<\/p>\n That mirage, myth and illusion was immortalised on the album Hotel California, the Eagles\u2019 big American dream-come-true.<\/p>\n Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n \u201cHotel California was obviously our creative peak,\u201d Henley says. \u201cEvery band, every artist, has one.\u201d<\/p>\n Released 50 years ago \u2013 on December 8, 1976 \u2013 it\u2019s not only their personal best, but also the third-best-selling album of all time, at 32 million copies and counting (the Eagles\u2019 Their Greatest Hits (1971\u20131975) is number one). The epic title track inspired a thematic album about the toll of dreams, touching on fame (New Kid In Town), the high life (Life In The Fast Lane), relationships (Victim Of Love) and westward expansion (The Last Resort). The message throughout was that dreams often look different up close and have a way of vanishing into thin air.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \u201cWe were always keenly aware of the transitory nature of fame and fortune,\u201d Henley says. \u201cThe entire Desperado album was basically about that. We had witnessed all the wreckage alongside the Yellow Brick Road. Pop culture, for lack of a better term \u2013 and which might be an oxymoron \u2013 is all about the new. You grind away for seven or eight or ten years, and suddenly, boom, you\u2019re on the radio; your face stares out from a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. Then your sophomore album flops, your record label drops you, and you\u2019re right back to square one \u2013 \u2018Please drive through\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n Bernie Leadon, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Don Felder and Randy Meisner (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n While square one wasn\u2019t part of the Eagles story, chasing the new was. And the turmoil and pressure to keep outdoing themselves resulted in substance-fuelled power struggles that turned once-close friends into rivals and led to a break-up three years after Hotel California. As Glenn Frey once said: \u201cWe made it, and it ate us.\u201d<\/p>\n Significantly, the mythic desert passage is one that all five band members on the album had made respectively in the late 60s and early 70s. It was a more innocent time, as they relocated from the South and Midwest with hopes of being part of the burgeoning hippie country scene in and around Laurel Canyon and nightclubs like the Troubadour. The spot where everyone from Kris Kristofferson to Carole King made their debut is where Henley first joined Glenn Frey for a beer, beginning a friendship and the creative nucleus for the Eagles. Back then, the two would ride around LA in Frey\u2019s \u201955 Chevy, nicknamed Gladys, \u201cplotting and planning\u201d.<\/p>\n It took a while for things to take shape. Both were already in groups signed to the same indie label. Henley\u2019s Shiloh made one album, produced by Kenny Rogers. Frey\u2019s Longbranch Pennywhistle (with JD Souther, a key collaborator on Hotel California) did one that included top-level session collective the Wrecking Crew\u2019s James Burton and Larry Knechtel. Neither record troubled the charts.<\/p>\n Henley and Frey joined Linda Ronstadt\u2019s touring band in 1971, which soon added bassist Randy Meisner of Ricky Nelson\u2019s Stone Canyon Band and guitarist Bernie Leadon of the Flying Burrito Brothers. The proto-Eagles quartet played together only once, during Ronstadt\u2019s engagement at Disneyland, on the Coca-Cola Terrace in Tomorrowland. It was a prophetic spot for the birth of a band that would become as ubiquitous \u2013 and successful \u2013 as America\u2019s favorite soda.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Within two months, thanks to help from Jackson Browne, they\u2019d signed to David Geffen\u2019s Asylum Records. Their first two albums, Eagles and Desperado, produced by Glyn Johns<\/a>, were released in 1972\/73, inside 10 months. Thanks to Take It Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling, the group quickly climbed to the top of the country-rock heap. But they craved a bigger heap, especially when they found themselves on bills with arena rock acts.<\/p>\n \u201cOpening for Jethro Tull<\/a> and Yes<\/a> was odd because it was such a mismatch, musically, but it did have the effect of toughening us up,\u201d Henley says. \u201cBut our main problem was that we didn\u2019t have a repertoire. We had released only one album, and Take It Easy was our only hit song at that point. But somehow we survived. Glenn was right saying so-called country rock had its limitations in terms of commerciality, but I think we defied those limitations as we expanded our stylistic perimeters to include more different veins of music. Ronstadt did that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n In the studio, the toughening up got a boost from a new producer. \u201cMy first thought was: \u2018I don\u2019t want to do a cowboy band!\u2019\u201d Hotel California producer Bill Szymczyk tells us. \u201cBut they wanted to rock. They\u2019d started their third album with Glyn, who was one of my heroes. But they weren\u2019t happy. Glyn was a taskmaster and had rules about no drink or drugs in the studio. Meanwhile, the guys had heard The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get<\/a>, which I did with Joe Walsh [in 1973], and said: \u2018Who produced this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBill was \u2013 and is \u2013 a lover of rock\u2019n\u2019roll, blues and funk music,\u201d Henley says. \u201cHe had produced for the J Geils Band<\/a>, Edgar Winter and BB King<\/a>, among others. After a long day of grinding away on our own material, Bill would put an Ohio Players or a Parliament-Funkadelic album up on the big playback speakers in the studio, and we\u2019d kick back and listen. It was fun. The great thing about Bill was that he was willing to let us follow our own instincts, which at that time were leaning more toward rock and R&B.\u201d<\/p>\n Szymczyk called Johns to get permission to take over the album. \u201cThe answer was: \u2018Better you than me, mate!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A week later they recorded Already Gone, a rousing rocker that gave Frey a chance to bust loose with some razor-tooth lead guitar. Suddenly the band were getting the edge they wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the beginning of a great marriage,\u201d Szymczyk says, \u201cwith each album doing better than the one before it, and then Hotel California, which was the high point of their career \u2013 and mine.\u201d<\/p>\n For 1974\u2019s On The Border, they added hotshot guitarist Don Felder, who\u2019d been touring with David Blue and Crosby & Nash. Bernie Leadon, who\u2019d played with Felder in high school bands, said: \u201cFelder was a really great guitar player, but when he joined I could see the writing on the wall for me. I thought if I\u2019m going to leave, better that a friend of mine gets the gig.\u201d<\/p>\n Leadon stayed for 1975\u2019s One Of These Nights, which further upped the ante on extended solos (the title track and the underrated Visions were both six-string showcases). \u201cWe were ballsto-the-wall on that album,\u201d Szymczyk says. \u201cThey wanted to rock, and we proceeded to damn sure rock.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Eagkles producer Bill Szymczyk (Image credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n With each album came more fame, more pressure to outdo themselves, and more substances. In the mid-70s rock world, cocaine was the drug of choice. \u201cIt was a writing tool, but one that brought out the worst in everyone,\u201d Frey once said. But even without drugs in the mix, there was always creative friction between Henley and Frey.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the Lennon and McCartney thing,\u201d Szymczyk says. \u201cDon writes this way, Glenn writes that way, but together they write better than they do separately. There was always a lot of competition. Frey was competitive in everything! Darts, shooting pool, you name it. He wanted to win. Henley wasn\u2019t as up-front about it, but he knew very well what he had talent-wise. We called him Golden Throat.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the days of cruising around in Gladys, there was one thing the two leaders did agree on: they wanted their band to be the biggest on the planet. And that meant pushing the rock sound to the limit. As Leadon predicted, that put him in their crosshairs. The guitarist had played lead on Take It Easy and Tequila Sunrise. He\u2019d co-written Witchy Woman. His background with the Burrito Brothers had imbued the Eagles with country-rock cred.<\/p>\n For all that, his relationship with them was never easy. Exhaustive touring (he\u2019d already logged five years of roadwork before he joined) and the drug use (he\u2019d kicked those habits) only deepened his discontent.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of it sat well with Bernie,\u201d says Szymczyk. \u201cThe further we went into rock, the less he liked it.\u201d He remembers asking the guitarist what he thought of a take of One Of These Nights, to which Leadon replied: \u201cI think I\u2019m going to go surfing.\u201d<\/p>\n Things came to a head one night in 1975, backstage at a show at the Orange Bowl. As Frey was rallying the band, Leadon poured a beer over Frey\u2019s head and walked out.<\/p>\n Enter Joe Walsh. Formerly of the James Gang<\/a>, Walsh was three albums into a successful solo career in 1975. He was already friendly with the Eagles from crossing paths on the road. When they approached him, his response was: \u201cBeing part of a group would take a whole lot of weight off my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n But it\u2019s easy to forget what a mismatch it seemed. In The Guitar Greats, Walsh recalled: \u201cI think eighty percent of people said: \u2018That\u2019s stupid. There\u2019s no way it\u2019s going to work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Not only did it work, it changed the band\u2019s energy level.<\/p>\n \u201cFor starters, things got louder,\u201d Henley says. \u201cJoe, being a bona fide rock\u2019n\u2019roll guitar slinger, was the perfect foil for Don Felder. They propelled one another in a friendly but competitive sort of way. We had upped our horsepower. This is not to take anything away from Bernie, who was \u2013 and still is \u2013 a highly skilled musician.