http://wishtv.com/2016/01/18/eagles-founding-member-glenn-frey-dies/
NDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Glenn Frey, a founding member of the Eagles band, has died.
The band announced the news on its Website Monday.
“Glenn fought a courageous battle for the past several weeks but, sadly, succumbed to complications from Rheumatoid Arthritis, Acute Ulcerative Colitis and Pneumonia,” the Website says.
He died in New York City on Monday, the band said.
[Edited on 1/18/2016 by LeglizHemp]
(CNN)Glenn Frey, a founding member of the rock supergroup the Eagles, has died at 67, a publicist for the band has confirmed.
"Glenn fought a courageous battle for the past several weeks but, sadly, succumbed to complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia," reads a post on the band's official website.
Frey had been suffering from intestinal issues, which caused the postponement of the band's inclusion in the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors.
Frey and the other original members of the Eagles — Don Henley, Bernie Meisner and Bernie Leadon -- came together to form singer Linda Ronstadt's backup band in the early 1970s.
They were all experienced musicians who brought their expertise to the country-tinged rock sound that the Eagles would eventually make famous.
Going on to form their own band, the Eagles found wild success. Throughout the 1970s the band released hit after hit, including "One of These Nights," "Best of My Love" and "Life in the Fast Lane,"
Frey played guitar and keyboard and took lead vocal duties for the band on tunes like "Take it Easy" and "Tequila Sunrise."
With "Hotel California" in 1976, the band reached the pinnacle of its success.
The Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975, was the first album certified platinum and has sold 29 million copies in the United States, second only to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," according to Rolling Stone.
The band has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Though the public reception was warm, the band had a famously contentious relationship with critics.
"Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them," wrote rock critic Robert Christgau in 1972, when they first hit it big.
The band succumbed to internal squabbles and broke up in 1980. Frey, Henley and other band members were famously contentious.
"He was like a brother to me," fellow Eagle Don Henley said in a statement Monday. "We were family, and like most families, there was some dysfunction. But, the bond we forged 45 years ago was never broken, even during the 14 years that the Eagles were dissolved."
Frey saw solo success with the 1982 release "No Fun Aloud." He hit the top 40 with "The Heat Is On," "You Belong to the City," "True Love," and "Soul Searchin.'"
He also tried his hand at acting with a guest spot on "Miami Vice"
The band reunited for 1994's Hell Freezes Over tour, which spawned an MTV special and a live album. They would continue to tour together over the years.
"Words can neither describe our sorrow, nor our love and respect for all that he has given to us, his family, the music community & millions of fans worldwide," the band said on its website Monday.
[Edited on 1/18/2016 by LeglizHemp]
~very sad news God Bless and Rest In Peace~
Just saw this on social media and had to take a deep breath......
R.I.P. Mr. Frey and thanks for the music....
I'm feeling very mortal these days...
Whoa, didn't see that coming.
So sorry to hear this.
Take It Easy Glen.
What a week. David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and Glenn Fery. Early Eagles and Linda Ronstadt were something together! RIP.
They are dropping like flies Lemmy, David Bowie and now Glenn Frey.
RIP Glenn Frey
Just another reminder that were all getting older.
very sad & shocked to hear about Glenn...RIP.
As to what Pops said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/bowies-death-marks-the-twilight-of-the-rock-gods/
Hard for me to envision The Eagles ever touring without Glenn Frey.
This one hurts me.
Got to see the Eagles twice over the last few years and my appreciation for them as a band went way up after seeing just how good a band they were - impressive and talented performances by all. 67 is too young, and it is sad to see him gone.
R.I.P. You help make some remarkable music and memories.
Curious to know Don Felder's thoughts right now.
I saw the Eagles when they first started out. After they came out with "One Of These Nights" I lost interest. Rip Glenn Frey.
Boy the Grim Reaper will not stop.. The one that affected me the most recently was Scott Weiland..
Curious to know Don Felder's thoughts right now.
That was one of my first thoughts when I heard this news. I distinctly remember Frey calling Felder an assh*le in that 4 hour Showtime Eagles documentary. For him to do that in a televised interview, I found quite shocking.
Interesting now, because the only way I could envision The Eagles touring again would be if Felder rejoined the band.
[Edited on 1/20/2016 by robslob]
Although I was never a big fan of The Eagles, it's sucks that another person from our younger days has passed away. I read somewhere that they were the biggest selling american act? I thought they would have sold more then 100 million records though. As pops42 said "we are all getting older".
I saw one of their last shows this past summer, and you had to be impressed with their musicianship and showmanship. This was not a jam session with any improvised solos, but well crafted show. I wish other bands had put this much effort into crafting their sound and performance.
WRT Don Felder returning, I just couldn't see it as Steuart Smith is the Felder replacement in the band. Without Glenn and his voice and stage presence, the Eagles are now a wonderful memory ...
Curious to know Don Felder's thoughts right now.
That was one of my first thoughts when I heard this news. I distinctly remember Frey calling Felder an asshole in that 4 hour televised Eagles documentary. For him to do that in a televised interview, I found quite shocking.
Interesting now, because the only way I could envision The Eagles touring again would be if Felder rejoined the band.
Here is what he said.
Don Felder
10 hrs ·
I am in a state of shock and disbelief at Glenn’s passing. It was so unexpected and has left me with a very heavy heart filled with sorrow. He was so young and still full of amazing genius. He was an extremely talented songwriter, arranger, leader, singer, guitarist, you name it and Glenn could do it and create “MAGIC” on the spot. His visions and insights into songs and lyrics have become legendary and will echo throughout time on this earth for decades to come.
Glenn was funny, strong, generous and kind. It was a gift of a lifetime to have spent so many years working side by side with him. At times it felt like we were brothers and at other times, like brothers, we disagreed. Despite our difficult moments together we managed to create some magical songs, magical memories, great recordings and live shows together.
The planet has lost a great man and musician today. None will ever be able to take his place.
Rest in peace Glenn and may God bless you and your family.
Boy the Grim Reaper will not stop.. The one that affected me the most recently was Scott Weiland..
Same here...
Wow. Another shocker. RIP Glenn
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/opinions/eliot-glenn-frey/index.html
Why Glenn Frey's death shakes us
By Marc Eliot?Updated 11:31 AM ET, Tue January 19, 2016
(CNN)—The passing of Glenn Frey both recalls and closes the book on one of rock's most celebrated rock 'n' roll songwriting teams, but for many of us it also signals something more personal: the passing of a time when the Eagles' "Hotel California" was the anthem for the youth of America in the '70s -- the way Beatles music was for the children of the '60s.
For people who came up in that time, the death of Frey -- and earlier this month the death of David Bowie -- comes as a reality check, a resounding reminder that the days of "Take it Easy" and the promise of "One of these Nights" are long behind us.
Instead, music, the blood of our youth, has somehow been replaced by mortgages, credit cards, spouses, children, divorces, alimony, expanding waistlines and diminished dreams. Some of us may feel like an oldies act, but Glenn Frey never became one.
Formed in 1970 at the front bar of L.A.'s legendary Troubadour nightspot, the duo of Frey and Don Henley united to be part of the backup band for Linda Ronstadt at a Disneyland engagement. It was the nucleus of what would become the Eagles, the hugely influential band that introduced the "L.A. sound" to the world—and whose album "Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975" still holds the record as bestselling album of the 20th century by a group.
Henley brought a Texas-style country sound to the band, but it was tempered and made more sophisticated by Frey, who gave it its essential urban rhythms. Frey was born in Detroit and raised in the nearby suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan. (None of the Eagles were, in fact, from Los Angeles.)
An Eagle gets started
While still a teenager, Frey became a local sought-after studio musician, and in 1966 had his first exposure to greatness, playing for one of Detroit's own, Bob Seger, who was at the time one of the hottest acts in the world, one of the first to spot young Frey's abilities as a rhythm guitarist and lead singer.
