"But Glenn was the one who started it all"
January 18, 2016 2:48 PM   Subscribe

Glenn Frey of the Eagles has passed away at 67. A founding member of the Eagles - with whom he won 6 Grammys, as well as a popular solo artist, Glenn Frey passed away today from a combination of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis, and pneumonia.

Glenn co-wrote and sang on numerous Eagles songs, including "Take It Easy" and "Lyin' Eyes".

After the Eagles disbanded in 1980, Glenn went to have a successful solo career - the most notable songs being "The Heat is On" and "You Belong to the City".

Despite the animosity from their days together in the Eagles, Don Henley said, "He was like a brother to me; we were family, and like most families, there was some dysfunction. But the bond we forged 45 years ago was never broken." He added ... "We built something that has lasted longer than anyone could have dreamed. But Glenn was the one who started it all."
posted by dotgirl (207 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
I am so, so, sorry to hear this.

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posted by 4ster at 2:50 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


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Sigh
posted by PussKillian at 2:52 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by SisterHavana at 2:53 PM on January 18, 2016


I just posted this on Facebook:

"We may lose, and we may win,
But we will never be here again."

It's become hip to trash the Eagles, but if you never saw them live, they were one of the few bands that could play a huge arena and make you feel like you were in a private concert. Seeing them at the Texas Jam in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas in July, 1980 is still one of the top concerts I've ever been to. The music just washed over you and enveloped you in gorgeousness. The lush acoustic guitars, the perfect harmonies...I've never been to another concert like it.

It was also the first concert my daughter ever went to, before she was born. I was five months pregnant and I slept in the back seat of a small car with two other people in the parking lot the night before in order to get a good spot. It was 120° plus on the floor of the Cotton Bowl. And it was fantastic.

So many great songs, and all of them timeless.
This one hurts.


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posted by MexicanYenta at 2:53 PM on January 18, 2016 [51 favorites]


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posted by pearlybob at 2:53 PM on January 18, 2016


stunned.
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:54 PM on January 18, 2016


The H is O.
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posted by DigDoug at 2:54 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


He helped write at least song that is likely to live forever, and many more than have lived longer than anyone might has expected. He was a great talent, and while we hadn't heard much from him for a while, he left a mark and will be missed.

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posted by hippybear at 2:55 PM on January 18, 2016


Take It Easy, Glenn.
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:55 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's become hip to trash the Eagles

And it's a shame since they had their moments. (and Frey played acoustic guitar and contributed backup vocals to this classic)

RIP Glenn
posted by jonmc at 2:56 PM on January 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


The Long Run has been in the deck for a few weeks now. H8 to see more of old Cali going away every day.
posted by buzzman at 2:56 PM on January 18, 2016


And dammit, how come none of these guys are even making it to seventy? What is going on?!?
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:57 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


Reposted from a friend on FB...
"At some point roughly between the time that the Big Lebowski became a cable hit and the present day, it became fashionable to trash the Eagles. I dunno, maybe it always was. They made a pretty big target of themselves through an overly earnest, though wildly successful career. They weren't as cool as Gram Parsons or as serious as Jackson Browne or as fun as Fleetwood Mac. They were never challenging, they were just good.
And that's the thing: they were really, really good. Any songwriter worth his or her salt would have killed to have written a dozen or more of those songs. There's a reason why that Greatest Hits album is the best-selling album of all time, and it's not because everyone has terrible taste. It's because everyone actually has pretty good taste.
R.I.P. Glenn Frey."
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:57 PM on January 18, 2016 [64 favorites]


We really need to take 2016 back where we got it and exchange it for a new one. This is bullshit.

RIP Glenn, and thank you.

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posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:57 PM on January 18, 2016 [14 favorites]




Damn. I can't even begin to guess how many times we listened to Their Greatest Hits in the car when I was a kid. Such defining music.

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posted by brennen at 3:00 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


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posted by rtha at 3:01 PM on January 18, 2016


Very sad to hear this. Rest in peace, Glenn.


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posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 3:02 PM on January 18, 2016


It's a shame The Big Lebowski taught so many people to hate the Eagles without cause, because they really were a good band and made some fine music. And I'm glad the band had the chance to get over their issues and enjoy a few more years of playing together.
posted by rocket88 at 3:04 PM on January 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


I fell sad for him, and the band -- Henley/Frey were very very good at what they did, which is why their music is still playing all the time, but I have to admit that the very first thing I thought when I read the headline was "'Cause he's alllllllalllllllready gone."

And god, I just saw *what* got him and thought something even worse. And now, you probably will too.

And how can you hate people that name a reunion tour the "Hell freezes over" tour?

Look at it this way, Mr. Frey -- a lot of great musicians waiting to jam with you out there.
posted by eriko at 3:06 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have a feeling that over the next couple years we're going to see a lot of the 70's rock crowd passing on. I realize that it's just a matter of time, but still...
posted by jonmc at 3:07 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


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If there's a rock and roll heaven, you know they have a hell of a band.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 3:08 PM on January 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


“There were police officers standing backstage,” Frey remembers, “and when they saw us about to go at it, they started to move in, and Henley turned right to the cops and said, ‘Stay out of this! This is personal, and it’s private. Real fucking private.'”
— Glenn Frey, telling an awesome rock and roll story that probably never actually happened but is still great anyway
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:08 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Smuggler's Blues
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:09 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


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gone to meet his sorcerer
posted by philip-random at 3:09 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


2016 seems ruthless in its desire to take away.

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posted by tommasz at 3:10 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


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posted by tonycpsu at 3:13 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by pjsky at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2016


I want to think that Douglas Adams is showing up to show him around the afterlife.

(Yes, I know Douglas Adams was an atheist and as such probably did not believe in an afterlife, but I like to think that there is one and that Douglas is now playing at being tour guide to thank Glen for the song.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


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posted by lord_wolf at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2016


2016 seems ruthless in its desire to take away.

Seriously, it's out of control. We also lost Dale Griffin (the drummer from Mott the Hoople) last night, and Mic Gillette, a founding member of Tower of Power over the weekend.

WHAT THE HELL.
posted by MexicanYenta at 3:15 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I liked his turn in the best season of Wiseguy.
posted by nom de poop at 3:16 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I just queued up all my Eagles tunes in iTunes, and "Life In The Fast Lane" just came on. That song is a great indictment of the decadent SoCal culture that the Eagles were part of. However, back in 199something me aand pips went to Hoboken to see the Muffs and Southern Culture on the Skids at Maxwells. We got there early and found a bar to hang out in. After about twenty minutes, we realized it was a mob bar. One dude who was buying rounds for the house, took a shine to me and we were shooting the breeze. He sniffled a lot, but he was funny and bought a lot of drinks. When "Life in The fast Lane," came on the jukebox came on, he said "That's the story of my life."

