At the 1994 Eagles reunion concert that led to the mostly live, partly studio CD Hell Freezes Over, Glenn Frey wryly told the crowd that the band had never actually broken up, they "just took a 14-year vacation."
Following a subsequent 13-year vacation the Eagles have resumed a career that started when founding members Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon met as the backing band for Linda Ronstadt's 1971 tour.
By the time the Eagles disbanded in 1980, a combination of their perfect musicianship, stellar songwriting and spot-on harmonies had made them megastars, and along the way they had created a body of work that virtually defined the 1970s. They were rewarded handsomely, collecting five #1 hit singles and four straight #1 albums during their original nine years together (Hell Freezes Over later made it five straight #1 albums). The one thing, though, that sums up their career like nothing else is the number 29,000,000. That's how many copies of their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 have been purchased in America alone, making it the single greatest-selling album in the history of American recorded music. Sales like that will pay for some mighty fine vacations.
In 2007, the Eagles issued Long Road Out of Eden, a 20-song, double-disc affair that represents their first album of new material since 1979. Now we know how they spent at least some of their latest vacation.
Provenance: Los Angeles.
Latest release: Long Road Out of Eden (2007)
© 2007 Nigel Music Media LLC. Used by permission.
Eagles
