Even More Glenn Frey

Hi Bob!

I was so very fortunate to be a friend of Glenn Frey's back in the Aspen days.

He was a man of passion, fierce determination, HUMOR and the ability to communicate in a most authentic way.

We shared time skiing, "playing" golf, and sharing our musical passion that still inspire me to this day.

I was at Glenn's home the evening that he first had his wonderful wife Cindy over for a dinner. He asked me to come out to the house to hang with him and meet Cindy as he was so very nervous to meet her. Cindy may not even know this but, this is also a view into the Glenn's incredible humility. He was so excited that this new beautiful energy had come into his life and did NOT want any form of celebrity to diminish the potential to present himself as "just a real guy that happens to do what I do." Not an ounce of ego in sight, just truth.

I was also present the night that "Hell Froze Over" in a small club in Aspen. As he introduced the "mystery band members" late in the evening, you could hear the incredible pride and passion in his voice to be with his Brothers again. As Mr Henley walked out on that tiny stage and took his seat behind the drums, the place came apart. As the first few notes of Desperado took form, everyone could feel the magnitude and importance of what was taking place. Hope reborn. Passion in flight once again. Come on man!! THAT was what it was all about to Glenn. The absolute synergy between everyone on that stage AND in the crowd. He was the enzyme that created the action potential all around him. That IS what the great ones do.
He had such great pride in his family, friends and his music that it was infectious to be with him and feel that wave form radiate from him and only hope that some of it would carry through in our own lives

Thank you Glenn for sharing your time and truth with me and the rest of this planet! I also thank Cindy for showing Glenn that LOVE IS REAL!!

With Humility and GREAT Respect,

Dr Michael Bathke

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Hi Bob,

It's my first time writing you, although I read and absorb all of your work. Thank you for being so thought provoking. There are times I want to jump on a plane and fly out to LA and kick your ass and other times when I want to give you a high-five, or in the case of your Glenn Frey piece, a man-hug.

Pardon in advance my, what I am sure will be, rambling. I'm doing this more for the cathartic aspect than anything else. Feel free to paraphrase and publish what you'd like, or just read and hopefully enjoy by yourself without publishing. Like I said, this will be cathartic and I need that right now.

I do indie promotion for Top 40 and Hot AC and have been doing so since the mid-80's. I have never promoted an Eagles single, although I have worked several solo records by Glenn, Henley and Timothy.

I first met Glenn at a TJ Martell golf tourney in LA in 1992 around the time that MCA released his "Strange Weather" album. We hit it off immediately and I asked him if he'd consider coming to Chicago to play in the Martell golf event that I was chairing in conjunction with the old Hitmakers conventions. He said "I'll do almost anything if it involves golf, but I'll only fly to Chicago if you come to lunch with me and my wife Cindy." I said "Anytime" and he said, "Right now." We jumped in his minivan and went to Dr. Hogly Woglys BBQ, somewhere in the LA Valley. The three of us and their infant daughter, Taylor.

We became fast friends. Like super-fast. So fast that it was kind of a "why me?" moment in my life that I'll never forget.

I was honest with Glenn when I told him that I wasn't a huge Eagles fan. In what I would learn would be Glenn's great sense of humor, he replied, "Me either" and laughed that unforgettable laugh/cough of his. But I had seen (The) Eagles in concert twice and certainly respected them...and of course both times were on dates with babes that wanted to see the shows more than me. But what really hit me immediately was how fucking cool Glenn was. Here I am sitting in a dingy BBQ joint and this guy just wreaked of cool. Even driving a minivan. He defined cool.

Although I had Glenn's contact info I felt it would be more appropriate to ask Bruce Tennenbaum and Mark Gorlick at MCA to help facilitate Glenn's participation in the Chicago Martell event. I can still remember Tennenbaum..."Are you fickin' crazy? He's an Eagle. There's no way he's gonna fly to Chicago." I asked Bruce to at least make the effort. He called me back the next day and in disbelief said that Glenn was looking forward to being our celebrity host. And he did it two years in a row!

Timing was everything, as far as my luck was concerned. Glenn was touring in support of the "Strange Weather" album and I took advantage of our friendship and visited radio almost everywhere the tour played...and of course had PD's ecstatic about meeting Glenn and getting a picture with him. Often he'd say, "I'm gonna make you look good tonight Cooper," and he'd dedicate my favorite song on the new album to "My buddy Cooper and his radio pals here tonight." The song was "River of Dreams." Never a hit. But a song I loved as my friendship with Glenn continued to grow and I learned what had inspired him to write it.

