin in early 1971, when
Linda Ronstadt and her manager
John Boylan recruited musicians
Glenn Frey and
Don Henley for her band. Henley had moved to
Los Angeles from
Texas with his band Shiloh to record an album produced by
Kenny Rogers, and Frey had come from Michigan and formed
Longbranch Pennywhistle; the two then met in 1970 at
The Troubadour in Los Angeles and became acquainted through their mutual record label,
Amos Records.
Randy Meisner, who had been working with
Ricky Nelson's backing band, the Stone Canyon Band, and
Bernie Leadon, a veteran of
the Flying Burrito Brothers, also later joined Ronstadt's group of performers for her summer tour promoting the
Silk Purse album. While on the tour with Ronstadt, Frey and Henley decided to form a band together and informed Ronstadt of their intention. Frey later credited Ronstadt with suggesting Leadon for the band and arranging for Leadon to play for her so Frey and Henley could approach him about forming a band together. They also pitched the idea to Meisner and brought him on board. These four played live together behind Ronstadt only once for a July concert at
Disneyland, It was later proposed that
JD Souther should join the band, but Meisner objected. The four were signed in September 1971 to
Asylum Records, the new label started by
David Geffen, who was introduced to Frey by
Jackson Browne. Geffen bought out Frey's and Henley's contracts with Amos Records and sent the four to
Aspen, Colorado to develop as a band. Having not settled on a band name yet, they performed their first show in October 1971 under the name of Teen King and the Emergencies at a club called The Gallery in Aspen. The idea of naming the band "Eagles" came during a
peyote and
tequila-influenced group outing in the
Mojave Desert. However, accounts of the origin of the name vary; Don Felder, who had yet to join the Eagles and was not at the desert, credited Leadon with originating the name when he recalled reading about the
Hopis' reverence for the eagle, while Souther suggested that the idea came when Frey shouted out, "Eagles!" when they saw eagles flying above.
Steve Martin, a friend of the band from their early days at The Troubadour, recounts in his autobiography that he suggested that they should be referred to as "the Eagles", but Frey insists that the group's name is simply "Eagles". Geffen and partner
Elliot Roberts initially managed the band; they were later replaced by
Irving Azoff while the Eagles were recording their third album. The group's self-titled debut album was recorded in England in February 1972 with producer
Glyn Johns. and he has been credited with shaping the band into "the country-rock band with those high-flyin' harmonies". Released on June 1, 1972,
Eagles was a breakthrough success, yielding three
Top 40 singles. The first single and lead track, "
Take It Easy", is a song written by Frey with his neighbor and fellow country-folk rocker Jackson Browne. Browne had written the first verse of the song, but got stalled on the second verse after the line "I'm standing on a corner in
Winslow, Arizona." Frey completed the verse, and Browne carried on to finish the song. The group were one of the support acts for
Yes on their
Close to the Edge Tour. Their second album,
Desperado, took
Old West outlaws for its theme, drawing comparisons between their lifestyles and modern rock stars. During these recording sessions, Henley and Frey began collaborating. They co-wrote eight of the album's eleven songs, including "
Tequila Sunrise" and "
Desperado", two of the group's most popular songs. The album was less successful than the first, reaching only number 41 on the US
Billboard 200 and yielding two singles, "Tequila Sunrise", which reached number 61 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and "Outlaw Man", which peaked at number 59.
1973–1975: On the Border and One of These Nights For their next album,
On the Border, Henley and Frey wanted the band to break away from the
country rock style and move more towards
hard rock. The Eagles initially started with
Glyn Johns as the producer for this album, but he tended to emphasize the lush side of their double-edged music. After completing only two usable songs, the band turned to
Bill Szymczyk to produce the rest of the album. Szymczyk wanted a harder-edged guitarist for the song "Good Day in Hell" and the band remembered
Bernie Leadon's childhood friend
Don Felder, a guitarist who had jammed backstage with the band in 1972 when they opened for
Yes in Boston. Felder had been nicknamed "Fingers" at the jam by Frey, a name that stuck due to his guitar proficiency. In January 1974, Frey called Felder to add
slide guitar to the song "Good Day in Hell" and the band was so impressed that they invited him to join the group as the fifth Eagle the next day. He appeared on one other song on the album, the up-tempo breakup song "
Already Gone", on which he performed a guitar duet with Frey. "Already Gone" was released as the first single from the album and it reached number 32 on the charts.