A few years later, in Los Angeles when the Eagles first played together, they were mostly a derivative band, using material from Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Jack Tempchin and Tom Waits to help them find their way. (Like the Beatles, Henley and Frey relied on the music of others to learn how to make their own.)
It took Elliot Roberts and David Geffen, a couple of young and ambitious former William Morris agents who formed the record label Asylum, to push the Eagles into the mainstream with their debut album. Their mellow, West Coast "country rock" cool defined mainstream American popular music in the '70s and has been lodged in car radios across America ever since.
The album had three top 10 singles. One of them, "Take it Easy," co-authored by Frey and Browne, pretty much said everything you need to know about the vibe. It was followed up a year later with the less successful "Desperado" before the Eagles took a more rocking direction.
'Hotel California' speaks to generation
But it was "Hotel California," released in 1975, that made them a worldwide sensation. The album's opening track of the same name, co-written by Frey, was the clarion call for the Eagles the way "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" had been for the Beatles: It described both the band's self-destruction by excess, its awareness of that self-destruction and its inability to stop it. ("You can check out any time, but you can never leave. ...")
It was "Hotel California" that internalized all the angst of the times, trading in the '60s -- Vietnam, student unrest, turning on and dropping out -- for a weary age of tuning in and getting laid, its lead character moaning about not having the spirit of 1969 in the air anymore.
This introspection was what separated and elevated the Eagles from all the other American bands, and it was Frey who was key to it. The only thing he cared about was the hot-rush politics of romance, while Henley wanted the band to be more relevant, to put a cool contemporary voice to the romance of politics.
One of the best songs on "Hotel California" is the Frey/Henley/Souther "New Kid in Town," a song they came up with while having dinner at Dan Tana's, a legendary L.A. restaurant adjacent to the Troubadour late one night after they saw Bruce Springsteen drop an atomic bomb at the Roxy. It was a song, as I wrote in my book, about the beginning of the end for the band, a precise and spectacular moment immediately familiar to any guy who's ever felt the pain, jealousy, insecurity, rage and heartbreak of the moment he discovers his girlfriend has moved on.
Returning to his groove
When the band broke up in 1980, not surprisingly Henley found his solo voice in songs that were overtly political ("The End of the Innocence"), while Frey stayed true to his rock groove, with hit songs like "You Belong to the City," which reached No. 2. Frey also took up acting as yet another successful outlet for his proud narcissism. He appeared in several episodes of "Miami Vice" and was featured in Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" and several other films.
It would take the two 14 years, from 1980 to 1994, to find their way back to being "the Eagles," and it was Henley who had to bring Frey back, who wanted to return to the past, not the other way around. They went back on the road with their Hell Freezes Over tour ("We'll get together when hell freezes over," Frey had told Henley when the band broke up) and released a live album that immediately went to No. 1 on Billboard.
I remember one night in the summer of 1997 over drinks at the Formosa in West Hollywood. I was writing my biography of the Eagles, and I asked Henley what he thought the essential difference was between him and Frey.
"If I had my way, we'd be out every night of the week playing somewhere," Henley said. "Glenn just wants to ride around the Mediterranean all day on his boat." Yeah, I thought to myself, maybe Frey was on to something. Maybe he knew when to walk away. Maybe he understood that adolescence can only take you so far, and it was time to check out of the Hotel California.
And maybe he understood it was that sense of "now" that pushed him to create the great Eagles music he did with Henley, and singing about living it up at the Hotel California, had become "then."
Forever young?
Because despite the belief that rock 'n' roll will keep us forever young, the truth is it doesn't age well on us. That's the beauty and power of rock 'n' roll: It celebrates transient youth in the present tense. It's what makes it both shimmery and precious. And it's what makes the death of Glenn Frey so mournful.
What happened to him? That's our first instinct, that's what we want, we need to know. And the band's word on that is "complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia." But maybe what we really want to know is: What happened to us?