Call it what you want to.
posted by jonmc at 3:16 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


Listen to this and tell me the Eagles suck. Go ahead.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:16 PM on January 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


Seriously, it's out of control.

Not a singer, but we also lost Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggarty over the weekend.
posted by hippybear at 3:19 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


Not to mention Blowfly yesterday.
posted by kittensofthenight at 3:19 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Man, what a bummer.

My mom went to high school with Glenn Frey.

Not a fan of 2016 so far.
posted by tempestuoso at 3:23 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


10cent observation: the Eagles were one band that should have been on the soundtrack to Dazed & Confused, but weren't.
posted by jonmc at 3:23 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


The Eagles doc on Netflix ("A History of the Eagles", maybe?) is really great. I fear that we don't really have BANDS like that anymore - great musicians (and singers and writers) creating music like that, without an over-abundance of production or target-marketing, etc. They all just played and sang and wrote great. And it's clear that Glenn and Don were really the heart of the whole thing - even the other members acknowledge as much.

Very sad. Way too young, way too soon to say goodbye.

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posted by fingers_of_fire at 3:26 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


Dan Haggerty passing away has meant the end of my childhood. I was so in love with him and Michael Landon as a young un. I hope he and Ben are chasing each other in the woods somewhere...
posted by pearlybob at 3:30 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


To dismiss a group is to suggest with some arrogance that you are cutting edge and have moved away from that which you had liked, or loved, or cared for as many did at a point in time, but now you are on some new cutting edge. Perhaps though you are chasing after something elusive and you ought to try again to connect to that which had moved you when it did.
posted by Postroad at 3:31 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


More like 20crapteen so far.

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posted by jabo at 3:32 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


One of my favourite tapes as a teen was a bootleg Eagles concert tape; don't know which concert, but it was a bunch of great music, all live, and I listened to it again and again. I went to see the Eagles on their Hell Freezes Over reunion tour. Loved every minute of it.

Never got the hate. Don't like the Eagles? Well, that's just like your opinion, man.

"Be part of something good, leave something good behind."

2016, why you gotta be like this?
posted by nubs at 3:35 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


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"New Kid in Town" and "I Can't Tell You Why" were twin peaks of their genre, in polished songwriting, musicianship, and production. The Eagles made a lot of fantastic music, but to me these two stood out even among their best.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:36 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


.`
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:36 PM on January 18, 2016


Plasma champagne on ice,
He is no longer a prisoner here, in his flesh device.
posted by Oyéah at 3:39 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


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posted by ogooglebar at 3:39 PM on January 18, 2016


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I call do-over for 2016.
posted by killy willy at 3:39 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Take It Easy" was the first hit song I was aware of as a kid.
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posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:40 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


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Hotel California is maybe my all time favorite song. Certainly in my top 10.

One more vote for "enough already, 2016!"
posted by Frayed Knot at 3:41 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


And that's the thing: they were really, really good. Any songwriter worth his or her salt would have killed to have written a dozen or more of those songs.

QFT
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:42 PM on January 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


We were fortunate enough to see them in concert on their last tour but one. When they came around last year, we didn't have time and we thought "we'll see them the next time". Lesson learned, and thanks for the show and the tunes, Glenn.
posted by immlass at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2016


Keith Richards must hate it when another icon bites the dust.
posted by unliteral at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2016


2016, the year the music died.

"Take It To The Limit" was always my favorite Eagles song, it represents a certain period of my life. Saw them live at the Meadowlands in 1979 or 1980, great live show.

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posted by dbiedny at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]



posted by Smart Dalek at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2016


2016 seems ruthless in its desire to take away.

In a few years 2016 will seem like a quaint warm-up. The huge expansion of popular culture in the 1950s and 60s means there is a much greater number of famous people than in the past. Frey and Bowie were on the young side, but the oldest of that wave of famous people, like all the living members of original British Invasion bands, were born in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
posted by plastic_animals at 3:43 PM on January 18, 2016 [26 favorites]


Man. I always have liked the Eagles. Did back when I listened to lots of crappy classic rock in the 80s and still do, even though most of that stuff I used to listen to is now unlistenable.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:47 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by Token Meme at 3:52 PM on January 18, 2016


They were never challenging, they were just good.

Um. Well, if writing smooth, skillful, well-played, perfectly-crafted pop/rock songs with great lyrics isn't challenging, I don't know what is. I'm not an Eagles fanatic, but I can appreciate and love their craft and their deep mastery of the music they made. And that's not just because the Eagles were inescapable on the radio in Southern California in the 1970s and 1980s.

Every Eagles hit -- and a lot of the non-hits -- are classics, and always will be. And that's not even touching Frey's solo stuff in the 1980s -- 1980s popular music is hard to picture without "The One You Love," "Smuggler's Blues," "You Belong to the City," and "The Heat Is On." And that's another definition of a challenge -- whether a song stays a classic 10, 20, 50 years and beyond after it was recorded. Millions of people won't remember a lot of the dreck that was recorded at the same time that the Eagles were in their prime, but they'll always be playing "Take It Easy," "Life in the Fast Lane," "Lyin' Eyes," and "New Kid in Town."

RIP Glenn Frey.
posted by blucevalo at 3:55 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Dang. The Eagles were great, I always liked em. There wasn't a car in my high school parking lot that didn't have Greatest Hits cassette in it, either in the tape deck or on the floor. Take It Easy Glenn.
posted by Liquidwolf at 3:56 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Dear God,

Please stop.
posted by MexicanYenta at 3:57 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


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posted by Cash4Lead at 3:59 PM on January 18, 2016


Being 57 means that all these guys were heroic to me, suffering through the utter malaise of the 70s, and the downright stupidities of the 80s. Countless 8 tracks burned through, and losing them one-by-one is tough right now. Damn, I'm old.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


I came here to trash Glenn Frey, saw all the obvious affection for him and respect for his craft on display in the comments, decided not to.

However, I will leave this here and tip-toe away:
posted by misterbee at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


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posted by snap, crackle and pop at 4:02 PM on January 18, 2016


When I was younger I was in a couple local two-bit rock bands whose repertoires included a fair helping of Eagles tunes. I got kind of tired of endless repetitions of "Take It Easy", but the amazing harmonies always made me feel good and saved me from getting too sick of their songs. They were never my favorite band, but I never came close to hating them either.

Also, "Desperado" was one of the first tunes I ever learned on piano.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:03 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]




I always thought that the Eagles were OK, but "You Belong to the City" is a fantastic piece of music, in all of its 80s glory.
posted by dhens at 4:07 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


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We are totally playing "You Belong to the City" on our radio show in tribute this weekend.
posted by Kitteh at 4:08 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm so friggin sad. The Eagles are one of my favorite bands and I just ... Dammit. These guys were too young. Now I get to spend another week grieving. I had always wanted to see a concert and kept telling myself - next year I'll go. And once again I've waited too long. RIP.
posted by FireFountain at 4:09 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by tilde at 4:09 PM on January 18, 2016


Man, by the end of the year there will be nobody left alive but Justin Bieber.
posted by bowline at 4:09 PM on January 18, 2016


Sooner or later, that's a stone cold fact / Four men ride out and only three ride back

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posted by Guy Smiley at 4:09 PM on January 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


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posted by Fizz at 4:13 PM on January 18, 2016


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Tequila sunrises tomorrow.
posted by vrakatar at 4:14 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by Lyn Never at 4:16 PM on January 18, 2016


The Bruins always played "The Heat Is On" before home games in the '80s.

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posted by pxe2000 at 4:25 PM on January 18, 2016


The thing I never understood about the reception of the Eagles is that everybody said Desperado was a failure because it didn't sell the expected four million copies or whatever. It is the only Eagles album I would consider buying a copy of although they have some great songs all over their catalog. I had to google to look up that it was Henley, not Frey, who had the teenage prostitute overdose at his house.

If you have never watched Hotel California - LA from the Byrds to the Eagles it is well worth watching. God David Crosby is fried.

If you only have three minutes here is Take it Easy from 1974 California Jam at Ontario racetrack. Glenn is the guy in the front.
posted by bukvich at 4:32 PM on January 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


RIP Glenn Frey

"Don't let the sound of your own wheels
drive you crazy,
Lighten up while you still can,
Don't even try to understand.
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy"

I was never a rabid Eagles fan, but I've carried these words around with me for 4 decades and they still resonate. Thanks to Glenn (and Jackson Browne) for the wise words.
posted by Zedcaster at 4:33 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by Elmore at 4:33 PM on January 18, 2016


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I had no idea about Journey of the Sorcerer until this afternoon. Nthing that Netflix documentary about the band.
posted by Sphinx at 4:34 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm actually far more upset about Glenn Frey than I was about Bowie, or Scott Weiland, or Lemmy - growing up, the Eagles were one of my dad's favorite bands - he played 12-string and would sing us to sleep with the Eagles, Dylan, and the Dead. The Eagles double live album was one of my first "favorite albums" when I was old enough and tall enough to be allowed to put things on the record player myself. Their music was wound through my childhood. I remember one summer, when I was older, a moody highschooler wrapped up in himself, I went to spend 2 weeks with my grandparents, and somehow I brought my Walkman, but no tapes. A WalMart cut-rate copy of "Glenn Frey: Live" got me through those two weeks - roaming through the Ozark Hills with headphones on. For some reason, even just the other day, I found myself humming Glenn's rendition of "Wild Mountain Thyme" from that album.
In college, when the Eagles were on their Hell Freezes Over tour, some friends and I found the money to buy lawn tickets for their KC show. We drove 3 hours to get there, in the pouring rain, and made makeshift ponchos from black plastic trash bags. Sat in the rain for 2 hours waiting for the show to start. Hearing those first chords was a glorious moment. It stopped raining about 5 minutes after the show started, and we had an amazing 2-1/2 hours of music. Anyone who says they're too cool for the Eagles needs to experience that and then tell me they feel that way.

RIP, Glenn
posted by jferg at 4:37 PM on January 18, 2016 [23 favorites]


A kid in my neighborhood used to give me a ride to school in the mornings, before I got my license. One day I got in the car and "Peaceful Easy Feeling" was playing and I remember thinking this thing I had never heard before was just god damn magic. I put that on even now and Glenn's voice just makes me feel like all is right with the world, even on nights like tonight, when that clearly isn't true.

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posted by sallybrown at 4:39 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


They were never challenging, they were just good.

Um. Well, if writing smooth, skillful, well-played, perfectly-crafted pop/rock songs with great lyrics isn't challenging, I don't know what is.


I think the idea is that they were never challenging to the listener, not that creating that perfectly crafted song isn't challenging. But who says every song has to challenge the listener?
posted by stargell at 4:40 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


Miami Vice, S1E15 Smuggler's Blues (nbc.com, might be blocked outside of US)
posted by hippybear at 4:42 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


Man, people gonna lose their shit when John Lennon and Jim Morrison finally bite it.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:42 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


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If you took away the Eagles songs on the radio stations played around me in my first 20 years, there'd be a lot of dead air time. And 'You Belong to the City' is a great song.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 4:43 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescat in pace.

I am unashamed to say my favorite Frey song is, “You Belong To The City.”
Guy Smiley: “Sooner or later, it's a stone cold fact / Four men ride out and only three ride back”
But, “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)” is right up there.
posted by ob1quixote at 4:45 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Hotel California was my most favourite rock song as a kid. The Eagles Greatest Hits has been a soundtrack to many late night cram session. I pretty well wrote my whole thesis while listening to all of those gorgeous songs. Between Glenn Frey and David Bowie, they made many of the songs I know by heart.
. ♥so sad.
posted by NorthernAutumn at 4:46 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


May he RIP.

(This hit me a lot harder than Bowie's death did . . .)
posted by Annabelle74 at 4:46 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


The Eagles were my very first favorite band. The Long Run was the first album I ever bought.

We may lose and we may win,
But we will never be here again.

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posted by stennieville at 4:50 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is very sad. Another prime mover and creative spirit of the 70s is gone. BTW, I just read that Mott the Hoople's drummer, Dale Griffin, passed on today as well. This month sucks.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 4:56 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by droplet at 4:56 PM on January 18, 2016


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posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:57 PM on January 18, 2016


No matter if it's heroin, cocaine, or hash
You've got to carry weapons, 'cause you always carry cash

R.I.P. Glenn.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:04 PM on January 18, 2016


. I'm not the hugest fan but they wrote some great songs and could play the hell out them. One by one, bits of my childhood are dying off here; it's a little scary.
posted by octothorpe at 5:06 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


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posted by the sobsister at 5:07 PM on January 18, 2016


The first of the Miami Vice Six has fallen. May he rest in peace.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:08 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love the Big Lebowski, but I also love the Eagles. Hotel California was one of the albums in my dad's record collection -- most of the Good Stuff of which he got by choosing the popular choices at random from his record-of-the-month club -- one of those ones that led me into all kinds of new musical places as a kid, and it's been a source of pleasure to me for, what, 40 years now?