On the Border yielded a number 1
Billboard single ("
Best of My Love"), which hit the top of the charts on March 1, 1975. The song was the Eagles' first of five chart-toppers. The album included a cover version of the
Tom Waits song "
Ol' '55" and the single "
James Dean", which reached number 77 on the charts. The band played at the
California Jam festival in
Ontario, California on April 6, 1974. Attracting more than 300,000 fans and billed as "the Woodstock of the West Coast", the festival featured
Black Sabbath,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
Deep Purple,
Earth, Wind & Fire,
Seals & Crofts,
Black Oak Arkansas, and
Rare Earth. Portions of the show were telecast on
ABC television in the United States, exposing the Eagles to a wider audience. Felder missed the show when he was called away to attend the birth of his son; Jackson Browne filled in for him on piano and acoustic guitar. The Eagles released their fourth studio album,
One of These Nights, on June 10, 1975. A breakthrough album for the Eagles, making them international superstars, it was the first in a string of four consecutive number 1 albums. The dominant songwriting partnership of Henley and Frey continued on this album. The first single was the title track, which became their second consecutive chart-topper. Frey called it his all-time favorite Eagles tune. The second single was "
Lyin' Eyes", which reached number 2 on the charts and won the band their first Grammy for "Best Pop Performance by a duo or group with vocal". The final single, "
Take It to the Limit", was written by Meisner, Henley, and Frey, and it is the only Eagles single to feature Meisner on lead vocals. The song reached number 4 on the charts. The band launched a huge worldwide tour in support of the album, and the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The group was featured on the cover of the September 25, 1975 issue of
Rolling Stone magazine and on September 28, the band joined
Linda Ronstadt,
Jackson Browne, and
Toots and the Maytals for a show in front of 55,000 people at
Anaheim Stadium.
One of These Nights was their last album to feature founding member Bernie Leadon. Leadon wrote or co-wrote three songs for the album, including "I Wish You Peace", written with his girlfriend
Patti Davis (daughter of
California governor Ronald Reagan and
Nancy Reagan); and the instrumental "
Journey of the Sorcerer", which would later be used as the theme music for the
BBC's radio and television versions of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Leadon was disillusioned with the direction the band's music was taking and his loss of creative control as their sound was moving from his preferred country to rock and roll. His dissatisfaction, principally with Frey, boiled over one night when Frey was talking animatedly about the direction they should take next, and Leadon poured a beer over Frey's head, and said, "You need to chill out, man!" In December 1975, after months of denials, it was announced that Leadon had left the band.
1975–1978: Major success with Hotel California joined the band in 1975, replacing Leadon. Leadon's replacement was guitarist and singer
Joe Walsh, who had been a friend of the band for some years. He had previously performed with
James Gang,
Barnstorm, and as a solo artist; he was also managed by Azoff and used Szymczyk as his record producer. There was some initial concern as to Walsh's ability to fit in with the band, as he was considered too "wild" for the Eagles, especially by Henley. After the departure of Leadon, the Eagles' early country sound almost completely disappeared, with the band employing a more complex sound with the addition of Felder and Walsh; however, Felder also had to play
banjo,
pedal steel, and
mandolin on future tours, something that had previously been Leadon's domain. In early 1976, the band released their first compilation album,
Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975). The album became the highest-selling album of the 20th century in the United States, and has since sold 40million copies in the U.S. and at least 42million copies worldwide. The album cemented the group's status as the most successful American band of the decade. The following album,
Hotel California, released on December 8, 1976, was the band's fifth studio album and the first to feature Walsh. The album took a year and a half to complete, a process that, along with touring, drained the band. The album's first single, "
New Kid in Town", became the Eagles' third number-one single. The second single was the
title track, which topped the charts in May 1977 and became the Eagles' signature song. It features Henley on lead vocals, with a guitar duet performed by Felder and Walsh. Felder, Henley, and Frey co-wrote the song. The mysterious lyrics have been interpreted in many ways, some of them controversial. Rumors even started in certain quarters that the song was about Satanism. The rumor was dismissed by the band and later by Henley in the documentary film
History of the Eagles. Henley told
60 Minutes in 2007 that "it's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream and about excess in America, which was something we knew about." With its hard rock sound, "
Life in the Fast Lane" was also a major success that established Walsh's position in the band. The third and final single from
Hotel California, it reached number 11 on the charts. The ballad "Wasted Time" closes the first side of the album, while an instrumental reprise of it opens the second side. The album concludes with "
The Last Resort", a song that Frey once referred to as "Henley's opus", but which Henley described as "fairly pedestrian" and "never fully realized, musically speaking". The
run-out groove on side two has the words "V.O.L. Is Five-Piece Live" etched into the vinyl, which means that the instrumental track for the song "Victim of Love" was recorded live in the studio, with no overdubs. Henley confirms this in the liner notes of
The Very Best Of. However, the song was a point of contention between
Don Felder and the rest of the band. In the 2013 documentary, Felder claimed that he had been promised the lead vocal on "Victim of Love", for which he had written most of the music. After many unproductive attempts to record Felder's vocals, the band manager
Irving Azoff was delegated to take Felder out for a meal, removing him from the mix. At the same time, Don Henley overdubbed his lead vocal.
Hotel California appeared at number 37 on
Rolling Stones list of the best albums of all time, and is the band's best-selling studio album, with more than 28million copies sold in the U.S. alone, and more than 32million copies worldwide. The album won Grammys for "Record of the Year" ("Hotel California") and "Best Arrangement for Voices" ("New Kid in Town").
Hotel California topped the charts and was nominated for Album of the Year at the
1978 Grammy Awards, but lost to
Fleetwood Mac's
Rumours. The huge worldwide tour in support of the album further drained the band members and strained their personal and creative relationships.
Hotel California is the last album to feature founding member Randy Meisner, who abruptly left the band after the 1977 tour. The Eagles had been touring continuously for eleven months; the band was suffering from the strain of the tour, and Meisner's
stomach ulcers had flared up by the time they arrived in
Knoxville in June 1977. Meisner had been struggling to hit the crucial high notes in his signature song, "Take It to the Limit", and decided to not sing the song as an encore at the Knoxville concert because he had been up late and caught the
flu. Frey and Meisner then became engaged in arguments about Meisner's reluctance to perform, which turned into an angry physical confrontation backstage. Meisner left the venue. After the incident, Meisner was frozen out from the band, In 1977, the group, minus Don Felder, performed instrumental work and backing vocals for
Randy Newman's album
Little Criminals, including "
Short People", which has backup vocals by Frey and Schmit.
1978–1980: The Long Run and breakup The Eagles went into the recording studio in 1978 to begin work on their next album,
The Long Run. The album took a year and a half to complete. It was initially intended to be a double album, but the band members were unable to write enough songs.
The Long Run was released on September 24, 1979. Considered a disappointment by some critics for failing to live up to
Hotel California, it proved a huge commercial hit nonetheless; the album topped the charts and sold seven million copies. In addition, it included three Top 10 singles. "
Heartache Tonight" became their last single to top the Hot 100 on November 10, 1979. The
title track and "
I Can't Tell You Why" both reached number 8. The band won their fourth Grammy for "Heartache Tonight". "
In the City" by Walsh and "
The Sad Café" became live staples. The band also recorded two Christmas songs during these sessions, "Funky New Year" and "
Please Come Home for Christmas", which was released as a single in 1978 and reached number 18 on the charts. Frey, Henley, and Schmit contributed backup vocals for the single release of "
Look What You've Done to Me" by
Boz Scaggs. A different version with female backing vocals appears on the
Urban Cowboy soundtrack, along with the Eagles' 1975 hit "Lyin' Eyes". On July 31, 1980, in
Long Beach, California, tempers boiled over into what has been described as the "Long Night at Wrong Beach". The animosity between Felder and Frey boiled over before the show began, when Felder said, "You're welcome – I guess" to California Senator
Alan Cranston's wife as the politician was thanking the band backstage for performing a benefit for his re-election. Frey and Felder spent the entire show telling each other about the beating each planned to administer backstage. "Only three more songs until I kick your ass, pal," Frey recalled Felder telling him near the end of the band's set. Felder recalls Frey telling him during "Best of My Love", "I'm gonna kick your ass when we get off the stage." In 1998, the Eagles were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the induction ceremony, all seven Eagles members (Frey, Henley, Felder, Walsh, Schmit, Leadon, and Meisner) played together for two songs, "Take It Easy" and "Hotel California". Several subsequent reunion tours followed (without Leadon or Meisner), notable for their record-setting ticket prices. The Eagles performed at the
Mandalay Bay Events Center in
Las Vegas on December 28 and 29, 1999, followed by a concert at the
Staples Center in Los Angeles on December 31. These concerts marked the last time Felder played with the band, and the shows (including a planned video release) would later form a part of a lawsuit filed by Felder against his former bandmates. The concert recordings were released on CD as part of the four-disc
Selected Works: 1972–1999 box set in November 2000. Along with the concert, this set included the band's hit singles, album tracks, and outtakes from
The Long Run sessions.
Selected Works received
platinum certification from the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2002. The group resumed touring in 2001, with a lineup consisting of Frey, Henley, Walsh, and Schmit, along with
Steuart Smith (guitars, mandolin, keyboards, backing vocals; essentially taking over Felder's role), Michael Thompson (keyboards, trombone), Will Hollis (keyboards, backing vocals),
Scott Crago (drums, percussion), Bill Armstrong (Horns), Al Garth (sax, violin), Christian Mostert (sax), and Greg Smith (sax, percussion).
2001–2007: Don Felder lawsuit On February 6, 2001, Don Felder was fired from the Eagles. He responded by filing two lawsuits against "Eagles, Ltd.", a California corporation; Don Henley, an individual; Glenn Frey, an individual; and "
Does 1–50", alleging wrongful termination, breach of implied-in-fact contract and breach of fiduciary duty, reportedly seeking $50million in damages. Felder alleged that from the 1994
Hell Freezes Over tour onward, Henley and Frey had "...insisted that they each receive a higher percentage of the band's profits ...," whereas the money had previously been split in five equal portions. Felder accused them of coercing him into signing an agreement under which Henley and Frey would receive three times as much of the
Selected Works: 1972–1999 proceeds. On behalf of Henley and Frey, attorney
Daniel M. Petrocelli responded by saying "[Henley and Frey] felt—creatively, chemistry-wise and performance-wise—that he should no longer be part of the band ... They removed him, and they had every legal right to do so. This has been happening with rock 'n' roll bands since day one." The two-disc compilation was the first that encompassed their entire career from
Eagles to
Hell Freezes Over. It debuted at number 3 on the Billboard charts and eventually gained triple platinum status. The album included a new single, the
September 11 attacks-themed "
Hole in the World". Also in 2003,
Warren Zevon, a longtime Eagles friend, began work on his final album,
The Wind, with the assistance of Henley, Walsh, and Schmit. On June 14, 2005, the Eagles released a new 2-DVD set,
Farewell 1 Tour-Live from Melbourne, featuring two new songs: Frey's "No More Cloudy Days" and Walsh's "One Day at a Time." A special edition 2006 release, exclusive to
Walmart and affiliated stores, includes a bonus audio CD with three new songs that were to appear on their upcoming studio album: "No More Cloudy Days", "Fast Company", and "Do Something". The initial U.S. release of Felder's book was canceled after publisher
Hyperion Books backed out in September 2007, when an entire print run of the book had to be recalled for cuts and changes. The book was published in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2007. The American edition was published by
John Wiley & Sons on April 28, 2008, with Felder embarking on a full publicity campaign surrounding its release.
2007–2012: Long Road Out of Eden world tour and possible eighth album In 2007, the Eagles consisted of Frey, Henley, Walsh, and Schmit. On August 20, 2007, "
How Long", written by
JD Souther, was released as a single to radio with an accompanying online video at
Yahoo! Music. It debuted on television on
Country Music Television on August 23, 2007. The band had performed the song as part of their live sets in the early to mid-1970s, but did not record it at the time because Souther wanted to reserve it for use on his first solo album. Souther had previously worked with the Eagles, co-writing some of their biggest hits, including "Best of My Love", "Victim of Love", "Heartache Tonight", and "New Kid in Town". On October 30, 2007, the Eagles released
Long Road Out of Eden, their first album of all-new material since 1979. For the first year after the album's release, it was available in the U.S. only via the band's website, at Walmart, and at
Sam's Club stores. It was commercially available through traditional retail outlets in other countries. The album debuted at number 1 in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Norway. It became their third studio album and seventh release overall to be certified at least seven times platinum by the
RIAA. Henley told
CNN that "This is probably the last Eagles album that we'll ever make." The Eagles made their awards show debut on November 7, 2007, when they performed "How Long" live at the
Country Music Association Awards. On January 28, 2008, the second single of
Long Road Out of Eden was released. "
Busy Being Fabulous" peaked at number 28 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot Country Songs chart The Eagles won their fifth Grammy
in 2008, in the category
Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "How Long". On March 20, 2008, the Eagles launched their world tour in support of
Long Road Out of Eden at
The O2 Arena in London. The
Long Road Out of Eden Tour concluded the American portion of the tour at
Rio Tinto Stadium in
Sandy, Utah, on May 9, 2009. It was the first concert ever held in the new soccer stadium. The tour traveled to Europe, with its final concert date on July 22, 2009, in
Lisbon. The band spent the summer of 2010 touring North American stadiums with the
Dixie Chicks and
Keith Urban. The tour expanded to England as the headline act of the
Hop Farm Festival on July 1, 2011. Asked in November 2010 whether the Eagles were planning a follow-up to
Long Road Out of Eden, Schmit replied, "My first reaction would be: no way. But I said that before the last one, so you never really know. Bands are a fragile entity and you never know what's going to happen. It took a long time to do that last album, over a span of years, really, and it took a lot out of us. We took a year off at one point. I'm not sure if we're able to do that again. I wouldn't close the door on it, but I don't know." Walsh said in 2010 that there might be one more album before the band "wraps it up". Frey later stated in a 2012 interview that the band has had discussions about releasing an EP of potentially 4–6 songs that may contain both original and cover material.
2013–2016: History of the Eagles, Glenn Frey's death, and second hiatus , 2014; from left to right: Schmit, Leadon, Frey, and Walsh (Henley on drums not pictured) In February 2013, the Eagles released a career-spanning documentary called
History of the Eagles and began the
supporting tour with 11 US arena concerts in July. Henley said that the tour, which expanded internationally and continued until July 2015, Original Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon also appeared on the tour. Walsh stated, "Bernie's brilliant, I never really got a chance to play with him, but we've been in contact. We see him from time to time, and I'm really glad he's coming because it's going to take the show up a notch, and I'm really looking forward to playing with him, finally." Former members Randy Meisner and Don Felder did not appear. Meisner had been invited but could not participate for health reasons, while Felder was never asked. Though his lawsuits against the Eagles were settled in 2007, Henley claimed that Felder continued to "engage in legal action, of one kind or another" against the band, but did not state what those actions were. On January 18, 2016, founding member Glenn Frey died at the
Columbia University Medical Center in
New York City at the age of 67. The causes of his death were
rheumatoid arthritis, acute
ulcerative colitis, and
pneumonia while recovering from
intestinal surgery. At the
58th Annual Grammy Awards in February, the Eagles, joined by Leadon, touring guitarist
Steuart Smith, and co-writer
Jackson Browne, performed "
Take It Easy" in honor of Frey. In subsequent interviews, Henley stated that he did not think the band would perform again.
2017–present: Return to touring, new lineup, and farewell tour Despite Henley's statements the previous year, the band continued on and headlined the Classic West and Classic East concert in July 2017, which were organized by their manager Irving Azoff. Glenn Frey's son Deacon performed in his father's place, along with country musician
Vince Gill. At the Classic West concert, the band was joined by
Bob Seger who sang "
Heartache Tonight", which he co-wrote. The band then continued to tour in the fall in the U.S. Further touring occurred again in North America with Gill and Deacon Frey, beginning in March 2018. Henley's son Will joined the touring band as a guitarist for this run of shows. The band also toured Europe and
Oceania in early 2019. The first live release of the new lineup came in 2020 when footage of the band's 2018 leg was released as a concert TV special on
ESPN with the soundtrack released in October, the first live release without Glenn Frey. A live album of the concert,
Live from the Forum MMXVIII, was released in October 2020. The band performed their 1976 album
Hotel California in its entirety during three concerts at the
MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, in September and October 2019. The shows also included another set of the band's greatest hits. The lineup included a 46-piece orchestra and a 22-voice choir. Following the Las Vegas shows, the band announced the
Hotel California 2020 Tour to take place in six cities between February 7 and April 18, 2020. After just ten shows in early 2020, the remainder of the Hotel California Tour was postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The tour resumed in 2021, with North American dates spanning August to November. The band then announced the tour would continue into 2022, with dates in both the U.S. and Europe. Frey has since guested with the band on numerous occasions starting in June of that year. On July 6, 2023, the band announced their farewell tour, The Long Goodbye Tour to commence on September 7, 2023, at
New York's
Madison Square Garden, with Deacon Frey again joining the band. Later that month, on July 26, founding bassist Randy Meisner died at the age of 77 from complications related to
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, leaving Henley and Leadon as the two remaining original members. In a joint press statement confirming the news, the band described Meisner as "an integral part of the Eagles and instrumental in the early success of the band". In a 2022 interview with Loudersound, Schmit expressed doubt that the band would record a follow-up to
Long Road Out of Eden, stating, "I sincerely doubt it. We toured behind our last album,
Long Road Out Of Eden [2007], and put in five to seven of those songs. But we don't do them anymore because there wasn't a big reaction. When people come to see the Eagles they want to hear 'Best Of My Love', 'One Of These Nights', all these things. So we give it to them." in December 2024 In September 2024, the Eagles began a concert residency at
Sphere in the
Las Vegas Valley. The first eight concerts grossed $42.2 million from 131,000 tickets sold. The shows are scheduled to continue into March of 2026. In 2025, touring lead guitarist
Steuart Smith was replaced by Chris Holt. Smith retired due to
Parkinson's disease. The band is scheduled to tour in May 2026. In February 2026, Henley said that the Eagles would disband at the end of that tour, "And I've said things like that before, but I feel like we're getting toward the end...And that will be fine too." ==Musical style==