The passing of Glenn Frey reminds us all too well of the kids we were in the '70s -- our blue jeans and black boots, our long hair and 'stashes and crushes on impossibly beautiful, unattainable girls, our nights spent cross-legged in front of turntables listening with great intent to the latest album of one of our heroes. We believed that somehow we could change the world by the force of our belief in the power of rock 'n' roll, but instead the world changed us.
When we mourn for Frey, are we mourning our lost selves and a time when we all thought we could live hard and stay free and surf and bike and run and jump and love and never lose because we were forever young?
God bless, Glenn Frey. You were part of our dreams. Now, truly, you belong to the night.
Glenn Frey was angry at The Big Lebowski mocking The Eagles
19 JANUARY 2016 • 3:18PM
The late Glenn Frey could be very touchy about people who didn't like The Eagles – "we used to have a punch-'em-on sight list of critics who hated us," he once said – but what really got his goat was when the band were mocked in a scene in the Coen Brothers' film The Big Lebowski.
In the film, The Eagles' song Peaceful Easy Feeling is playing on a radio in a minicab, and as the lyrics "And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight/With a billion stars all around" are being sung, Jeff Bridges's hippie character, The Dude, pleads with the cab driver to change the radio station. The Dude says: "I had a rough night and I hate the f---ing Eagles, man."
The driver swerves the car, pulls over and throws the Dude out of his cab (You can watch it below, but be warned, the clip does contain swearing).
When he was interviewed by Rolling Stone, Bridges was asked whether he disliked the Eagles, and replied with a laugh: "I love Creedence Clearwater and, you know, as far as the Eagles, I don't hate the Eagles like the Dude hates them. I remember I ran into Glenn Frey, he gave me some s--t. I can't remember what he said exactly, but you know, my anus tightened a bit."
The actor also later told radio.com that Don Henley didn't have a problem with the Dude's attitude towards the Eagles, adding: "I wouldn’t say I'm a good friend of Don’s, but we know each other. Glenn Frey, I run into him at parties, he’ll always bust my chops and make me squirm a little bit. That was my character that hated the Eagles, not me."
In addition, there were reports that Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein originally wanted $150,000 for the Coen Brothers to use the song Dead Flowers in the film but so adored the scene in which the Dude slates The Eagles that he waived the licensing fee.
The Big Lebowski is not the only instance where The Eagles have been mocked in popular culture. In a 1996 episode of Seinfeld called The Checks, Elaine's oddball boyfriend, Brett is obsessed by the song Desperado and insists she is silent whenever it plays. In the closing joke to the episode, a surgeon is distracted by another Eagles song, Witchy Woman, and allows Brett to die on the operating table.
Eagles songs have caused problems in real life, too. In 2013, a 54-year-old woman in North Charleston, South Carolina, became so irritated with her 65-year-old roommate playing Eagles songs that she stabbed him several times.
Curious to know Don Felder's thoughts right now.
That was one of my first thoughts when I heard this news. I distinctly remember Frey calling Felder an asshole in that 4 hour televised Eagles documentary. For him to do that in a televised interview, I found quite shocking.
Interesting now, because the only way I could envision The Eagles touring again would be if Felder rejoined the band.
Here is what he said.
Don Felder
10 hrs ·I am in a state of shock and disbelief at Glenn’s passing. It was so unexpected and has left me with a very heavy heart filled with sorrow. He was so young and still full of amazing genius. He was an extremely talented songwriter, arranger, leader, singer, guitarist, you name it and Glenn could do it and create “MAGIC” on the spot. His visions and insights into songs and lyrics have become legendary and will echo throughout time on this earth for decades to come.
Glenn was funny, strong, generous and kind. It was a gift of a lifetime to have spent so many years working side by side with him. At times it felt like we were brothers and at other times, like brothers, we disagreed. Despite our difficult moments together we managed to create some magical songs, magical memories, great recordings and live shows together.
The planet has lost a great man and musician today. None will ever be able to take his place.
Rest in peace Glenn and may God bless you and your family.
Nice to see Felder took the high road.
RIP Glenn Frey RIP...
