Eagles

The Eagles had an enduring popularity that far outlasted the band itself, which formed in 1972 and foundered at the dawn of the '80s. The group's catalog continues to sell, however, with the 1975 collection Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 recently supplanting Michael Jackson's Thriller as the top-selling U.S. album of all time.They signed on with David Geffen's fledgling record label, Asylum, as The Eagles, a name that Frey said sounded like the name of a street gang. The hope was to take the sound of the Troubadour scene and rough it up with Frey's rock 'n' soul Detroit influences. Those intentions were somewhat stifled by producer Glyn Johns (The Who, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin) who saw the band as more about acoustic guitars and Leadon's banjo than hard rock. Nevertheless, the group's self-titled debut, released in 1972, yielded a gold record and produced the hits "Take It Easy," "Witchy Woman," and "Peaceful Easy Feeling."

 The Eagles used the proceeds from their early success to fuel some of the excesses — booze, drugs, women, high-stakes gambling — for which they would become notorious. This outlaw attitude would lead to the 1973 theme album Desperado, which was based on the exploits of the Doolin-Dalton gang and included the memorable title track and the ballad "Tequila Sunrise." The concept wasn't as fully fleshed out as it could have been, and the album didn't fare well In 1974, Eagles bounced back with On the Border, which was mostly produced by Bill Szymczyk. To take their sound closer to hard rock, they added guitarist Don Felder Ironically, the song that finally put The Eagles on the map for good was the No. 1 hit "The Best of My Love," which was produced by Johns. The album also contained the upbeat hit "Already Gone." Leadon's replacement was Joe Walsh

 In 1976, Hotel California rocketed to the top of the charts, buoyed by No. 1 hits "New Kid in Town" and the title track, along with "Life in the Fast Lane," which went to No. 11. Even during their greatest successes, creative tensions wore the bandmembers down. Timothy B. Schmit, knew the drill — But the band he walked into this time was crippled by personal differences and a creative logjam — Hotel California was such a critical and commercial success that the group found it almost impossible to top. After two years and nearly $1 million spent on studio time, they released the appropriately titled The Long Run in 1979, easily their weakest effort since Desperado. Following a benefit show in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1980, Frey called Henley and told him he intended to do a solo album. No announcement was made at the time, but the band was effectively over. A concert recording, Live, followed later that year, producing the minor hit "Seven Bridges Road" (No. 21), and a second greatest-hits package was released in 1982, but by that time, the Eagles were, in their own parlance, already gone.

 Henley and Frey embarked on dueling solo careers. Henley's third album, 1989's The End of the Innocence, was also rife with hits: the elegiac title track, co-written with Bruce Hornsby.The album won him a second Best Rock Vocal Grammy, and he released Inside Job in May 2000. The Songs of The Eagles, was released in 1993, featuring country interpretations of the band's songs by the likes of Travis Tritt, Clint Black, and others. The album indirectly prompted the band's reunion in 1994. Henley, Frey, Schmit, Felder, and Walsh appeared in Tritt's video for "Take It Easy," which led to their regrouping for an incredibly lucrative tour, with tickets priced in the stratospheric $115 range. The tour produced a live album, Hell Freezes Over, with the hit "Get Over It" (No. 31), and the entire band — original members and their replacements — was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.