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:This article is about the country rock group
called The Eagles.  For other  uses of the word,
see Eagle (uation).


The Eagles are an United States|American Rock and
roll|rock music group that originally came
together in Los Angeles, California in the early
1970s.

==Overview==
Their early music was a hybrid of country
music|country and bluegrass music|bluegrass
instrumentation grafted onto the harmonies of
California Surf rock|surfer rock, producing tender
ballads and soft top-down country-flavored
pop-rock about relationships, cars, and the
wandering life. The originators of  this genre
were gifted singer/songwriters, among them Jackson
Browne, J.D. Souther, and Warren Zevon. The Eagles
took the singer-songwriter ethos to a group
setting with increased emphasis on arrangements
and musicianship, and the group's early sound
became synonymous with the southern California
country rock.  On later albums the band dispensed
with bluegrass instrumentation and gravitated to a
more straight-ahead rock sound.

==Band Members==
===Founding Members===
The founding members in 1971:

*Guitarist/keyboardist/Vocalist Glenn Frey (born
November 6, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan) escaped
Michigan's cold winters and musically stultifying
college fraternity|frat and bar scene, bringing a
rhythm and blues heritage.

*Drummer/Vocalist/Guitarist Don Henley (born July
22, 1947 in Gilmer, Texas) was nearly a college
graduate, majoring in English literature.  

*Guitarist/mandolinist/banjo player Bernie Leadon
(born July 19, 1947, in Minneapolis, Minnesota)
had a passion for country and bluegrass that
shaped the band's early direction.  (quit group
1975)

*Bass guitar|Bassist Randy Meisner (born March 8,
1946 in Scottsbluff, Nebraska) was a
automobile|car and motorcycle|cycle enthusiast who
preferred spending time with his family to playing
bass in a rock and roll band.   (quit group 1977)

===Additional/Replacement Members===
*Guitarist/Vocalist Don Felder (born September 21,
1948 in Topanga, California)  (joined group 1974,
fired from group 2001)

*Guitarist/Vocalist "Average" Joe Walsh (born
November 20, 1947) replaced Bernie Leadon. (joined
group 1975)

*Bassist/Vocalist Timothy B. Schmit (born October
30, 1947 in Oakland, California, raised in
Sacramento, California) replaced Randy Meisner. 
(joined group 1977)

==History==
The band formed in 1971 when Linda Ronstadt's
then-manager, John Boylan, extracted Frey, Leadon,
and Meisner from their affiliations. They were
short a drummer until Frey phoned Henley, whom he
had met at the Troubadour (nightclub)|Troubadour
in Los Angeles. The band backed up Ronstadt on a
two-month tour, then decided to form their own
band, The Eagles.

Their first album, The Eagles (album)|The Eagles,
was filled with pure, sometimes innocent country
rock; their second, Desperado (album)|Desperado,
was themed on Old West outlaws and introduced the
group's penchant for conceptual songwriting.

To record their third album, On the Border, the
group selected producer Glyn Johns, who previously
worked with Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, and
The Who. The band wanted to rock, but Johns tended
to extract the lush side of the band's
double-edged music. After completing two thirds of
the album with Johns, the band turned to Bill
Szymczyk to produce the rest of the album.
Szymczyk brought in Don Felder to add slide guitar
to a song called "Good Day in Hell", and the band
was blown away. Two days later Felder became the
fifth Eagle. On the Border yielded a #1
Billboard magazine|Billboard single in the song
"Best of My Love", which hit the top of the charts
on March 1, 1975.

Their next album, One of These Nights, had an
aggressive, sinewy rock stance. Between the album
and the subsequent tour, Bernie Leadon left the
group, disillusioned about the direction the
band's music was taking. The group replaced Leadon
with Joe Walsh, a veteran of such groups as the
James Gang and Barnstorm and a solo artist in his
own right. The addition of Walsh made the group's
aim perfectly clear: they wanted to rock. The
title track from One of These Nights hit #1 on the
Billboard magazine|Billboard chart August 2, 1975.
By this time, the people in the band started
clashing with each other and there were intra-band
fights.

Meanwhile, in early 1976 Their Greatest Hits
(1971-1975) was released.  It went on to become
the biggest-selling album in US history, selling
over 28 million copies.

The group's next album, Hotel California, came out
in late 1976, and was about the pursuit of the
American dream — 1970s style. Using
California as a metaphor for the nation, the
Eagles wrote about innocence ("New Kid in Town", a
#1 hit in Billboard magazine|Billboard on February
26, 1977) and temptations ("Life In The Fast Lane"
and the classic title track, a #1 hit in Billboard
magazine|Billboard on May 7, 1977) of that
pursuit.  The striking, mournful ballad "Wasted
Time" closed the first side of the record, while
an instrumental reprise of it opened the second
side.  The album concluded with "The Last Resort",
an epic tale of the loss of American paradise.  In
all Hotel California is generally considered to be
The Eagles' masterpiece, and has appeared on
several lists of the best albums of all time.   

During the final leg of the ensuing tour, however,
Randy Meisner decided he had had enough hotel
rooms in his seven years as an Eagle and left the
band for the relative quiet of Nebraska to
recuperate and instigate a solo career. The Eagles
replaced Meisner with the man who had succeeded
him in Poco, Timothy B. Schmit.  1977 saw (what
was at the time) the entire Eagles line-up
performing instrumental work and backing vocals
for Randy Newman's album Little Criminals. 
However, the album credits them as individual
performers rather than as the Eagles, possibly to
avoid a contract dispute with the Eagles' record
label.

