Eagles Mentions in the Press (2006 - 2017)

[WalshFan88]

Some of that list is right on, others not so much. Maybe I should do a thread about that in the "other music" section.

But absolutely HC should be there in the top 3 if not number 1!

The guitar department of the Eagles is often overlooked by their amazing vocal skills but those two guys knew how to tear it up and really make great rock n' roll music and with Glenn on rhythm (most of the time although he was a fine soloist), they were as much as a three guitar army as Lynyrd Skynyrd was. It's just that most people are more concerned with the harmonies, vocals, and lyrics. But you don't have to tell me that the Eagles were blessed with some of the very best guitar players of the 70s. They really should be in the same breath as Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Joe Perry, Slash, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, etc. For some, they are. For others, they are simply but sadly overlooked. Not by me.

[UndertheWire]

Very few hit singles are instrumentals, so it makes sense that a group with multiple lead singers is more likely to have members who have "solo" hits.

In the Billboard list, the Genesis entry should probably include Mike Rutherford whose group, Mike + the Mechanics had two #10 hits in the US. Maybe he was excluded because he didn't sing.

[UndertheWire]

I have found a lot of interviews with Phil Kenzie where he talks about the Long Run tour. I've posted some links to youtube audio interviews in the supporting musicians threads, but as this is text, I can just post the Eagles part so it's about the band rather than Phil.

R.V.B. - Is there any performances in your day that really stand out where you really thoroughly enjoyed yourself?

P.K. - Oh gosh, the biggest has to be the first two gigs with The Eagles. That was the most magnificent tour. The Eagles were making so much money. They had been voted the most popular band in America. They had their whole touring thing down, whereby their backline and everything had to be provided by the promoter. All they showed up with was their guitar guys and their guitar pick. Their uniform on stage was, wear a white shirt and a pair of blue jeans... that was it. There were two stadiums of equal size. One of them was the Giants stadium. They were just told flat out by Azoff... he said "Look, you're making so much money here. If you don't spend some of this money, it's going straight to the government. You're gonna pay it all in tax." They said "Right, we better spend it then, haven't we?" So they just started spending money lavishly on that tour. I spoke to Felder later and said "You guys spoiled me", and he said "We spoiled ourselves. It's never been like that since." They broke up at the end of that tour. They spent money like water on that tour. Every hotel I was in... and I was just the sax player... an add on as it were, but I was in a suite with a great big table full of flowers. Any kind of booze I wanted, and whatever else I wanted... matches with my name on it. You name it, it was there.

R.V.B. - That's really living the life of a rock star.

P.K. - More than that because, Rod was the life of a rock star at his level. I asked "How are we getting to the gigs?" This was in New York. I think back now when I saw the Twin Towers go down and I remember us being at Windows of the World. You couldn't get in that place... it was booked for a year. God knows how much money it took, they just had a party their one night.

R.V.B. - Money wasn't an option.

P.K. - No, "How much does it cost to throw everybody out?" They just bought the restaurant for a night. So I said "How are we getting to the gig?" and they said "You'll see... just be down in the lobby at such and such time." So I go down to the lobby, and I see these great big limos. "Are we driving there in the limos?" We drove down to the Hudson river and they had six helicopters. We jumped in these helicopters and started roaring off like Apocalypse Now. I was in the helicopter with Joe Walsh, and he was just yelling all kind of things out of the window. We buzzed things... we went under the Brooklyn Bridge. We buzzed the Empire State Building. I thought "Who's been paid off to let us do this?" Coming back, we went down Broadway at 200 feet in six helicopters.

R.V.B. - Holy crap.

P.K. - Coming out to Giants Stadium we landed with search lights right in the middle of the fucking stadium. So it was wild.

R.V.B. - That's some crazy rock and roll stories.

P.K. - Everything on the tour happened like that. We stayed at The Playboy Club up in Illinois. We stayed on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. It was the most luxurious tour I've ever been on. Rod's was not to be sneezed at either. We did some wild things on Rod's tour, but nothing like The Eagles was. We had a private 707 jet, that was black with a red underbelly. It was all gutted inside with nothing but armchairs and your personal TV's.

R.V.B. - How long was that tour?

P.K. - It wasn't that long. I didn't come in at the beginning of it. The reason I got the gig was because Davis Sanborn had been one of the guys who played on the record with them, and he became ill. There was a lot of drug usage in those days and David was rather susceptible at the time to getting addictive habits. He became obsessed with cocaine at the time.

R.V.B. - That was they heyday time period.

