"The group's eponymous debut album was recorded in England in February 1972 with producer Glyn Johns and released on June 26, 1972. Eagles was a breakthrough success, yielding three Top 40 singles. The first single and lead track, "Take It Easy", was a song written by Glenn Frey and his neighbor and fellow country-folk rocker Jackson Browne. Browne had written the majority of the song, up until the line "I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see", where he was then stalled. Frey added the next line, and Browne continued to finish the rest of the song. The song reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelled the Eagles to stardom. The single was followed by the bluesy "Witchy Woman" and the soft country rock ballad "Peaceful Easy Feeling", charting at #9 and #22 respectively.
The Eagles were a major force in popularizing the Southern California country rock sound. Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranked Eagles at number 374."
Although Eagles Live includes four tracks recorded in the fall of 1976 (thus allowing for the inclusion of departed singer Randy Meisner on "Take It to the Limit"), the bulk of the album comes from the end of the Eagles' 1980 tour, just before they broke up, and it reflects their late concert repertoire, largely drawn from Hotel California and The Long Run. The occasional early song such as "Desperado" and "Take It Easy" turn up, but many of the major hits from the middle of the band's career – "The Best of My Love," "One of These Nights," "Lyin' Eyes" – are missing, replaced by such curiosities as two extended selections from Joe Walsh's solo career, "Life's Been Good" and "All Night Long."
The Eagles are unquestionably the biggest mainstream American rock band to have emerged in the 1970s. Not only did they sell more records and concert tickets than their peers – Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and Hotel California are two of the biggest-selling albums of all time – but they captured the shifting zeitgeist of the '70s, riding the country-rock hippie hangover at the end of the '60s until it reached the slick, expensive, and expansive pop/rock of Southern California in the late '70s.
Sourced from the Original Analog Master Tapes for Audiophile Sonics. Originally intended as a clever poke at the era's trends that critics maintained were making the band irrelevant, the title of and music on The Long Run continue to prove the Eagles got the last laugh. Created in the wake of the group's demanding tour for the blockbuster Hotel California, the 1979 record ultimately became the final record the Eagles would create for nearly three decades. Stacked with first-rate material and three mammoth singles, the seven-times-platinum effort ensured the Eagles never drifted far from the public's consciousness.
If Don Henley was the sole member of the Eagles underrepresented on their debut album, Eagles, with only two lead vocals and one co-songwriting credit, he made up for it on their follow-up, the "concept" album Desperado…