I felt gutted when I heard about the others passing but can't begin to describe how I feel now. Numb maybe. It just doesn't seem real. Truly gut-wrenching.
Also - Dale Griffin, drummer of Mott The Hoople died of Altzheimer's yesterday.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
One by one, they're all going to be gone in about 20 years.
A ruthless band leader, not the guy I'd ask for tips on man management, a talented determined musician, and a businessman (with Henley/Azoff) who appeared to proud of his reputation in the History of the Eagles documentary, but then again it only took nearly 40 years for him to
play again with Bernie Leadon. A shame I never saw the last tour, as it was our only chance to see Frey, and the addition of Leadon (my guitar idol) was, judging by youtube, a superb one.
Henley said Eagles would continue as long as Frey wanted, I guess it's all over now.
Big fan of the Eagles, and Glenn's solo work was good too. Such a shame, only 67.
It really does seem, without entering into the statistics and probability of it all, that January 2016 has seen an unusually high number of deaths of famous rock musicians.
The Real Wizard wrote:
Also - Dale Griffin, drummer of Mott The Hoople died of Altzheimer's yesterday.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.
One by one, they're all going to be gone in about 20 years.
Will we have had anyone left by the end of this year, given the horrendous number of deaths starting late last year?
Same sentiments with pma here. Though I didn't like him much after reading Don Felder's book, and after watching History of the Eagles, I really respect this guy's music, I had to stop myself from spitting out my coffee when i heard the news yesterday morning. Even my sister told me she had to stop herself from crying when she heard the news.
Meanwhile, looks like Someone up there has a full band for His dream supergroup now. He's already had a bassist (Lemmy), and two vocalists. (Bowie and Natalie Cole) Now he just got a drummer (Dale Griffin), a guitarist (Glenn) and even a horn section (Mic Gillette from Tower of Power, died one day before Glenn)
Sad that he has passed away of course but if I'm honest I always thought The Eagles were a distinctly underwhelming group, with a handful of good songs but much more filler than killer. This anecdote from an article in CRM Nov 2015 sums up my feelings about the band: "Don [Henley] pulls out a copy of Pet Sounds on CD that he wants Brian [Wilson] to sign. So Brian grabs it and he signs: 'To Don, thanks for all the great music'. And he's handing it back to Don but before Don can take it he grabs it back he crosses out 'great' and puts 'good music'. The thing is there's no irony there. He's not being funny, he's really thinking: 'I wrote "great", but I don't think it's great. But it's good. It's good music.'"
I've not listened to much Eagles music at all, but they definitely seem to divide opinion, with many leaning towards disliking them (I read someone likening them to a softer, soulless Creedence Clearwater Revival). I wonder what the consensus here is?
As for someone who dislikes a lot of country, I have to say that I like The Eagles a lot. Technically they were not a country band but their earlier albums did have a lot of country style sounds. Among mainstream rock bands of all time, I guess the Eagles were the most successful country-rock, southern-rock act of all time.
I strongly recommend watching the whole 'History of the Eagles' documentary. Even if you are not into them, it's a fascinating insight on how can a band be so creative in the studio and achieve so much success, and yet develop so much anger and bitterness towards each other that they ended up having an on a very harsh stage verbal fight that almost came to blows.