P.K. - The cocaine on that tour was amazing. They had to have a rule, that you don't do it before you go on stage. There was just phenomenal amounts of cocaine there. Not only did everyone have a suite in the hotel, but they also had a spare suite for partying so nobody was kept up. On the ladies side of things they had three E buttons. I said "What are those?" The third encore. "What do you mean, where is a third encore?" They said "Back at the hotel." So the guys were all running around handing these buttons out to girls who wanted to be with The Eagles. So you walked into the spare suite and there were hundreds of girls in there.

R.V.B. - Did that kind of stuff go on with Rod also?

P.K. - Not to the same degree. Not that there weren't people around but it just wasn't as luxurious. The Eagles were making phenomenal money. With Rod... they were upset when I was going out. The first two gigs I did with the Eagles... I think Rod had made two million on the whole tour and that was the whole world. The Eagles made nearly a million bucks on the first two gigs.

R.V.B. - I heard a story that some rich guy in the Hampton's out here by me paid them a million bucks to play one private party.

P.K. - The first two gigs. There guarantee was 400,000 against 60% of the gate. They broke the gates on each one. The gate was worked out to 60,000 as the break even figure. They had 72 or 73,000 in each stadium. As we finished, and the promoter handed the check... Felder turns to me and shows me this check for $986,000.

R.V.B. - That's a pretty nice payday.

P.K. - I had only been on the tour for two days. Nice. He goes "Thinking of asking for a raise?" I go "You're damn right." (Hahaha)

R.V.B. - You know it just goes to shoe though that something had to break. That lifestyle can't go on forever without problems happening.

P.K. - Well of course. You can't take the kind of pressure... and the personalities. They were all very talented people and talented writers. There was always that element of, well whose really the best. Even with Randy Meisner that happened. I said "Why did he leave?" to Don Felder and he said "Well, he wrote Take It To The Limit, and he decided he was a songwriting genius." I said "Is he?" and he said "He's gone off to prove it." A similar thing happened... Henley went off and had his personal stardom bid and so did Glenn Frey. Joe kind of floated in and out. Joe was always going through problems, especially in the early 80's with again, an addictive personality. Booze was his big problem. He almost drank himself to death at one point. I remember talking to Felder and he had said to Irv Azoff... this is later in the 80's, "I'm really worried about Joe. What can we do?" Azoff apparently turned around and said "You're worried? He's living at my house. (haha) I'm taking care of him on a daily basis."

http://musicguy247.typepad.com/my-bl...interview.html

And more from the same interview:

R.V.B. - I like the sax playing in the song Sea Cruise... the way it carries the song along.

P.K. - It's funny that you should say Sea Cruise. Guess what I played with The Eagles when they came as the first encore? There's a picture of me playing Sea Cruise and Glenn Frey, when he went out there being from Detroit, he wanted to appear like the sax guy, even though he doesn't play sax. there's a picture of him holding my alto and me playing tenor playing Sea Cruise together.

R.V.B. - Who sang that one?

P.K. - Glenn did... it was his idea. He wanted to do it. He thought it would be really killer to do as an encore.

[Funk 50]

Thanks UTW. I read the whole interview. Enjoyable and informative. I knew nothing about Phil Kenzie, apart from he played the fabulous alto on The Long Run from the Eagles Live album. Very surprised to learn that he's from Merseyside. A few little subliminal insights into Felder too.

[UndertheWire]

Here's some more. My guess is that what he thought was the Eagles site was a fan site.

Phil: It’s so funny because with the Eagles, I was actually right in the middle there when they broke up for the first time. I was right between Glenn Frey and Don Felder when they were about to have a punch out; literally to punch each other to bits. At a point where Don Felder actually seized a Gibson guitar and smashed it to pieces so that all he had in his hand was the neck with the big club like end where it joins the body and would have probably decked Glenn Frey with it, had Glenn Frey dared to go one foot closer to him. I was right in the middle of that. Pieces of the guitar actually hit me (laughs) as he was kind of splintering it.

Firmly enough, that same little bridge that they were trying to depart the stage from at the moment that happened was the same bridge I was trying to get on to get on the stage. This was all at the Long Beach Arena, down there where we were doing a benefit for Senator Cranston. I don’t think it was the last gig of the tour actually. That’s when they broke up right then. They were literally threatening and screaming at each other.

That particular venue was when I was trying to get on the stage and the security guard mysteriously decided he was going to stop me. I was standing there with a saxophone around my neck, but what do you think this is? (laughs) I’m supposed to be on the stage. They actually had a recording going on at the desk and they have actually posted it recently on the Eagles site. And you can actually hear Glenn Frey on stage going, “Oh, we’re gonna do this next number and we need Phil. Where is Phil?” Then he goes, “Oh Phil.” Then he goes, “Oh here he is, here’s Phil.”

