Glenn Frey, the guitarist and singer who was a founding member of the Eagles, died Monday [January 18, 2016] in New York City, the band said in a statement. He was 67.
Frey died of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia, the band said.
“Words can neither describe our sorrow, nor our love and respect for all that he has given to us, his family, the music community and millions of fans worldwide,” the statement read.
The Eagles were to have been recognized with a 2015 Kennedy Center Honor in December, but in November the band requested that it be put off until “all four Eagles -- Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit -- can attend.”
In a statement released at that time, the Eagles said Frey had suffered a recurrence of “previous intestinal issues, which will require major surgery and a lengthy recovery period.”
Those issues date back to the 1980s, the Washington Post reported. In 1986, Frey missed a reunion concert with Henley because of an intestinal disorder. An attempt to reunite the Eagles in 1990 was put off, in part, because of surgery to remove part of Frey’s intestine. And in 1994, their “Hell Freezes Over” reunion tour was interrupted by Frey’s bout with diverticulitis.
Over the course of the group’s career, the Eagles have sold more than 120 million albums worldwide and won six Grammy Awards.
In a 2014 review of an Eagles concert at the Forum, Los Angeles Times music critic Randall Roberts summed up the band’s influence on pop culture during the 1970s and ’80s:
“The messages that the Eagles spread about California life were, after all, some of the most prominent of the era. Delivered over FM airwaves at the peak of terrestrial radio's power and ingrained into the minds of anyone living through the 1970s and '80s, the Eagles’ best songs captured a California settling into itself, more concerned with its valleys and hanging out than surf and sun.
“... For better or worse,” he wrote, “the Eagles helped to further characterize the region in the cultural imagination.”
The Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Times critic Robert Hilburn wrote that it “was a moment of triumph for the band because it had been widely dismissed by much of the East Coast music establishment in the ‘70s for its laidback Southern California country-rock style.
“But the group’s music eventually took on a harder edge and its lyrics explored a generation’s struggles to balance the innocence and idealism of the ‘60s against the creeping disillusionment of the ‘70s with a biting, literary edge.”
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-me-ln-eagles-founding-member-glenn-frey-dead-at-67-20160118-story.html
(The article has already been updated and may be again, but the link remains the same.)
And the L.A. Times music blog Pop & Hiss quotes this statement by Don Henley:
“He was like a brother to me; we were family, and like most families, there was some dysfunction. But, the bond we forged 45 years ago was never broken, even during the 14 years that the Eagles were dissolved.
"We were two young men who made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles with the same dream: to make our mark in the music industry — and with perseverance, a deep love of music, our alliance with other great musicians and our manager, Irving Azoff, we built something that has lasted longer than anyone could have dreamed.
"But, Glenn was the one who started it all. He was the spark plug, the man with the plan. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was funny, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven. He loved his wife and kids more than anything.
"We are all in a state of shock, disbelief and profound sorrow. We brought our two-year 'History of the Eagles Tour' to a triumphant close at the end of July and now he is gone. I’m not sure I believe in fate, but I know that crossing paths with Glenn Lewis Frey in 1970 changed my life forever, and it eventually had an impact on the lives of millions of other people all over the planet.
"It will be very strange going forward in a world without him in it. But, I will be grateful, every day, that he was in my life. Rest in peace, my brother. You did what you set out to do, and then some.”
--Don Henley
I wasn't a fan, but R.I.P.