Name	Eagles
Height
Naionality	US
Date of Birth
Place of Birth	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Famous for	Rock, country rock, folk rock

With over 100 million in record sales, the Eagles epitomized commercial Southern California rock in the 1970s, and their appeal continues undiminished decades later. As of late 2007, Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, a 1976 best-of that was the first album ever certified platinum, is the best-selling album of all time in the U.S., its 29 million copies outstripping the previous champ, Michael Jackson's Thriller (27 million). The group's well-crafted songs merged countryish vocal harmonies with hard-rock guitars and lyrics that were alternately yearning ("One of These Nights," "Best of My Love") and romantically jaded ("Life in the Fast Lane," "Hotel California"). During the band's hugely successful career, it had an increasingly indolent recording schedule until its breakup in the fall of 1980. Subsequently, each of the members pursued solo careers, with Henley's the most successful commercially and critically. In the 1990s, the band's sound was frequently cited as an influence by young country stars and culminated with the band's reunion in 1994. The Eagles continue to be one of new millennium's most successful bands.

The group originally coalesced from L.A.'s country-rock community. Before producer John Boylan assembled them as Linda Ronstadt's backup band on her album Silk Purse (1970), the four original Eagles were already experienced professionals. Leadon had played in the Dillard and Clark Expedition and the Flying Burrito Brothers; Meisner, with Poco and Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band. Frey had played with various Detroit rock bands (including Bob Seger's) and Longbranch Pennywhistle (with J.D. Souther, a sometime songwriting partner), and Henley had been with a transplanted Texas group, Shiloh. After working with Ronstadt, Henley and Frey decided to form the Eagles, recruiting Leadon and Meisner.

Intending to take the country rock of the Byrds and Burritos a step further toward hard rock, the Eagles recorded their first album with producer Glyn Johns (Rolling Stones, the Who) in England. "Take It Easy" (Number 12, 1972), written by Frey and Jackson Browne, went gold shortly after its release, as did their album. (Another single, "Witchy Woman," reached Number Nine that year.) Desperado was a concept album with enough of a plot line to encourage rumors of a movie version. The LP yielded no major pop hits, but its title track, a ballad penned by Henley and Frey, has become a classic rock standard, covered by Linda Ronstadt, among others. With On the Border, the Eagles changed producers, bringing in Bill Szymczyk (who worked on all subsequent albums through 1982's Greatest Hits Vol. 2) and adding Felder, who had recorded with Flow in Gainesville, Florida (and who once gave guitar lessons to another Gainesville native, Tom Petty), then became a session guitarist and studio engineer in New York, Boston, and L.A.

The increased emphasis on rock attracted more listeners — mid-1970s hits included "Best of My Love" (Number One, 1975), "One of These Nights" (Number One, 1975), "Lyin' Eyes" (Number Two, 1975), and "Take It to the Limit" (Number Four, 1975) — but alienated Leadon. After One of These Nights, Leadon left the band to form the Bernie Leadon-Michael Georgiades Band, which released Natural Progressions in 1977. (Leadon went on to become a Nashville session musician, and in the 1990s formed Run-C&W, a jokester group who played a blend of country and R&B.)

Leadon was replaced by Joe Walsh, who had established himself with the James Gang and on his own. His Eagles debut, Hotel California, was their third consecutive Number One album (the second was their record-breaking 1976 greatest-hits compilation). "New Kid in Town" (Number One, 1976), the title cut (Number One, 1977), and "Life in the Fast Lane" (#11, 1977) spurred sales of more than 16 million copies worldwide.

Meisner left in 1977, replaced by Schmit, who had similarly replaced him in Poco. Meisner has released the solo albums Randy Meisner (1978) and One More Song (1980), and (yes) Randy Meisner (1982). (In 1981, he toured with the Silveradoes; later, in 1990, Meisner reemerged in a group called Black Tie, alongside Billy Swan and Bread's James Griffin.) Henley and Frey sang backup on One More Song, and in the late 1970s they also appeared on album by Bob Seger and Randy Newman. In 1981 Henley duetted with Stevie Nicks on the Number Six single "Leather and Lace."

Between outside projects and legal entanglements, it took the Eagles two years and $1 million to make the multi-platinum LP The Long Run. The album included the hit singles "Heartache Tonight" (Number One, 1979), "The Long Run" (Number Eight, 1980), and "I Can't Tell You Why" (Number One, 1980).

Walsh continued to release solo albums, though his biggest hit to date has been 1978's cheeky "Life's Been Good" (Number 12). Felder and Schmit also put out their own albums and contributed songs to film soundtracks. Schmit's second LP, Timothy B, included "Boys Night Out" (Number 25, 1987).