All this death of musical icons so important to me throughout my life is sobering. Well, until Friday, at which point it will be intoxicating, and I'll raise more than a few and listen and reminisce.

Thanks, Glenn.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:10 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


The first of the Miami Vice Six has fallen. May he rest in peace.

That show had a goddamn great soundtrack.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 5:11 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Turn up the Eagles — the neighbors are listening.
posted by mubba at 5:12 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]



posted by bz at 5:18 PM on January 18, 2016


If you're putting together a soundtrack for The Eighties, you will inevitably cue up at least a couple of Glenn Frey songs.

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posted by Etrigan at 5:23 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


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posted by vespertine at 5:29 PM on January 18, 2016




Just let us keep Macca. That's all we ask.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:34 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Just let us keep Macca. That's all we ask.

Paul is dead.

I am not an Eagles superfan but their music was inesescapable in high school and I probably have a weird teenage memory associated with every track on their Greatest Hits.

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posted by murphy slaw at 5:41 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


2016 seems ruthless in its desire to take away.

I realize this may come off insensitively, and I apologize for that.

The past six months of my own life have been primarily about the fact that my dad's been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. He's doing okay, but it's there, every. single. day. I honestly don't know if there have been more high-profile deaths in last few weeks than usual, or if I'm just noticing them more. What I keep noticing, though, is their ages. 73, 69, 67, etc.

My dad had his 75th birthday a couple days ago, and is actually doing pretty damn well.

Each one of these losses leaves a particularly-shaped hole, but (sorry, maudlin) they also make me appreciate the fact that my dad is still with us, and he's winning the race, so to speak.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:47 PM on January 18, 2016 [26 favorites]




I've always loved the Eagles, and find their mix of guitar techniques and vocal harmonies both engaging and soothing. I remember learning all the guitar parts to the song Hotel California when I was a teenager - there's about 12 guitars on there, doing all sorts of interesting things, and that's before you even get to the solos at the end. Good stuff.

On one of David Spade's standup specials, he's does a bit about going to see bands, and how they bury their one hit two-thirds of the way into the set. Then he mentions the Eagles, who have the balls to open with Hotel California. "Oh yeah, we've got plenty more...".
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:00 PM on January 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


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posted by Ink-stained wretch at 6:06 PM on January 18, 2016


She: "The guitar player for the Eagles died."
Me: "Joe Walsh died?!?"
She: "yeah"
Me: "Noooooooooooooooo!!"
She: (surfing) "Oh, no wait it was Glen Frey."
Me: " . . . Oh . . . That's too bad"

Why are the Eagles so popular, Glenn? (2:47 in)

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posted by petebest at 6:09 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


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posted by pt68 at 6:10 PM on January 18, 2016


I realize this may come off insensitively, and I apologize for that.

Not insensitive at all.

We want your dad to stay, too. Losing one person doesn't make it easier to lose another, regardless of whether we know them or not.

Wishing him the best.

Fuck cancer.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:12 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


So one day I get a call from a HS friend of mine. Hadn't spoken to him in a while. "You'll never believe what happened to me today." "What happened?" "I had to make a delivery to this big wig's house in LA. Apparently there is a fund raiser there tonight. He needed the delivery ASAP, so my boss sends me there and tells me not to stop and smoke on the way, to just go straight to the house. I get to the house and past the gate. I follow the instructions to head around back. I get around the corner and there is a huge stage with a band on it doing a sound check or something. I sort of recognize them, but cannot place them. Then they do a little noodling. Hotel California. I almost shit myself. I deliver the box to the kitchen and come back out and stand between the stage and the sound guy before I got back in the van hoping to hear a song. Next thing I know somebody is saying, 'Hey kid, what song do you want to hear?' So I sort of spit out, 'Take it easy'. Sure enough, they play it. Then I asked for Hotel California. 'Nah', one of them said and they started playing Desperado. I had my own 2 song personal concert from the fucking Eagles today." "You're right, I don't believe it." I say. But it turns out it was true.

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posted by AugustWest at 6:23 PM on January 18, 2016 [23 favorites]


An especially swell, raw Eagles performance is this one on the BBC in 1973, back when they were still a four piece. Frey's in great voice, and Leadon's playing is especially awesome. RIP Glenn.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:28 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I was in high school in the 70's. This was my band - the earlier Eagles moreso than the later stuff. This is terribly sad.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 6:35 PM on January 18, 2016


.


Somebody make Dylan go see Keith's doctor. I can't take much more of this.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:35 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:36 PM on January 18, 2016


My semi-brush with celebrity: I used to be in a bluegrass band with Bernie Leadon's little brother.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:37 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


So I sort of spit out, 'Take it easy'. Sure enough, they play it. Then I asked for Hotel California.

Oh my god, who gets an opportunity like that and doesn't request "Victim of Love"? [shaking head]
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:37 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Nah, that's an easy part.

*ducks*
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:43 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


The 'Langley School Music Project' version of Desperado is my fave...
posted by kaibutsu at 6:49 PM on January 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


Eh, lots of people were hating on The Eagles long before The Big Lebowski, if anything I think that the cab scene was one of the soundbites that made that movie a touchstone for a the Gen X post-punk demographic.

I guess The Big Lebowski could have made it more "hip" or whatever, but I don't think it really had as much to do wit it as The Eagles just being The Eagles and part of that ultra-decadent 70s arena rock scene that people were critically rejecting. It wasn't just The Eagles, but they were one of the easier targets.

I know he's very talented and will be sorely missed by many (including my dad) but I would personally be fine never hearing Hotel California ever again.

Unrelated: Does anyone know why construction workers have been listening to the same classic butt rock at ear splitting volumes for the last 40 years? Is it a union thing?
posted by loquacious at 6:52 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I love Hotel California and kinda am sad they don't as much. I mean I get it but. Yeah.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:53 PM on January 18, 2016


.
posted by Fibognocchi at 6:56 PM on January 18, 2016


We may lose and we may win though
We will never be here again
posted by dirigibleman at 7:16 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I know he's very talented and will be sorely missed by many (including my dad) but I would personally be fine never hearing Hotel California ever again.

Unrelated: Does anyone know why construction workers have been listening to the same classic butt rock at ear splitting volumes for the last 40 years? Is it a union thing?


I got really, really Eagled out by my parents growing up and, emboldened by the Dude, stopped listening to them completely for some ten plus years. Now I find I enjoy it again, from time to time.

Especially living in L.A....sometimes it's the right music for the setting and time of year, etc.

Although, I never lost my (unironic) taste for 70's and 80's and even early 90's butt-rock (a trait I guess I share with construction workers), or the folk-rock/alt-county stuff which is another large component of the Eagles sound.

And eventually I came around to Steely Dan, who they also sometimes sound like in their slicker, more loungey persona and purportedly feuded with (see Yacht Rock ep. #10). So I guess sooner or later I was bound to come back to the Eagles as well.

Also, I'd point out that The Big Lebowski seemed to pay a winking tribute to the Eagles even amidst its mockery.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:19 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Eh, lots of people were hating on The Eagles long before The Big Lebowski

Well, sure. It depends very much on your age which wave of Eagles-hatred one caught, I think. For me, it was during my musical coming-of-age in like 1983, diving deep into the punk rock scene in Vancouver, where three things had been a guarantee for several years already by that point: hatred of Reagan, hatred of disco, and hatred of the Eagles.

I think the Lebowski cab scene is more of a touchstone for folks who didn't grow up through the first 3 or 4 rounds of Eagles-dislike. And you know, it's The Big Lebowski, which has been punching in the big leagues, pop-culturally, over the past couple of decades, at least among a Certain Demographic.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:21 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


...turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening...

.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:21 PM on January 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


.
posted by valkane at 7:24 PM on January 18, 2016


we drove through winslow... stopped at the corner, and filmed a little video of the song with me playing guitar. if you ever go there, they got quite the little memorial.

as far as I'm concerned, the eagles is still a band, still together, and I'm ready to go back into the studio tomorrow.....
posted by valkane at 7:31 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


.
posted by drnick at 7:38 PM on January 18, 2016


if you ever go there, they got quite the little memorial

I wouldn't call it little, exactly. As I said to a friend of mine earlier, Winslow must be seriously nowheresville for them to go that nuts for a minor mention in a rock song. I won't tell you what he replied regarding the state as a whole...
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:41 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


.
posted by drezdn at 7:48 PM on January 18, 2016


One of the things about Lebowski is that not liking The Eagles is such an incongruous thing for that kind o' guy. The Dude should be a total Eagles fan, come on! That's the funny part of that scene for me, anyway.
posted by rhizome at 7:59 PM on January 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


Me: "Joe Walsh died?!?"

Not allowed.
posted by sallybrown at 8:05 PM on January 18, 2016


"Joe Walsh died?!?"
Not allowed.


At last report, life's still good to him...so far.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:11 PM on January 18, 2016 [17 favorites]


gone to meet his sorcerer

I want to think that Douglas Adams is showing up to show him around the afterlife.


Point of order: Gley Frey had next to nothing to do with Bernie Leadon's "Journey of the Sorcerer". He may not even have played on it.

It's become hip to trash the Eagles

I already didn't like the Eagles in 1972, and I've never seen The Big Lebowski. I was dismayed when Joe Walsh joined (turns out most of the band was too). But I've never seen liking or disliking a rock and roll band as life or death thing.

I do have fond memories of studying calculus with the interminable "Take it To The Limit" on the radio, though.

how come none of these guys are even making it to seventy? What is going on?!?

A lot of our favourite musicians of the 1960s and 70s are / were lifelong tobacco users. It catches up with you later in life. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. Sounds like he had recurring intestinal troubles over a long period of time. The rheumatoid arthritis goes along with the ulcerative colitus, and pneumonia is a secondary complication you get when you're otherwise weakened.

Here's my dot, not for the loss of a member of the Eagles, but for a fellow who got dealt a pretty bad hand and played it out.

.

I got sick of my job, sick of my wife
Sick of my future and sick of my life
I packed up my car and I got some gas
And told everybody they could kiss my ass
I'm goin' to Partytown . . .


 
posted by Herodios at 8:29 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


ob1quixote: “But, “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)” is right up there.”
I just realized I accidentally linked “Doolin-Dalton” instead of the reprise there. A great song, but not the one I intended. The correct link is “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise).”

Here's a live version of both “Doolin Dalton” and “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)” of unknown provenance which is really excellent, and shows some nice close-ups of Frey during his verses. Another version of the full suite shot in Seattle in 1976.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:39 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Goodbye, Mr. Frey. Thanks for the music.

Growing up in Europe, I don't remember hearing an Eagles song as a kid. So I was aware of them peripherally, at most. But in the early nineties, while walking along a road by Chastain Park in Atlanta, I found a plain cassette tape (no case) containing an Eagles greatest hits album of some kind; someone must have tossed it from a car. I vividly recall that the cassette tape itself was green, with the label listing the songs in bright yellow. I played it over and over for a bit, in a conscious bid to acquire a bit of Americana - having just moved there. It's not really my kind of music, but in my mind it captures the very particular feel of that Georgia summer when I found that tape...
posted by gemmy at 8:40 PM on January 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


When I was 13 my dad got me lessons with a guy in San Francisco who also had a little recording studio in his basement in North Beach, so the lessons took place in his control room, by the mixer. This really impressed the young me, so I kept coming back. After working with me on the fundamentals of fretting & finger technique for a few lessons, rather than attempting to teach me to read sheet music, he decided to teach me to read & write chord charts, as he thought (and bless him, he was right) that would be a more useful skill for a kid who wanted to play rock bass.

The song he chose to teach me with was Hotel California. So for weeks, we sat (what a patient man!) in his basement studio while I learned the mechanics of following a chord progression & a song structure. We worked with the record at first, then abandoned it for just him on guitar & me on bass. I had learned bits and pieces of a few songs by ear, but due to those lessons, Hotel California was probably the first song I ever played through from beginning to end.

And I still love it. Thanks, Glenn.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:44 PM on January 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


that would be a fairly hard bass part for a beginner, too
posted by thelonius at 9:09 PM on January 18, 2016


Turn up the Eagles — the neighbors are listening.
They stab them with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.
posted by PenDevil at 9:14 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


One of the things about Lebowski is that not liking The Eagles is such an incongruous thing for that kind o' guy. The Dude should be a total Eagles fan, come on! That's the funny part of that scene for me, anyway.

Right! I think it's that the Eagles were the most popular exponent of a certain kind of music, and even if you were into that kind of music, the Eagles would probably be the first band you'd get sick of. They get played a lot on classic rock stations.
posted by panama joe at 9:40 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Talking about incongruity in The Big Lebowski, I always thought it was particularly weird that he roadied for Metallica (even if they were, in his opinion, "a bunch of assholes"). I would have expected him to have roadied for the Allman Brothers (or indeed the Eagles) or something.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 9:48 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm assuming that he is being chauffeured on to the next stage of existence by a girl in a flatbed Ford.
posted by 445supermag at 9:56 PM on January 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


.
posted by Lynsey at 10:15 PM on January 18, 2016


Oh no, I just can't with this sh*t: coming right after the sad news of Mic Gillette and Glenn Frey is more bad news. Dallas Taylor is the latest musician to join the Heavenly Rock Band of Ages.
posted by Lynsey at 10:20 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fuck me! What the fuck is going on?! Did they all just agree to hold out til 2016 and then all bets are off?
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:25 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Take another shot of courage/
Wonder why the right words never come
/ You just get numb.

.
posted by sobell at 10:38 PM on January 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was a big fan of The Eagles for quite awhile in my youth, long before I discovered the goth scene. The Long Run was the first album I ever bought on vinyl, in 1979, and it completely blew my impressionable 12-year-old mind. I got into Randy Meisner and Glenn Frey's solo work after that.

I even remember wearing a t-shirt with the logo from Frey's No Fun Aloud album to school in 1982. As a big word nerd I found the play on words of the album's title charming, but it was lost on some of my classmates...

RIP.
posted by velvet winter at 10:47 PM on January 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


I was born in 1969, moved to the States in '78, and grew up in LA in the 80s. The Eagles and the members' solo work (especially Glenn Frey's, especially Smuggler's Blues, because Miami Vice) were a very significant part of the soundtrack of the most formative years of my life.

Their version of Seven Bridges Road has for decades been imprinted on my mind as the apex of rock band harmonies (I know it's not exactly a rock song per se but I heard it on the same classic rock stations I listened to growing up). As noted above, learning that they used it to warm up backstage makes it even more mindblowingly amazing.

I was also (and remain) a huge geek, and big HHGTTG fan. I therefore heard Journey of the Sorcerer hundreds of times while listening to the BBC show without knowing it was an Eagles tune. I was a fully grown adult when I became aware of the song's provenance, and my mind was blown on multiple levels with the happy collision of these two parts of my life.

In short, this hurts. A lot.
posted by yiftach at 11:21 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


“Glenn Frey, Eagles Guitarist, Dies at 67,” Jem Aswad, Billboard, 18 January 2016
posted by ob1quixote at 11:22 PM on January 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I love the film, but one should no more go to Jeff Lebowski for musical advice than for his detective skills.

I spent a chunk of time despising the Eagles and especially Glenn Frey. Part of this was being a young person and rejecting dad's music. Part of it was that they just seemed like assholes. This was from the early 80's to the mid-90's.

However, in the late 90's I found myself in the position of having to sing Take it Easy every night for about five months (long story not with repeating). God dammit if I didn't go from resenting singing that song to absolutely loving that song. Turns out it's about as perfectly crafted country rock song as you're ever going to hear. The harmonies are killer, the lyric offers some genuinely useful (and hard to follow for them and us) life advice and the part where you come in with "well I'm standing on the corner" is just one of the most fun things to sing in the world. If you've never sang an eagles song, go to a karaoke place tonight and do it. It'll change your whole perception of the band.

As far as them being assholes, well, fame is sort of an awful thing. It's apparent to me that being in The Eagles was kind of killing all of them. I sincerely hope that Frey was able to find some happiness in the years after the original Eagles break up. He certainly seemed more cheerful.

Rest in peace Mr. Frey and thank you especially for Take It Easy.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:44 PM on January 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


.
posted by colie at 11:49 PM on January 18, 2016


I absolutely love Glenn Frey and most of the Eagles catalog. Some people feel they're boring... I kind of find The Doors boring, myself. Heck, there are vast swathes of the Beatles catalog I could go without ever hearing again, too.

The Eagles are some fantastic rainy night driving music, especially Lyin' Eyes, Tequila Sunrise, New Kid in Town.
posted by taterpie at 12:15 AM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I saw them in Little Rock on the Hell Freezes Over tour, I guess I was about 17 then. To date it is still the best concert I have ever been to.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:22 AM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I had no idea there was hatred for the Eagles. I knew there was for other groups and singers I was and remain fond of, but I'd missed it for the Eagles. They've been part of my soundtrack for most of my life.

I got to see them once, on the Hell Freezes Over Tour. Hell -- or central Indiana, anyway -- had indeed frozen over. The high temperature that day was hovering somewhere near 0 degrees F, and it was an outdoor concert. Frey had been in need of some surgery that pushed the tour back, and rather than enjoying both the Eagles and lovely fall weather, I was risking hypothermia to hear them. They took the stage, Frey said, "Sorry we're late," and they played.

RIP, Mr. Frey. You will be missed.

.
posted by bryon at 1:36 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


And I agree, "In the City" is a great pop song.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:08 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


.

I think we folks of a certain age are taking all the 70s pop culture deaths piling up a little hard because it makes us realize . . . we are next. One could argue that it's surprising so many 70s rock stars are living so long, given what they did to their bodies back in the day, and the fact that Joe Strummer has been gone coming on 15 years.

I played in top 40/general business bands for a living for a few years of my youth. I can probably do the entire Eagles songbook in my sleep in retrograde inversion at this point. I have always maintained that if you are going to be a human jukebox anyway, Eagles songs were at least complex and sophisticated enough (especially the vocal harmonies) that you didn't fall completely asleep doing them for the 917th time that year. I had hated the Eagles growing up, just young enough to catch punk and realize music like the Eagles was what the Clash was demolishing for inauthenticity. Ironically I came back to the Eagles through a long passage through older country and western music, which of course was one of their source streams.

Their stuff was gorgeous, beautifully crafted, and generally addressed a culture so vapid and dissolute and narcissistic that it came across as creepy. I came to associate those stories and sounds with California culture as I got older (when I was a young teenager I referred to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac as "guidance counselor music").

I will give the Eagles enormous credit for this: from a very young age I was damn sure I didn't want to live in SoCal (where half my family is from, so I had other Reasons to hate it). They made wealth sound alienated and alienating. Even when they were young I heard their music as an elegy.

As for Frey's solo work, I never liked it, never got it, heard the craft but no passion. He and Henley both suffered the comparison with their group efforts very poorly in their own later solo stuff. Which I also attribute to sobriety.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

So yeah, here's a margarita and a line to another one gone. Glenn wrote some pretty great songs to party by.
posted by spitbull at 2:58 AM on January 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


I was never an Eagles fan, and yet it turns out there's so many songs I really like.

