Fights, high ticket prices and modern country music are the Eagles’ legacy

Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Don Henley, from left, are the Eagles.

Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Don Henley, from left, are the Eagles.

One in every 10 people in the United States owns a copy of the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).”

It’s a staggering thought. The disc remains the nation’s best-selling album (29 million copies and counting), beating Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” by 2 million.

Yet the band has never gained much respect for its place in music history.

The Eagles’ legacy can be found in the sound of modern country music, high concert ticket prices and personal acrimony.

When the band split in 1980, the only people who didn’t seem to love the Eagles were the band’s own members.

Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon joined forces in 1971, becoming Linda Ronstadt’s backing band before naming themselves the Eagles and recording their own album. The self-titled debut resulted in the hits “Witchy Woman,” “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and set the group on a hitmaking path. The band added Don Felder on guitar in 1974 and lost Leadon a year later amid obvious tensions: Leadon announced his departure by pouring a beer on Frey’s head. Joe Walsh replaced Leadon. Meisner left less dramatically in 1977 and was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit.

The band reached a pinnacle in 1977 with the release of “Hotel California,” which sold 16 million copies, and the title song won a Grammy for Record of the Year.

Despite the success and peaceful easy feeling of the band’s music, the membership seemed to always be on the edge of an eruption. Things finally blew up during a July 31, 1980, concert in which members were threatening each other while on stage.

After the dissolution, Henley had famously stated that the band would reunite when “Hell freezes over” and stuck to that pledge for 14 years.

Still, in those 14 years the Eagles never lost popularity on classic-rock radio, and increasingly became a part of country radio as well. During the late 1980s and 1990s, country acts were still giving lip service to the influence of Merle Haggard, George Jones and Waylon Jennings, but you were far more likely to hear the remnants of “Hotel California,” “Heartache Tonight” or “Tequila Sunrise” than “Mama Tried,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today” or “Amanda.” In 1993, popular country acts, including Travis Tritt, Brooks & Dunn and Trisha Yearwood, put their cards on the table when they banded together to release the triple-platinum-selling “Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles.”

When the 1980 lineup of the band finally did decide to reunite in 1994, the Eagles set a new precedent: Ticket prices like rock music had never seen before. At a time when typical concert tickets cost between $20 and $40, the Eagles’ tickets ranged from $80 to well more than $100, depending on the city. Some rock acts were disdainful of the prices (one prominent rocker said audiences were paying to see the band “rehearse”). However, not long after the “Hell Freezes Over” tour sold out shows all over the country, high-profile artists were doubling the price of their tickets.

In a 2002 interview, Henley said he had mixed feelings about the ticket prices, but “sometimes you pay more for antiques. And there’s always the possibility that this could be the last show.”

Obviously the group’s last show wasn’t near. In fact, in 2007, the band released a new album, “Long Road Out of Eden,” (sold exclusively through Walmart) and began a new tour. While the members continue to work together, contentious moments obviously still abound. Felder was fired from the group in 2001, wrote a scathing book detailing his time with the group and filed a lawsuit against the band (later settled out of court).

In that 2002 interview, Henley said the group has always been a volatile mix:

“There was always the specter of the whole thing blowing up in our faces. I don’t think we were ever comfortable with each other.”

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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