Episode #98 | 3.29.22

The Eagles (Pt. 2): Death, a Plane Crash, and Innocence Lost at What Cost

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In this episode

In the 1970s, The Eagles made taking off into the upper stratosphere of the charts look easy. Their near decade-long reign of rock afforded them hobbies like dismantling hotel rooms with chainsaws, playing chicken with private jets, and joining delirious drug dealers on high-speed Corvette rides. But after nearly a solid decade of stadium sell-outs, No. 1 singles, top-selling albums and enough cocaine, sex and tension to make even the hardest, wildest, ’70s rock ‘n’ rollers cry uncle, the Eagles had burned out. They were at the top of their game in a decade that they owned, yet somehow, the greatness they sought had destroyed them.

 

Sources

To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles, by Marc Eliot

History of the Eagles (2013)

Rock star fined, placed on probation (UPI)

Life in the fast lane: the turbulent tale of the Eagles (Louder)

The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’: 10 Things You Didn’t Know (Rolling Stone) 

‘He was the spark plug, the man with the plan’: Eagles legend Glenn Frey lived wild life in the fast lane full of groupies, brawls and cocaine (The Sun)

Illegal Eagle: How the Fake Randy Meisner Was Caught at Last (Ultimate Classic Rock)

CPD didn’t “Take It Easy” on Eagles’ Glenn Frey (614)

Don Henley Arrested for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor (Music History Calendar)

The Most Insane Stories in the Career of the Eagles (Rock Pasta)

The Second Life of Don Henley (GQ Magazine)

Don Henley, lead singer of the Eagles rock group… (UPI)

Rock star fined, placed on probation (UPI)

Don Henley, naked underage girl, drugs, fined $2500 in 1981 (The Press Democrat)

They Call Him Big Shorty (Rolling Stone)

Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

 

Music

Hosted, written, and scored by Jake Brennan. 

Copy editing by Pat Healy.

Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.

Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.

*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak