Former Eagle Don Felder mourns death of Glenn Frey

Country musicians of all stripes, from Vince Gill to Travis Tritt and more, have come out in expressing their admiration for the Eagles versatile musician and co-founder Glenn Frey, who passed away yesterday at age 67.

Country musicians in Nashville mourned the loss of Eagles’ bandleader Glenn Frey as they remembered the band’s timeless impact with their smooth harmonies and memorable lyrics that embodied the cool California country rock sound.

The beauty of the Eagles is that their music was not just easy listening, but easy to sing along as well.

“Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them”, wrote rock critic Robert Christgau in 1972 when the rock band composed their first big hit.

“Music was the single most important cultural driving force during that time …”

“He was like a brother to me; we were family, and like most families, there was some dysfunction”, Henley writes on Facebook. Their sound grew tougher as the band developed under Frey and Henley’s leadership, reaching an apex with the addition of Joe Walsh on guitar and the release of Hotel California.

The Eagles are one of the best-selling bands of all time, and Glenn had a lot to do with that.

The Eagles’ most recent San Diego concert was in October of 2014, at Viejas Arena.

Seger said that Frey suffered from colitis, which contributed to his death, for most of his life, but kept the illness under control by working out in his later years. Frey and Henley became estranged for years, their breach a key reason the band stayed apart in the 1980s.

That’s the context that underpins the Dude’s dismissal of the band in The Big Lebowski; it’s implied that hating the Eagles wasn’t a matter of taste, it was principal. Besides the ones mentioned above, there were “One Of These Nights”, “Witchy Woman”, “Sad Café”, “Life In The Fast Lane”, “The Long Run“, “Get Over It”, “I Can’t Tell You Why”, “Love Will Keep Us Alive” and “Waiting In The Weeds”.

Guitarist and Detroit native Frey formed the Eagles with drummer Don Henley in Los Angeles in the early 1970s along with guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner. As the front man for the rock band, The Eagles, Glen gifted the world with decades of songs that featured his singing voice as the lead vocal. Read HENLEY’s full tribute to FREY here.

Frey had occasional success as a solo artist, with songs including The One You Love and You Belong to the City, and careers in movies and television.

“I mean gosh, he’s left behind such a legacy of music, that you know, people will be listening to for the rest of… for the rest of time I think, timeless music”. “Glenn Frey, you will be sorely missed”.

“Glenn fought a courageous battle for the past several weeks but, sadly, succumbed to complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia”, the post read. The group split in 1980 but reunited in 1994. We brought our two-year History Of The Eagles Tour to a triumphant close at the end of July and now he is gone. “He was amusing, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven”.