How did Eagles members Don Henley and Glenn Frey meet?
In 1969, future Eagles drummer Don Henley was a 22-year-old multi-instrumentalist and aspiring songwriter based in northeast Texas with the group Shiloh, who local country artist Kenny Rogers had recently hired as his backing band. Meanwhile, 20-year-old Glenn Frey had just arrived in Los Angeles from Michigan. Frey was writing and recording with his new band, Longbranch Pennywhistle, co-founded with fellow Detroit native JD Souther.
Little over two years later, the Eagles would land on the West Coast. It was the meeting of these two primary players in the defining soft rock group of the 1970s that would prove to be the catalyst for its formation.
Fast-forward to June 1970, and Rogers invited Shiloh to Los Angeles to record their own album. He got them signed onto Arnos Records, which incidentally had a country group called Longbranch Pennywhistle on its roster. Both of these two bands had something else in common: budding frontmen from halfway across the United States who were determined to achieve success.
As Henley put it in his statement after Frey’s death in 2016, “We were two young men who made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles with the same dream: to make our mark in the music industry.” They might not have known it yet, but barely a year into their respective journeys up the industry ladder in LA, they were each about to meet their ideal songwriting partner.
So, where did Frey and Henley meet?
Fittingly, it was in the Troubadour, a staple of Hollywood’s folk and country rock scene, where Henley and Frey first bumped into each other. They were labelmates already but hadn’t actually met. The Troubadour would soon become a key launchpad for the early part of the Eagles’ career as a live band.
It would also be the place where Henley and Frey would first record music together after established country rock star Linda Ronstadt hired them both for her backing band. They accompanied Ronstadt in live performances and played on her self-titled second studio album. Frey on guitar and backing vocals, and Henley on drums, of course.
After six months of playing in the same backing band, Henley and Frey decided to go it alone. They took Ronstadt’s bassist Randy Meisner and multi-instrumentalist Bernie Leadon, both of whom had joined her band a little after they did, with them on their new venture.
Despite coming from places over a thousand miles apart and having their own respective bands, it felt like destiny had pushed Frey and Henley into each other’s paths. After that, the two of them formed a band together, which made perfect sense. Once they were done with Ronstadt, they never looked back. Through nine glorious years as a musical pairing, they seemingly joined at the hip.
