Glenn Frey Biography

Glenn Frey is the guitarist, singer and songwriter who co-created The Eagles, one of rock music’s legendary groups.

Glenn Frey grew up in suburban Detroit and headed to Los Angeles after high school to be a musician. There he met drummer Don Henley; they toured in the backup band for Linda Ronstadt and then founded their own band, The Eagles, in 1971. The band’s groovy country-rock sound was an almost immediate hit, and within a few years The Eagles were one of America’s most popular rock acts. Frey was lead singer, guitarist, notorious ladies’ man and all-around charismatic rock star, and he and Henley wrote hits like “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Take It Easy,” “Desperado” and “Lyin’ Eyes.” The band had three consecutive #1 albums — One of These Nights (1975), Hotel California (1976) and The Long Run (1979), and The Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-75 has sold over 25 million copies.

The Eagles were also notoriously combative — “They spent the 1970s fighting, drinking and drugging,” said The New York Times — and in 1980 the band broke up. Frey spent the next decade as a solo act, recording the 1982 album No Fun Aloud and writing movie-friendly hits like “The Heat Is On” (for Beverly Hills Cop) and “You Belong to the City” (for the TV show Miami Vice). Then The Eagles confounded everyone by reuniting in 1994; their first album was titled Hell Freezes Over, and for the next two decades they toured widely and lucratively.

The Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. The band was due to receive Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, but delayed them for a year in hopes that Frey could recover from a persistent illness. Instead, his death was announced in January of 2016 by the band’s official website, which said “Glenn fought a courageous battle for the past several weeks but, sadly, succumbed to complications from Rheumatoid Arthritis, Acute Ulcerative Colitis and Pneumonia.”