In 1982 Henley and Frey both embarked on solo careers. Frey charted with "The One You Love" (Number 15, 1982) and "Sexy Girl" (Number 20, 1984) before a movie proved his ticket into the Top Ten: "The Heat Is On," featured in Beverly Hills Cop, shot to Number Two in 1985. Frey followed this success by becoming an actor, making a guest appearance as a drug dealer on the popular TV series Miami Vice. The episode was based on a track from his album The Allnighter, "Smuggler's Blues," which consequently reached Number 12 (1985). Later in 1985, Frey's "You Belong to the City" hit Number Two. While still dabbling in acting with roles in the short-lived TV series South of Sunset, the movie Jerry Maguire, and a guest spot on the Don Johnson post-Miami Vice series Nash Bridges in the 1990s, Frey also co-founded a music label, Mission Records, in 1997.

Ultimately, though, Henley was the ex-Eagle who garnered the greatest chart success, and the most critical acclaim as well. His "Dirty Laundry" (from his first solo effort, I Can't Stand Still) made it to Number Three, but the 1985 solo album Building the Perfect Beast was to be his true arrival as solo hit maker and respected singer/songwriter. The kickoff single, "The Boys of Summer," went to Number Five — supported by an evocative black-and-white video that fast became an MTV favorite — and earned Henley a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance; the hits "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" (Number Nine, 1985) and "Sunset Grill" Number 22, 1985) followed. A third album, The End of the Innocence (1989), produced a Number Eight (1989) title track, and the additional singles "The Last Worthless Evening" and "The Heart of the Matter," which both hit Number 21. The LP won Henley another Grammy, in the same category as before.

In the early 1990s, he sought release from his Geffen Records contract, initiating a long and bitter legal dispute. After participating in the release of a solo best-of album in 1995, Henley was freed from his contract. Five years later, he released a solo album of all-new material, Inside Job (co-produced by former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch), and embarked on a solo tour to support it. Henley married for the first time in May 1995 and had three children before releasing Inside Job. This life-altering change for the longtime bachelor resulted in a new theme in his songwriting; several of Inside Job's tracks were clearly about marriage and family, including the gentle ballad "Taking You Home" (Number 58 pop, Number One Adult Contemporary, 2000). Much of the rest of the album, however, still explored Henley's cynicism toward the business world and the media.

In 1990 Henley founded the Walden Woods Project, dedicated to preserving historic lands around Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts (where Henry David Thoreau and others reflected and wrote), from corporate development. Among the singer's various fund-raising means were holding charity concerts, featuring other top rock artists, and donating proceeds from some of his own recordings, including a reggae version of the Guys and Dolls standard "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" (1993). In 1993 the Walden Woods Project got a big boost from Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles, coordinated by Henley and featuring Clint Black, Trisha Yearwood, Travis Tritt, and others.

In 1994, after years of fielding off reunion rumors, Henley, Frey, Walsh, Felder, and Schmit — who had appeared together in the video for Tritt's version of "Take It Easy" — hit the road for a massively successful concert tour. The tour went on hiatus toward the end of 1994, due to Frey's gastrointestinal surgery, but it continued in 1995. In November 1994, the band released Hell Freezes Over, which featured four new songs, including the singles "Get Over It" (Number 31, 1994), "Love Will Keep Us Alive" (Number One Adult Contemporary, 1994), "Learn to Be Still" (Number 15 Adult Contemporary, 1995), and 11 of the old hits culled from the band's 1994 live appearance on MTV. Within months the reunion LP had sold more than 10 million copies and gone to Number One on the pop album chart.

In 1998 the Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All seven members of the band performed together for the first time at the induction ceremony. The core members of the group — the ones who had recorded and toured together in the mid-1990s — reunited again for a few concerts at the end of 1999, including a New Year's Eve show in L.A. A four-CD retrospective set, Eagles 1972-1999: Selected Works (Number 109) was issued in November 2000. In February 2001, the Eagles fired Felder, who retaliated by suing the band, its organization, and Henley and Frey individually; the latter pair countersued. (Felder later wrote a book about his time in the band, Heaven and Hell, which was published in the U.K. in November 2007.) The case was settled out of court in May 2007.

In 2003, The Very Best of the Eagles was released, covering the band's entire 1970s output as well as the new single "Hole in the World." In 2007, Eagles released its first all-new album in 28 years, the double-CD Long Road Out of Eden, exclusively through Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Eagles.com in the U.S. It debuted at Number One on the Billboard chart. The band continued to tour successfully through 2008.