Eagles Formation and early releases: 1971–73

Formation and early releases: 1971–73

The Eagles began in early 1971, when Linda Ronstadt and then-manager John Boylan recruited local musicians Glenn Frey and Don Henley for her band.[5] Henley had moved to Los Angeles from Texas with his band Shiloh (produced by Kenny Rogers),[6] and Frey had come from Michigan and formed Longbranch Pennywhistle; they had met in 1970 at The Troubadour in Los Angeles and became acquainted through their mutual record label, Amos Records.[7][8] Randy Meisner, who had been working with Ricky Nelson's backing band, the Stone Canyon Band, and Bernie Leadon, a veteran of the Flying Burrito Brothers, joined Ronstadt's group of performers for her summer tour promoting the Silk Purse album.[5][9]

These four played live together behind Ronstadt only once for a July concert at Disneyland,[5] but all four appeared on her eponymous album.[10] With Ronstadt's blessing, Henley and Frey asked Leadon and Meisner to form a band and they soon signed with Asylum Records, the new label started by David Geffen.[11] The name of the band was first suggested by Leadon during a peyote and tequila-influenced group outing in the Mojave Desert, when he recalled reading about the Hopis' reverence for the eagle.[12] Steve Martin, a friend of the band from their early days at The Troubadour, recounts in his autobiography that he suggested that they should be referred to as "the Eagles", but Frey insists that the group's name is simply "Eagles".[13] Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts initially managed the band; they were later replaced by Irving Azoff.

Eagles ( Band ) Profile

The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971 by Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. With five number-one singles, six Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, and six number one albums, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and Hotel California, were ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the United States according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Hotel California is ranked 37th in Rolling Stone‍ '​s list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and the band was ranked number 75 on the magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[2]

The Eagles are one of the world's best-selling bands of all time, having sold more than 150 million records[3]—100 million in the U.S. alone—including 42 million copies of Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and 32 million copies of Hotel California. "Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)" was the best selling album of the 20th century in the U.S.[4] They are the fifth-highest-selling music act and the highest-selling American band in U.S. history.

DuBois: American Prophet

Greetings!

This is a new blog to foster discussion, sharing of links, and (I hope) eventually a group blog in American religious history. Please feel free to join the discussion; here is my home page. Yes, it hasn't been updated for a couple of millennia.

Let me start with a recommnendation for my friend Edward J. Blum's new book W. E. B. Du Bois: American Prophet. Blum's work should foster a new level of discussion on one of America's most profound religious thinkers.

Lately I've been following the fascinating discussion at Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog, as well as Mark Grimsley's posts at Blog Them Out of the Stone Age and of course my old friend Ralph Luker's Cliopatria. A more complete listing of history blogs may be found at Cliopatria's history blogroll.

I've been looking around for other American religious history blogs -- anybody out there?

Religion and Race in Early America: Beam Me Up from this Planet

Here's a fellow summer toiler in the vineyards of religion and race in early America. While Historianess must produce syllabi and book contracts, Slothful Colorado resident must get going on his chapters of Jesus in Red, White and Black. I'm currently mulling over how Native Americans in the colonial and antebellum eras encountered the idea of "Jesus," or "Christ." Having spent the bulk of my research career in Civil War to present, this is a new enterprise for me. Historian to Enterprise: beam me up from this strange planet, where I suddenly understand very little.

American Religious History Syllabi and Links

It's on the blogroll, but everyone interested in American religious history should find the syllabi in American religious history posted from H-AMREL to be of use. Also, a shout out to Randall Stephens and the Journal of Southern Religion, a pioneering and perservering online journal. I posted my own personal reflections on writing Freedom's Coming there a while back. The current issue has an excellent critique by Charles Reagan Wilson of the film Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

Religion by region lives! Here's a great series of map summaries of U.S. religious expression ca. 2000, from the Glenmary Research Center. Nancy Ammerman has a good full review of the Religion by Region books (eight in all; I contributed to one), including the strengths and weaknesses of using datasets such as the Glenmary and American Religious Identification Surveys. Statistics tell some, but not all.

Religion, Race, and the Right

Here is Mark Noll's interesting review of my book Freedom's Coming, from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He provides an excellent overview of the book, says some kind words, and ends with an interesting critique and discussion.

He begins:

Paul Harvey's well-researched book provides a welcome overview of a complex
subject that has been as important for national public life as for American
religious history. Continuity in the volume is maintained by Harvey's focus on

"theological racism," "racial interchange," and "Christian interracialism" in

the South from the time of the Civil War to the early twenty-first century. At
one level, Harvey offers a relatively clear history of causes and effects, with
widespread "theological racism" being undercut by "racial interchange and
leading on to "Christian interracialism." Yet most of the book does not dwell on
this large-scale narrative; rather, it features a great deal of insightful local
history, many telling personal vignettes, careful attention to institutional

Crocodile Tears for Military History, and Religious History

All the whining lately about the state of military history gets an excellent response from Mark Grimsley. It reminds me a bit of occasional whining I still hear -- more from the public than the profession -- about how religious history has somehow not been given its due in the academy, or how scholars of faith are hounded or driven out. Time for the p.c. conservatives to get over themselves. If you apply for 3 or 4 academic jobs in a year and don't get one, for god's sake, join the crowd. By this standard, everyone in every field in American history would feel victimized.

Meanwhile, Catherine Brekus's introductory essay ("Searching for Women in Narratives of American Religious History") to the new anthology The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past is a must read for scholars in American religious history. She names names and takes the historiography to task--women's history for not understanding religion, and religious history for continuing to marginalize women. The essays in the volume are strong.