In February 1978, the Eagles went into the studio
to produce their final studio album, The Long Run
(album)|The Long Run. The album took two years to
make, but yielded the group's fifth and last #1
single in Billboard magazine|Billboard, "Heartache
Tonight" (November 10, 1979). The tour to promote
the album intensified personality differences
between band members, made worse on the night of
November 21, 1980 when Henley was arrested for
cocaine, Quaalude, and marijuana possession after
a nude 16-year-old prostitute had drug-related
seizures in a hotel room. Henley was subsequently
charged with contributing to the delinquency of a
minor.

Following The Long Run tour, in 1980, the band
broke up, and all of the members had solo careers
of varying degrees of success.

During the early 1990s, an Eagles country tribute
album Common Thread was released.  Travis Tritt
insisted on having the Long Run-era Eagles in his
video for "Take It Easy."

After the "Take It Easy" video was completed in
1994 the band reunited, after years of public
speculation that it would.  The personnel was the
five Long Run era members, supplemented by
additional players on stage.  The ensuing tour
spawned a live album entitled Hell Freezes Over
(named for Henley's statement that the group would
get back together only when hell froze over), and
a single, "Get Over It".

Controversy followed on September 12, 1996 when
the band dedicated "Peaceful Easy Feeling" to
Saddam Hussein at a United States Democratic Party
fundraiser held in Los Angeles, California|Los
Angeles. 

In 1998, the band was inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. During the induction ceremony,
all seven former members played together on stage.
 Several subsequent reunion tours would follow,
notable for their record-setting ticket prices.

The Eagles were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall
of Fame in 2001.

In February 2001, Don Felder was fired from the
group; Felder and the Eagles filed lawsuits
against each other.  In 2003 the Eagles released a
new single, the September 11, 2001
attacks|September 11th-themed "Hole in the World".

As of 2005 the Eagles consist of Frey, Henley,
Walsh, and Schmit.  On their Farewell Tour I they
are supplemented by eight additional players: a
drummer/percussionist (to relieve/augment Henley),
a guitarist named Steuart Smith (to play Felder's
old parts), two keyboard players (to augment
Frey), and a four-person horn section that also
can play violin and additional percussion.

See Winslow, Arizona for a unique tribute to The
Eagles' song "Take It Easy".

== Discography ==
=== Studio Albums ===
* 1972 The Eagles (album)|Eagles #22 US, US Sales:
1,000,000
* 1973 Desperado (album)|Desperado #41 US, #39 UK,
US Sales: 2,000,000
* 1974 On the Border #17 US, #28 UK, US Sales:
2,000,000
* 1975 One of These Nights #1 US, #8 UK, US Sales:
4,000,000
* 1976 Hotel California #1 US, #2 UK, US Sales:
16,000,000
* 1979 The Long Run (album)|The Long Run #1 US, #4
UK, US Sales: 7,000,000

===Compilations and Lives===
* 1976 Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)
(compilation) #1 US, #2 UK, US Sales: 28,000,000
* 1980 Eagles Live #6 US, #24 UK, US Sales:
7,000,000
* 1982 The Eagles Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
(compilation) #52 US, US Sales: 11,000,000
* 1984 The Best of the Eagles (European
compilation) #8 UK
* 1994 The Very Best of The Eagles (1994)
(European compilation) #4 UK
* 1994 Hell Freezes Over (live album) #1 US, #18
UK, US Sales: 8,000,000 (newly certified 6/05)
* 2000 Selected Works: 1972-1999 (box set) #109
US, US Sales: 1,000,000
* 2001 The Very Best of the Eagles (2001)
(European compilation) #3 UK
* 2003 The Very Best of the Eagles (2003)
(compilation) #3 US, #27 UK (called The Complete
Greatest Hits in Europe), US Sales: 3,000,000

=== Hit singles ===

* from Eagles
** 1972 "Take It Easy" #12 US
** 1972 "Witchy Woman" #9 US
** 1972 "Peaceful Easy Feeling" #22 US
* from Desperado
** 1973 "Tequila Sunrise" #64 US
** 1973 "Outlaw Man" #59 US
* from On the Border
** 1974 "Already Gone" #32 US
** 1974 "Best of My Love" #1 US
** 1974 "James Dean" #77 US
* from One of These Nights
** 1975 "One of These Nights" #1 US, #23 UK
** 1975 "Lyin' Eyes" #2 US, #23 UK
** 1975 "Take It to the Limit" #4 US, #12 UK
* from Hotel California
** 1976 "New Kid in Town" #1 US, #20 UK
** 1977 "Hotel California" #1 US, #8 UK
** 1977 "Life in the Fast Lane" #11 US
* non-album single
** 1978 "Please Come Home for Christmas" #18 US,
#30 UK
* from The Long Run
** 1979 "Heartache Tonight" #1 US, #40 UK
** 1979 "The Long Run" #8 US
** 1980 "I Can't Tell You Why" #8 US
* from Eagles Live
** 1980 "Seven Bridges Road" #21 US
* from Hell Freezes Over
** 1994 "Get Over It" #31 US
* from The Very Best of the Eagles
** 2003 "Hole in the World" #69 US

==See also==
*Best selling music artists (world-wide)
*Best selling music artists in US

== External links ==
*http://eaglesband.com/ Eagles website
*http://www.vghf.com/Inductees/eagles.htm Vocal
Group Hall of Fame page on The Eagles
*http://lyrics.rare-lyrics.com/E/Eagles.html The
Eagles Lyrics
*http://www.eaglesfans.com/ "The Fastlane" Eagles
unofficial fan site
*http://www.theeaglesforever.com/ The Eagles
Forever - Fansite with Books, Music Lyrics and
more.