I eventually pulled my way past security and got on stage. And they put every bit of it on the site and of course I go on to play the “Long Run” with them and scream on that. And I thought, of all the tracks they could have put on, that’s the one they put on. And then right next to it, they put the only version I’ve ever heard in my life of my playing the what was touted to be the David Sanborn solo on “Sad Cafe.” And I played that live.

The thing was they found out that David was in very bad shape at that time. He recovered later, but that’s why they had to let him go off this tour because he was messed up on cocaine at the time. Later, he recovered.

And Felder said – Don was a friend of mine, “Well you see, the thing is; David never played the solo.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well, we had him down in Florida for three days; we walked him in the city about three days and he played bits of it.” He said, “And he just wasn’t in a great shape, so we sent him home and then we pieced the solo together from the bits he played. I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “That’s why when we put him on the stage, he couldn’t remember what he played because he never played it.” I said, “Oh, so I have to learn what he never played”. He said “Yeah.”

When I played it on stage, I was the only person that did play it – actually played it as it was on the record from front to back. And they recorded it and put it on their site. That’s the first time I’ve heard “Sad Cafe” with a saxophone solo like that actually played live and recorded. It was amazing to me that they would make that choice as well at this time in my life. Of all the tracks they could have put up there, they put those two. Both of them were with me on.

http://musicenthusiastmag.com/phil-k...015-interview/

[Delilah]

Very few hit singles are instrumentals, so it makes sense that a group with multiple lead singers is more likely to have members who have "solo" hits.

In the Billboard list, the Genesis entry should probably include Mike Rutherford whose group, Mike + the Mechanics had two #10 hits in the US. Maybe he was excluded because he didn't sing.

I dunno. True, the odds increase with multiple lead singers but KISS, Pink Floyd, Queen, Steely Dan, the Beach Boys all had multiple lead singers with less than stellar solo success, at least in the U.S.

Mike Rutherford was probably excluded b/c Mike + the Mechanics was a band, not a solo act.

[UndertheWire]

Mike Rutherford was probably excluded b/c Mike + the Mechanics was a band, not a solo act.

Maybe, but they've included duets and bands featuring the artist, so I think as the "Mike" in the band name, it should count. It's not as if the solo artists don't have bands backing them.

[Funk 50]

I dunno. True, the odds increase with multiple lead singers but KISS, Pink Floyd, Queen, Steely Dan, the Beach Boys all had multiple lead singers with less than stellar solo success, at least in the U.S.

Mike Rutherford was probably excluded b/c Mike + the Mechanics was a band, not a solo act.

Mike Rutherford did have a solo hit, at least here in the UK, I bought it. I found it, cut price in the ex-chart singles basket so I reckon it charted. It certainly got played on the radio.

Before he formed Mike And The Mechanics, Mike Rutherford released two solo albums, Smallcreeps Day featuring Noel McCalla on vocals and Acting Very Strange, his only attempt at doing the lead vocals himself. It was a wise move, one that Felder should follow, to put a band, with great lead vocalists, together.

Working In Line was a great single. I always included it on my home-made Genesis cassettes. On the album it's part of a suite of tracks, and imho it doesn't work as well. I loved the B-side Compression too.
I've just discovered that my other two favourite tracks from Smallcreeps Day, Time And Time Again and At The End Of The Day made up the A and B side of a single too but I expect that never charted.

Reminds me of when I bought Life In The Fast Lane as an ex-chart single. I really wasn't that keen on the song but I bought it because Walsh's name was on it. That's when I discovered The Last Resort. The whole seven minutes plus masterpiece on the b-side. When I finally bought the Hotel California LP, Try And Love Again and Wasted Time (reprise) were the only tracks I was unfamiliar with.

Thanks again for the Phil Kenzie stuff UTW. Always great on hear another side of the story. I'm going to make a point of listening to the onstage banter between the band members on the Eagles live album.

[sodascouts]

I have found a lot of interviews with Phil Kenzie where he talks about the Long Run tour. I've posted some links to youtube audio interviews in the supporting musicians threads, but as this is text, I can just post the Eagles part so it's about the band rather than Phil.
http://musicguy247.typepad.com/my-bl...interview.html

And more from the same interview:

Thank you so much for that, UTW. What a fascinating read! Wow, my mind is freaking blown. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall (or in the helicopter lol).

[UndertheWire]

It looks like one leg of The Long Run Tour ended on March 7, 1980 and the next started on June 14, 1980 at Yale, followed by the Giants Stadium on 15th June. That must be when Phil Kenzie joined.