Recognition and Reunion
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has an unusual place in the rock landscape. It tends to be scorned by those ignored and adored by many that have been inducted and honored. Led by industry notables like Rolling Stone magazine editor and publisher Jann S. Wenner and record-company men Seymour Stein and Bob Krasnow, the foundation started its job of inducting rock music’s great and good in 1986. And it was all started by a man who had played a key role in the Eagles story himself: Atlantic Records founder and chairman Ahmet Ertegün.
California Dreaming
The Hall of Fame opened its doors to the Eagles in the band’s first year of eligibility, 1997. The subtext was California the night that the Eagles were inducted, on January 12, 1998. The swanky Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York saw the Eagles’ FM cousins, Fleetwood Mac, inducted, as well as the Mamas & the Papas, a group whose hit song “California Dreamin’” might well have summed up all of Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles’ early aspirations.
“It represents a time of great success and a time of great excess,” said Wenner, the vice chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Then there was Santana, a different strain of California, coming from San Francisco, but whose Latin fusions had also made the West Coast sound a global phenomenon.
Buffett Service
Singer/songwriter and king of good-time tropical beach music Jimmy Buffett was tasked with inducting the Eagles into the Hall of Fame and introduced the band with typical joie de vivre. Buffett had kick-started his own career in the late 1970s, and when his career-changing and subsequent trademark song “Margaritaville” debuted, he promoted it with a string of slots opening for the Eagles in the United States.
A grinning Buffett said, “The Eagles are going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the signature bands that began in the ’70s and are still alive and kicking ass as we head for the millennium. They’ve laughed, frolicked, cried, fought, but most of all they have beaten the odds and are as popular today as they were in that incredible summer back in 1972. And here I am, still opening for this goddamn band! Now it’s the Eagles’ turn.”
As rock-and-roll bands last longer and progress from decade to decade, band members come and go, leaving the Hall of Fame to deal with a question that’s still to be properly resolved. Is the induction honoring the original lineup or the current incarnation? Should everyone associated with the band’s lineups be included in the ceremony? Debates rage on, thus controversy ensues and will likely continue.
Ironically, for a band that had been through supposedly as acrimonious a split as the Eagles, the evening proved a simple, open-arms affair. Previously, the reunited band had veered away from inviting Meisner or Leadon onstage for any impromptu shows or appearances. After all, the Eagles were nothing if not a smooth, well-oiled, and painstakingly choreographed concert machine. Calling up an old pal from the audience, or bringing them out for an encore, was not the Eagles’ style. But to the surprise of many in the media, the Hall reversed this policy by including all seven living Eagles in the induction as the band were honored by the industry and their peers.
Seven Up
And then there were seven, as the five 1998 Eagles plus originals Leadon and Meisner surrounded Buffett, hugged their old touring partner, and prepared for their acceptance speeches. It was then the turn of the individual Eagles to take to the microphone to issue their words of thanks and acknowledgment for the honor of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Interestingly, their different styles and approaches onstage perfectly reflected the various personalities within the extended family of Eagles.
Henley, ever the intellectual, was significantly the first Eagle to speak and took the opportunity more seriously than most. He looked professorial as he questioned fame and what it means to the artist and to the public, suggesting that perhaps the Hall of Fame should be the “Hall of Accomplishment” instead. It was a comment on celebrity and Henley’s desire for music to be taken seriously and for it to be discussed and analyzed in certain forums. “I’ve had a lot of mixed emotions about the name ‘Hall of Fame,’” he said. “It’s the fame part that bothers me a little, here in the waning hours of the twentieth century. In what we call Western culture, in this age of media, friends, fame is just not what it used to be.”
It was a contradictory performance, at once dispassionate thanks to the intellectualizing of the Hall’s role and purpose and yet disarming, since his nervy and seemingly under-rehearsed speech was most unlike Henley’s usual style. He then got back on track, remembering to thank those who had helped the band along the way, starting with Irving Azoff, “without whom we wouldn’t be here today.” At this point, the far more relaxed and jovial-looking Frey interjected with a comment of his own: “Well, we might still have been here, but we wouldn’t have made as much money.” Henley relaxed immediately at this injection of levity and humor and responded with his own quite pertinent quip: “Right. As I’ve said before, he may be Satan, but he’s our Satan!”
Walsh, dressed in a suit with a brick pattern that made him resemble a wall if he stood too still, made a point of thanking the behind-the-scenes crew who worked hard to make the Eagles shows as seamless as everyone knows them to be. “I’d also like to thank all the guys that drive this equipment around—that drive the trucks, set it up, fix it, and put it back in the truck, so we can do what we do. God bless the road crew. Thank you!”
Timothy B. Schmit—typically polite and courteous—was clear to acknowledge that he wasn’t part of the early days and paid a warm tribute to Randy Meisner. “On a brief personal note,” he said, “I’d like to say that I was not in the trenches with this particular band, and so I’d like to thank my predecessor, Randy Meisner, for being there and paving the way for my being here tonight. With him beside me and the rest of these guys, I’m very honored. Thank you very much.”
In turn, Meisner genuinely thanked Schmit and summed up the warmth of the “reunion” with the words, “It’s just great playing with the guys again.”
Indictment
The always independently minded Leadon initiated his speech with a joke about being “indicted” rather than inducted. “Really proud to have lived long enough to be indicted,” he said. “I’d like to thank everybody on the grand jury who voted for me.” He was then gracious enough to look back at the beginnings of the band and acknowledge the part played by John Boylan in bringing the four original musicians together in the first place, to play with Linda Ronstadt. Don Felder praised the songs of Henley and Frey before thanking his wife Susan for her support over his twenty-six years with the Eagles.
Finally, Frey, in great spirits on the night, took the microphone and appeared to genuinely want to clear up rumors and misconceptions about rifts and dislikes within the group.
“We got along fine!” he explained. “We just disagreed a lot! Tell me one worthwhile relationship that has not had peaks and valleys? That’s really what we’re talking about here. You cannot play music with people for very long if you don’t genuinely like them. I guarantee you that over the nine years that the Eagles were together during the ’70s, over the three years that we were together during our reunion, the best of times ranked in the 95 percentile, the worst of times ranked in the very small percentile—that obviously everybody but the seven of us has dwelled on for a long, long time. Get over it!”
And then, in true Hall of Fame tradition, the seven-piece Eagles took their positions. Henley sat jacketless on drums while Frey kicked off the song that started it all, “Take It Easy.” Leadon marked his comeback with characteristic Fender twang and the seven Eagles played like they’d been rehearsing for years. Meisner looked as happy as the proverbial kid in a candy store, and the magic continued into an immaculate rendition of “Hotel California.” Then, suddenly, it was over—this wasn’t a real concert, after all. The house lights came on, and Jann Wenner thanked everyone for coming before reminding them to head home.
At the end of 1999, the Eagles were honored by the Recording Industry Association of America when The Eagles—Their Greatest Hits 1971−1975, released in 1976, was named the top-selling album of the century. “I think it’s just an amazing award,” Felder told CNN’s Showbiz Today. “It’s kind of a testament to the songwriting of these two guys over here, Don Henley and Glenn Frey. The songs on that record really kind of withstood the test of time.”
The Eagles played a special New Year’s show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 1999. The concert would be the last for Felder, however, as yet another new-look Eagles would emerge in the new millennium.