And then I just watched this, and it was like a time machine. In a good way. I can't count the number of times I watched that video on MuchMusic back in the 80's. It's quintessential.

So yeah...bye Glenn, guess I liked your music a whole lot more than I thought I did.

And while I do think that a late 60's-early 70's lifespan is less than a decade below average (if still too short), and likely pretty good when counted in rock star years, it still seems so short. But maybe that's my own mortality talking, the older I get, the younger those ages seem...

And I want a mulligan on 2016 so far....
posted by biscotti at 3:10 AM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


Mod note: One comment deleted. Sorry, but this is really an obit thread for Glen Frey, and not really the place for an extended in-depth comment about why you think the Eagles suck.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:50 AM on January 19, 2016 [9 favorites]


a huge geek, and big HHGTTG fan. I therefore heard Journey of the Sorcerer hundreds of times while listening to the BBC show without knowing it was an Eagles tune.

Once again, it's really more of a Bernie Leadon solo tune that happens to appear on an Eagles album.

"In The City" is a great pop song.

Which is really a Joe Walsh solo song, re-recorded by the Eagles after the movie came out. Frey had little to do with either version.
 
posted by Herodios at 3:57 AM on January 19, 2016


ust young enough to catch punk and realize music like the Eagles was what the Clash was demolishing for inauthenticity

which was all bullshit, as it turned out!
posted by thelonius at 4:20 AM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


.
posted by Laura in Canada at 4:41 AM on January 19, 2016


.
posted by Pouteria at 5:02 AM on January 19, 2016


Always enjoyed the Eagles. Loved pretty much everything they did. What started it though was my time in radio. I was a part time, late night, weekend and graveyard DJ at an AM country station in South Central Texas in the late 70's. Ronnie Milsap, Bonnie Tyler, Charlie Pride, Merle Haggard sorta stuff. Almost all the singles were 3 minutes or less, mostly less. Everything's on Vinyl. Barely enough time to cue the next single, set up carts for commercials, rip the news off the wire, maintain logs. Forget getting to the toilet. Forget getting another pot of coffee going.

The Music Director was somewhat progressive and approved several Eagles tunes into the rotation. Singles mostly, but I fudged and used the Album versions. They were longer. Lying Eyes in particular. 6 minutes 21 seconds. Aside from being a good song, it made a lot of shifts much more survivable. I love the Hell Freezes Over version of Hotel California. I also love most of their acoustic pieces.

I'm really sad for the circumstances of his passing as I share similar issues. It's a reality. You fight, manage an aggressive set of chronic diseases. At some point it might get ahead of you. I'm sorry it took you.
posted by michswiss at 5:04 AM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]



posted by Gelatin at 5:06 AM on January 19, 2016


the part where you come in with "well I'm standing on the corner"

I read somewhere that all the fighting began for real when Frey made them re-do that song in the studio like a hundred times before he was satisfied with that part.
posted by bukvich at 5:31 AM on January 19, 2016


bukvich: That was the part of the song that Jackson Browne wrote.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:38 AM on January 19, 2016


.

(Hotel California was the first album the junior-high aged me bought with his own money - two mowed-lawns' worth.)
posted by aught at 5:42 AM on January 19, 2016


That Netflix documentary is very good--the Eagles weren't always the easiest group of people to get along with, but they made some great music.

There aren't a ton of Eagles hip-hop samples, but there's a good one:

Beastie Boys - High Plains Drifter

.
posted by box at 5:48 AM on January 19, 2016


Actually I credit the popularization of Eagles hating to Mojo Nixon, "Don Henley Must Die," eight years before Lebowski. I think they suffer a fair bit from their success and association. The Eagles are one of those bands that get heavy rotation on FM "classic rock" and canned music playlists, not because they're good, but out of the soulless algorithms of marketing wonks. Even the best music suffers when played hourly between Toyota and Pfizer.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:53 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Thinking about the Eagles triggers the olfactory memory of digging through my sister's purse looking for pot and the smell of makeup, cheap perfume and cigarette ash.
posted by slogger at 5:55 AM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Chitownfats they were not changing a note or a beat. Frey thought that he had that transition timed to the proper femtosecond.
posted by bukvich at 6:03 AM on January 19, 2016


I have mentioned this before, but one of my kids is learning to play the acoustic guitar. His teacher has really broad tastes, so I have been hearing a lot of 70s tunes, like from the Eagles and Kansas and stuff. And you know, they're pretty good -- and certainly better than I would have said if you'd asked me when I was 23.

"Seven Bridges Road" is a gorgeous piece of singing, and I always think of it when I hear Great Big Sea's "General Taylor" (live version on YT is here).

Time to revisit this music, I think.

.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:05 AM on January 19, 2016


I feel the same way about Mozart and Beethoven by the way. You can tell the quality of classical music programming based on how frequently they play the same dozen Mozart or Beethoven compositions.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:29 AM on January 19, 2016


> Somebody make Dylan go see Keith's doctor. I can't take much more of this.

When (God forbid) Dylan passes, it's going to be the Boomer Rock Critic Apocalypse. Greil Marcus will probably commit seppuku.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:40 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Rolling Stone - Glenn Frey: 20 Essential Songs
posted by hippybear at 6:45 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Glenn Frey's Musical Beginnings: 1967-1971
posted by hippybear at 6:56 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Great. Last week it was all Bowie all the time in my head. This week it's Glenn Frey songs. Not Eagles songs. GLENN FREY SONGS.

Kenny Loggins is still alive, right?

The heat is on.

.
posted by NedKoppel at 6:56 AM on January 19, 2016


Last night on my drive home the radio played about a 45 minute block of Glenn Frey - Desperado, Take it Easy, Wasted Time, Heartache Tonight, Smuggler's Blues, New Kid in Town, You Belong to the City, on and on and on...

I sang along with every one. Like I did last week when they played a block of Bowie.

I'm glad for art left behind for those of us who linger.
posted by nubs at 8:04 AM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


Unrelated: Does anyone know why construction workers have been listening to the same classic butt rock at ear splitting volumes for the last 40 years? Is it a union thing?

10 hr. shifts of not punching out a co-worker or telling your boss to, get fucked. Your body's beat, you got 4 a 5 hours to eat an stuff before you crash and start all over again. Who's going to want music that makes you work? Music's supposed to help you get through your life, and Glenn helped make some that does that well.

.
posted by ridgerunner at 8:20 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) is still the second-best selling album in history (after Thriller), and that's without "Hotel California", "I Can't Tell You Why", "New Kid In Town", or anything by Joe Walsh. That's pretty damn amazing.

.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:27 AM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


.
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:39 AM on January 19, 2016


"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 shit. I can't remember what he said exactly, but you know, my anus tightened a bit. 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." -- Jeff Bridges
posted by blucevalo at 9:02 AM on January 19, 2016 [16 favorites]


.
posted by cass at 9:04 AM on January 19, 2016


Unrelated: Does anyone know why construction workers have been listening to the same classic butt rock at ear splitting volumes for the last 40 years? Is it a union thing?

I don't know but 8 years of working on construction sites in the eighties and nineties cured me of most classic rock.
posted by octothorpe at 9:11 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


i've been hatin' on The Eagles since waaaay before it was cool. But no doubt the guys were hellacious talented. And Frey in particular was a wonderful essential piece of the band. He will be sorely missed.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:15 AM on January 19, 2016


The "Community Voices" link mentions that Frey and Henley were part of Linda Ronstadts's post-Stone-Pony's band.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:46 AM on January 19, 2016


Small world department: the local radio station just played Take It Easy and my wife reminded me that her best friend in high school was one of the seven woman Jackson Browne had on his mind 45 years ago when he wrote the original version of that song. Ah, we've all gotten old.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:58 AM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


The Eagles are some fantastic rainy night driving music, especially Lyin' Eyes, Tequila Sunrise, New Kid in Town.

Summer of 1991, I worked two jobs. The one I loathed with the fiery heat of a thousand dying suns required me to drive an hour on some of Virginia's two-lane backroads to and from the workplace. My car had no air conditioning and no working radio. I had a magenta boom box and approximately four cassette tapes, including The Eagles' Greatest Hits, volumes one and two.

I worked 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and some days, the only thing that kept me going was thinking of the moment I could get behind the wheel of the car to go home. Roll down the windows, feel the rush of the soft summer air as I hit 45 mph, then start singing along with any Eagles track that had Glenn Frey on the lead vocals.

In the amazing History of the Eagles documentary, Glenn Frey notes that the Eagles were the soundtrack to people's lives. That was certainly the case for me. Bless them for their night-driving tunes.
posted by sobell at 11:03 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


To quote a friend of mine, January must be stopped before it kills again.


.
posted by blurker at 11:23 AM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]


my wife reminded me that her best friend in high school was one of the seven woman Jackson Browne had on his mind

Which one - own, stone, or friend?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:54 PM on January 19, 2016 [9 favorites]


I just can't stop thinking about this poor man suffering with ulcerative colitis for so long. According to that LA Times article, he cancelled a concert in 1986 because of it. I have what is classified as "moderate" UC, and I have often told my gastroenterologist that I don't know how people with severe UC can stand it. It's an awful disease, one that no one should have to suffer with, least of all someone who has provided me with so much pleasure for so many years.

Fuck autoimmune disorders.

.
posted by janey47 at 1:23 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 1:34 PM on January 19, 2016


Take it easy, Glenn. 2016, you can fuck the fuck right fucking off right fucking now!

.
posted by dg at 1:55 PM on January 19, 2016


• 🎼 :(
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:19 PM on January 19, 2016


Never a fan during high school. I only ever owned one album, Desperado, which I found in a junk shop for a quarter many years later, and only bought it while researching the albums featured in Greil Marcus's 1979 collection Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. Hidden amidst classic articles like Ariel Swartley on Springsteen's Wild & Innocent, Langdon Winner on Trout Mask Replica, and Robert Christgau on the New York Dolls, the New York Times mountain state correspondent Grace Lichtenstein talked about the album that provided the soundtrack to her exile 2000 miles from the nearest good bagels and other cultural necessities.

I actually picked up her memoir around the same time, also called Desperado. It was an interesting read, but during one of my periodic declutterings I gave it away. Now it's out of print, and while Ms. Lichtenstein has an active web presence, it's not active enough to acknowledge my praise of this period of her work that she'd probably sooner have everyone forget. So the only memories I have of it is an MP3 I made of the album.

So I bow out of here, and leave this thread to the true fans. There sure are a lot of you.
posted by morspin at 8:45 PM on January 19, 2016


"Seven Bridges Road".


As for Frey's solo work, I never liked it, never got it, heard the craft but no passion. He and Henley both suffered the comparison with their group efforts very poorly in their own later solo stuff. Which I also attribute to sobriety.


Give Henley his due. You may not like it, but his solo stuff was very of the moment, and was legitimately good. Boys of Summer, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:41 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


As for Frey's solo work, I never liked it, never got it, heard the craft but no passion. He and Henley both suffered the comparison with their group efforts very poorly in their own later solo stuff. Which I also attribute to sobriety.

Give Henley his due. You may not like it, but his solo stuff was very of the moment, and was legitimately good. Boys of Summer yt , etc.


Huge fan of Henley's solo work. End Of The Innocence is a magnificent album from first track to last, and the title track is an astonishing piece of songwriting. The production of the studio version isn't exactly what I might want, but even it has moved me to tears on occasion.

Sadly, I don't own any Frey solo albums, but I will never diminish the importance of his contribution to 80s rock and pop. He wrote many songs that I just sort of know in my bones, and I appreciate that as much as I do the Beatles or other groups whose work is just part of the warp and weave of my life.
posted by hippybear at 10:50 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]




“Take It Easy, Jackson Browne”—Clearwater, Florida, 19 January 2016 [via]

“Bruce Springsteen Take it Easy”—Chicago, Illinois, 19 January 2106
posted by ob1quixote at 2:21 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Take it Easy's a tough song to have any objectivity about if you've spent any of the past four or five decades remotely near popular American culture. But it was once new, and that was in 1972, and for a while it was the freshest damned thing around, a fact I was reminded of recently whilst picking through a compendium of old Rolling Stone features and reviews -- the writer mentioning it in passing as the definitive cool song of the moment, heard in every bar, on every car radio, at every party ... and everybody loved it, because it was the true sound of NOW (then).
posted by philip-random at 4:36 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Although a little before my time, Glenn Frey attended a high school in the town right next to where I grew up so we always felt a bit of hometown pride. Here's a local newspaper article about his high school days.

Graduated high school myself in 1981, so the Eagles were part of my soundtrack although we were a little too cool for them back then. Appreciated them a lot more as I got older.
posted by marxchivist at 7:12 AM on January 25, 2016


“Take It Easy” & “Desperado”—Billy Joel, Tampa, Florida, 22 January 2016
posted by ob1quixote at 4:53 PM on January 26, 2016


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