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs we got into Hotel California, it was like: \u2018This is a match made in heaven,\u2019\u201d Szymczyk says. \u201cThe friction with Bernie was gone, and it was replaced with somebody that could blister with a forceful edge.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of forceful edge, in Walsh the Eagles now also had a resident bad boy and gleeful wrecker of hotel rooms. His instrument of choice was a chainsaw. Dressers, chairs, tables got sliced, diced and tossed from windows.<\/p>\n \u201cKeith Moon<\/a> and Joe were good buddies, and that led to some mischief,\u201d Henley says. \u201cIt was amusing for a little while, but it eventually became a very expensive hobby, and we were beginning to get barred from some of the hotels we liked to stay in. So after a while the chainsaws got locked away in storage, and other kinds of dramas replaced the \u2018remodelling\u2019 of rooms and hallways.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cBut at least Joe got a hit song out of it,\u201d referencing 1978\u2019s Life\u2019s Been Good.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Elektra Asylum Records)<\/p>\n In 1976, the Eagles played 68 shows worldwide, from Tucson to Tokyo. For most bands, that would not be a year in which to make a new album. But the Eagles did, grabbing studio time whenever and wherever they could.<\/p>\n \u201cThe demands of touring definitely made it more difficult for us to stay in a creative space, particularly in terms of songwriting,\u201d Henley says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut because we were young \u2013 and driven \u2013 we managed to learn how to juggle. Did the work suffer? Probably. But we did the best we could, given the circumstances we were in. It\u2019s a demanding job, feeding the machine. The machine is always hungry.<\/p>\n \u201cBut momentum is important,\u201d he continues. \u201cOnce you\u2019re on a hot streak, it\u2019s wise to try to maintain it. Otherwise you get forgotten or replaced pretty quickly. Back in the sixties, The Beatles<\/a> had set an impossibly high bar, both in terms of quality and quantity. So record companies had come to expect an album or two every year. But The Beatles had been able to stop touring and focus solely on writing and recording. Touring was a necessity for us so that we could pay for rent and gas.\u201d<\/p>\n The first sessions for Hotel California were in March at Studio C, the coveted big room, at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, with Szymczyk back behind the board.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d do two or three weeks, then the band would go back on the road,\u201d he says, recalling that they had only one finished song \u2013 Meisner\u2019s Try And Love Again. Beyond that, just a \u201chandful of fragments, licks and phrases\u201d. As Walsh says in the book Buzz Me In \u2013 Inside The Record Plant: \u201cWe took all of that, put it on a table and said: \u2018Okay, let\u2019s pretend this is a jigsaw puzzle,\u2019 and we started piecing things together.\u201d<\/p>\n The jigsaw puzzles could be complex. On the surface, the album\u2019s first single, New Kid In Town, is a soft-rock sigh. But structurally and harmonically, it\u2019s one of the most involved Eagles songs. Henley says: \u201cThat one was mostly JD, with some essential input from Glenn in terms of words, melody and arrangement, and a few lyrical contributions from me. It\u2019s a great piece of work.\u201d Modulations, shifting choruses, meticulous ornamentation from Felder on electric and Meisner on the guitarr\u00f3n Mexicano, wrapped in a harmony cascade that earned the track a Grammy for Best Vocal Arrangement. How did those beautifully complex arrangements get written?<\/p>\n \u201cWell, nobody \u2018wrote\u2019 anything. It wasn\u2019t that formal,\u201d Henley says. \u201cWe did everything intuitively, including vocal harmony arrangements. First we\u2019d decide who was going to sing the lead vocal, and then assign harmony parts around that, depending on the key of the song and where the melody sat within the chord progression.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Glen Frey at the Day On The Green concert at Oakland Coliseum May 28, 1977 in Los Angeles, California (Image credit: Brad Elterman\/BuzzFoto\/FilmMagic)<\/p>\n In the studio, they worked from \u201ctwo to two, with a dinner break at seven,\u201d usually at Dan Tana\u2019s, a favourite old-Hollywood eatery, next door to the Troubadour. Though friends dropped by the studio, mostly it was the band and Szymczyk, who they nicknamed Coach.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said I was the Don Shula of rock\u2019n\u2019roll,\u201d he says, referencing the Miami Dolphins\u2019 legendary honcho (who was at the helm for their perfect 1972 season). \u201cI was a player\u2019s coach more than Shula,\u201d Szymczyk says with a laugh. He kept a keen eye and ear on the sessions, and was a wizard with a tape-editing razor. And on the Hotel California album sessions he had to lay down what he called \u201cthe six o\u2019clock rule\u201d to make sure recreational activities didn\u2019t derail progress, including his own. \u201cEverything was getting a little out of hand by three in the afternoon, so I was like: \u2018Okay, enough of that. No beer, no blow, no reefer, no nothing until six.\u201d<\/p>\n That worked for a few weeks. Then the grumbling started. Szymczyk says: \u201cI\u2019d be changing reels in the control room, and I\u2019d hear them muttering: \u2018Is it six yet?\u2019 followed by \u2018It had better be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n On the initial pressings of the album, \u2018Is it six o\u2019clock yet?\u2019 was etched into the runout groove of Side A. On Side B the etched phrase was \u2018VOL is fivepiece live.\u2019 \u201cThat\u2019s because we were proud that we got that song, Victim Of Love, in one take without any edits,\u201d Szymczyk says.<\/p>\n That rocker began with a Don Felder guitar instrumental that he passed to Henley and Frey. They brought in JD Souther again, who came up with the concept: that having a broken heart is like being a victim of a car crash. In that scenario, all three were frequent car crashers, burning through relationships. \u201cDudes on a rampage,\u201d was how Henley described it.<\/p>\n When it came time to do an album, he and Frey would usually move in together. Before Hotel California, they were briefly ensconced in a Beverly Hills house that once belonged to actress Dorothy Lamour. With panoramic 360-degree views, it was nicknamed \u2018the Eagles\u2019 nest\u2019. They were an odd couple \u2013 Henley the tidy one; Frey the lovable slob, leaving mountains of cigarette ash everywhere. The togetherness might not have helped their friendship, but it was great for songwriting.<\/p>\n Victim Of Love\u2019s tale of betrayal and disillusionment was paired with a stuttering, crunchy groove. Felder had assumed he would sing lead, but after a week\u2019s worth of takes his vocal was deemed to be \u201cnot up to band standards\u201d. Henley recorded the lead while manager Irving Azoff took Felder out to lunch to break the bad news.<\/p>\n In the summer, Szymczyk moved the sessions to Criteria Studios in Miami. \u201cThe guys were actually quite happy to be out of LA and away from all the partying and the hangers-on,\u201d he says. The only challenge in Miami was the occasional ear-splitting squall coming from the studio next door, where Black Sabbath<\/a> were recording Technical Ecstasy.<\/a><\/p>\n \n Joe Walsh onstage in circa 1976 in Los Angeles (Image credit: Richard Creamer\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the world outside the studio, the United States was basking in its bicentennial. On the surface, the country\u2019s 200th birthday was all stars and stripes, but that was tainted by a Watergate hangover and relentless dark stories in the news.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018peace and love\u2019 idealism of the sixties had faded by the beginning of the decade,\u201d Henley says. \u201cThe so-called counterculture, due in part to its own excesses, had disintegrated. The US was trying hard to focus on the bicentennial, but the Cold War continued, and the Boomer generation had slowly realised that the same corporate forces that had always been in charge were still, in fact, in charge, and there was an air of capitulation. There were now the realities of jobs and families to consider. Gone was the dream of a new kind of America; gone was the appetite for rebellion. \u2018We haven\u2019t had that spirit here since 1969.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n One of Hotel California\u2019s standout tracks was about appetite with a capital \u2018A\u2019. Both a celebration and a critique of LA\u2019s decadence and the band\u2019s own excesses, Life In The Fast Lane could have been subtitled \u2018Nervous, Edgy Feeling\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a great many of our songs that could be retitled \u2018Note To Self\u2019,\u201d Henley says. \u201cExcess \u2013 too much of a bad or good thing \u2013 was a subject we examined, both from a personal perspective and an American cultural standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n The song\u2019s classic riff began as what Walsh called his \u201cco-ordination drill\u201d. \u201cI had this lick that I played that I would warm up for a show with,\u201d he told Paul Shaffer on Plus One. \u201cIt\u2019s an exercise between your right and left hand, faster and faster. I was playing, warming up for the show, and Glenn comes busting in my dressing room and says: \u2018What the hell\u2019s that?\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s just this lick I warm up with.\u2019 He said: \u2018No, that\u2019s an Eagles song, dude!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n On In the Studio With Redbeard, Frey said the title came one day after a crazy car ride with a drug dealer nicknamed The Count. Driving at 90mph, Frey asked the dealer to slow down, and the answer came: \u201cIt\u2019s life in the fast lane\u201d! With that title, he and Henley wrote the lyrics and melody together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew it was going to be the most rock\u2019n\u2019roll thing the Eagles had attempted so far,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cThey turned me loose on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n And what guitar was he using?<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a Strat,\u201d Walsh told Total Guitar. \u201cAnd the amplifier was probably this little orange Roland Cube I was using a lot back then. I found it to be a pretty darn good little amp for recording with a Strat, by turning it up pretty good to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n The killer riff doubled with guitar and bass, cliff-hanging power chords, and trademark four-part vocal harmonies on the chorus. This was a classic Eagles record, yet one that sounded like nothing they\u2019d ever done before. And as sonic icing, Szymczyk employed a Jimi Hendrix<\/a> trick \u2013 the \u201cElectric Ladyland two-track flange technique\u201d \u2013 to add a whooshing sound to the song\u2019s offramp exit.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I suggested phasing at the end of the song, Henley and Frey were sceptical,\u201d he says. They thought it might sound too much like the Small Faces\u2019 Itchycoo Park \u2013 which Szymczyk says was the inspiration. \u201cI just wanted listeners to feel the rush of the wind in their hair!\u201d<\/p>\n \n Don Felder (Image credit: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns)<\/p>\n An ocean breeze was in Don Felder\u2019s hair on the afternoon he got the idea that would become the title song of Hotel California. In his Malibu beach house, noodling on a 12-string Martin acoustic guitar, he hit on a Spanish-sounding chord progression. He put it down on a reel-to-reel four-track, then layered on syncopated electric guitars and a samba beat from a drum machine. He sent it to Henley and Frey on a cassette with another dozen snippets. They liked what they called \u201cthe matador in Mexico\u201d vibe of it, and experimented with lyrical and melody ideas.<\/p>\n Henley took the cassette in the car, which was his favourite place to write. \u201cI think it has something to do with movement and a constantly changing view,\u201d he says. \u201cJust sitting in a room and trying to find inspiration can be stifling. It\u2019s a static situation. Driving, if you\u2019re not in heavy traffic, creates a feeling of flow that can free the imagination and call up memories and images while the music\u2019s playing.\u201d<\/p>\n After a week or two, the song took shape.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hotel concept came first, and then the melody,\u201d Henley says. \u201cSome time in May of \u201976, Glenn and I had gone to see Neil Simon\u2019s play California Suite in Los Angeles. But that was after we had come up with the hotel concept. Seeing the play was a \u2018field research\u2019 trip, just to see if it would help us to flesh out our initial idea. But it wasn\u2019t very helpful; [it wasn\u2019t] dark and spooky enough for what we were after.\u201d<\/p>\n Or maybe the title influenced them, because their spooky inn became the Hotel California, and in turn a metaphor for everything from the mythmaking of the American Dream to an artist\u2019s search for the muse and spiritual meaning.<\/p>\n The recording of the song required some searching, too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cut the track several times, first at Criteria Studios, shortly after Felder had given me the demo,\u201d Henley recalls. \u201cThe Miami recording was a rough arrangement with the working title \u2018Mexican Reggae\u2019. The second time we cut it was at the Record Plant in LA, after Glenn and I had come up with some ideas for lyrics and melody, but that recording turned out to be in the wrong key, at least for singing.<\/p>\n “There was often a schism between what key was best for the guitars and what key was best for the lead vocal. At the end of the day, though, the vocal has to take precedence. There are workarounds on the guitar \u2013 tunings, capos, etc \u2013 but you can\u2019t capo a voice. Or at least you couldn\u2019t then. So we ended up cutting the final track in Miami in the key of B minor with the choruses going to G major.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Randy Meisner onstage (Image credit: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns)<\/p>\n Szymczyk recalls that the final version of the track consisted of \u201cthirty-three separate tape edits from five different takes\u201d.<\/p>\n Apart from being the album\u2019s thematic centrepiece and the Eagles\u2019 best song, it also rode out on one of rock\u2019s most iconic guitar duels, with Felder and Walsh trading sizzle and sting, one-upping each other, then finally merging in triumphant two-part harmony.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked really well together,\u201d Walsh told Guitar World in 2012. \u201cIt was competitive. We brought out the best in each other. We liked to kick each other in the butt! He would play something, and I\u2019d get an attitude, like: \u2018Oh yeah? Listen to this.\u2019 And he\u2019d go: \u2018Wow. Listen to this!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor two days, we wood-shopped the hell out of that,\u201d Szymczyk says. \u201cWe had amps out in the studio, but Felder and Walsh were in the control room with me, one to the right, one to the left, like gunfighters! Felder was the ultimate technician, always a tad on top of the beat. Walsh was the ultimate \u2018feel\u2019 guy, always a tad behind it. Together they were phenomenal. Those two days were one of the high points of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are at least half a dozen guitar tracks on the original recording,\u201d Henley says. \u201cIn live concert settings, this required Felder to play a double-neck guitar, with the twelve-string neck being capo\u2019d on the seventh fret for the intro and the breakdown, and the six-string with no capo for the single-line phrases and the tag solos. One of the unique things about the song is that it ends with extended dual guitar solos. Skynyrd had done something like that a couple of years earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Another thing it shared with Skynyrd\u2019s Free Bird<\/a> was a length \u2013 six and a half minutes \u2013 that wasn\u2019t exactly radio friendly. \u201cThe label wanted us to do a single edit, and we all said no way,\u201d Szymczyk says. \u201cObviously we were right to.\u201d<\/p>\n After seven months of off-and-on recording, the album finally completed in October.<\/p>\n The cover artwork, designed by John Kosh (who also handled Who\u2019s Next <\/a>and The Beatles\u2019 Abbey Road<\/a>), featured a photo of the Beverly Hills Hotel at dusk, taken from a cherry picker 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard. Built in 1912 in a Mediterranean Revival style, the pink stucco hotel had hosted famous A-list guests such as Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra. A month after the album came out, when the hotel learned that the Eagles had used the image without permission, they threatened a lawsuit. They dropped it when they realised that the hotel\u2019s bookings had tripled because of the record\u2019s success.<\/p>\n Eagles – Hotel California (Live 1977) (Official Video) [HD] – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n The Hotel California album was released on December 8, 1976, and was certified platinum in its first week. It went to No.1 on the Billboard 200, where it stayed for eight weeks. Reviews were glowing. Creem said there were \u201cno weak tracks; the music flows majestically every step of the way\u201d. Phonograph praised its \u201cpeerless harmonies\u201d and said it was \u201cpretty and punchy, as the best albums of fellow troubled hedonists Steely Dan<\/a> and the Beach Boys<\/a> are\u201d. NME said: \u201cThere\u2019s no laurels-resting, and a lot has gone into its meticulous crafting.\u201d<\/p>\n While Szymczyk calls the record a \u201cquantum leap forward\u201d, Henley\u2019s opinion is more modest. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019d call it a \u2018quantum leap\u2019; One Of These Nights had three big hits on it,\u201d he says. \u201cBut in terms of growth and consistency and range, I\u2019d agree that Hotel California was an improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n The 10-month, 72-date world tour that followed was gruelling. So much so that the band\u2019s road crew nicknamed it The Prison California. Everyone travelled with their own little entourage. Walsh and Felder had their faction, briefly entertaining the idea of forming their own band. In History Of The Eagles, Henley said: \u201cGlenn and I saw ourselves as the leaders, but other people saw us as dictators. You just cannot have five leaders in a band. It doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n But according to To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles, even the two leaders had stopped talking and would only communicate through others. There were also cocaine-induced physical ailments. Stomach ulcers all around. Henley suffered back pain. Frey\u2019s nasal lining was shot (he would have two surgeries before getting his nose repaired with Teflon). By the end of the tour, Meisner had become persona non grata after drunkenly refusing to sing Take It To The Limit at one show. He left the band shortly after.<\/p>\n The Eagles managed one more album, 1979\u2019s difficult The Long Run (\u201cWe called it The Long One,\u201d Szymczyk says), then broke up after a benefit concert at which Frey and Felder openly threatened to fight each other on stage<\/a> during the band\u2019s performance. It would be 14 years before they reunited.<\/p>\n Eagles – New Kid In Town (Official Video HD) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Despite one album of new material in 2007, the Eagles have become a heritage act \u2013 albeit one of the highest-grossing ones on the circuit \u2013 playing the hits. After Glenn Frey died in 2016, aged 67, they soldiered on with his son Deacon and Vince Gill taking his place. And so it\u2019s gone over the past decade. Meanwhile, there are at least 10 high-profile Eagles tribute bands who are on the road as much as the Eagles were in their 70s heyday. And although classic rock radio has mostly disappeared, subscription services have kept the music playing; Hotel California alone passed two billion streams on Spotify in October 2025.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.loudersound.com\/media\/img\/Louder_logo_v1a_black_on_white.svg\"){kind=logo}
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