Glenn was in Chicago doing a corporate gig for GD Searle (big pharma company) on a polar-cold Saturday night in late '93 or early '94 when he told me, "Hell's freezing over on Monday." What? He said there would be a press conference and that the Eagles were getting back together. He told me it was going to be a drug and alcohol free tour in respect to Walsh and said, in his own inimitable way, "Cooper. I have no idea how long this tour will go or when and where it'll end. But whenever it does, I want to walk off the stage and see you standing in the wings with a bottle of 1976 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild in one hand a big fat doobie in the other." I complied.

"It's gonna be huge! Irving's got a 727 that seats 210-people that's being reconfigured to seat 51. And we're gonna have police escorts to and from every venue. If you think we've been having fun the last couple of years, wait 'til you fly on EAGLE ONE." The first time I did, I was blown away! Wide-eyed and amazed at the precision of the police motorcade, motorcycles blocking entrances to the interstate and then passing our van, sirens wailing, leapfrogging with each other to get to an entrance ramp a few miles up and block it for us. And when we got to the airport, Glenn turned to me and said, "Cooper. Watch what we do when we pull up to the jet." The line of vans made three complete circles around the big 727 before pulling up under the tail where we boarded the plane. I asked Glenn why they did that, and his response..."Because we can." Typical cool!

I couldn't be at the last show of Hell Freezes Over, but on the next to last show in Little Rock I did when Glenn had asked me to do. It blew his mind! "You didn't," he said with the biggest smile you can imagine. He then asked Cindy to make sure there were wineglasses in their compartment the next night for their flight back to LA. Whether or not he ever fired up that joint on the plane, I may never know. But I do know that he loved that bottle of wine.

I have dozens of stories about how cool Glenn was. Dozens! But as Andrew Kastner wrote to you yesterday, Glenn's generosity was unequaled by anyone that I've known. It went far beyond gifts, expensive wine and dinners, always footing the tab for golf, etc. Not even watching him give every single employee in a big Emeril-owned restaurant in New Orleans a fifty and wishing them a merry Christmas surprised me. Every worker from the servers to the dishwashers to the valet parker...and we didn't even drive to the restaurant! That was Glenn. He was charitable beyond his generosity. He asked me several times over the years which charity meant a lot to me at given points in time and he'd make a donation, in my honor, to that charity...as long as it benefitted kids. He was a mensch!

Glenn loved to visit Chicago and when he was here, Gibson's, a well-known, see-and-be-seen, celebrity hangout was where you could find him along with his sidekicks I'd affectionately refer to Tom & Jerry (Nixon & Vaccarino). He loved their steaks. During Eagles tours he would intentionally base the band in Chicago for up to a week at a time and they'd fly out to shows in the Midwest, usually about an hour's flight away. I'd rarely dine at Gibson's unless Glenn was in town. Dining there without him will be strange, to say the least.

Up until just the past year and a half or so, Glenn rarely texted me. He had on old flip-phone and I guess it was cumbersome. But when he finally caught up with technology, it was always great to hear from him. He'd end each text session with me with "Pax, Elvis" (sometimes even "Elvoid").

When my mom passed away in August '14, Elvis texted me, "Heard about your mom. Lost mine last Sept 9. It's a tough one. On tour but will get to Chicago in the next week or two so we can grab dinner and toast to the fine ladies that brought us into this world. Pax, Elvis" A week later he texted me to pick a restaurant for dinner..."Just the two of us. Maybe not Gibson's. Too loud. Somewhere we can talk. Elvoid."

As always, Glenn controlled the conversation and had me laughing. When the conversation shifted to my mom's passing, I realized that while Glenn had come to Chicago to help comfort me, he was also trying to comfort himself, since the one-year anniversary of his mom's passing was just a few weeks away. I saw a side of Glenn that I had never seen. Vulnerability. It was telling. My rock star friend and I alternated attention drawing laughs, but also needed to have our napkins replaced so we could wipe our tears away. He gave me great advice on how to help me help my dad deal with losing his wife. It was truly the most precious couple of hours I had ever spent with him. And he still wreaked of cool all the while.

I sent Glenn an "inside joke" via text about an unnamed rocker back in early October. His reply was typical Elvis.."Goofball in any medium. Definitely a red state guy." I replied with the pre-pubescent "LOL" and told him I'd be in NY in November to see Hamilton and asked if he and Cindy wanted to join for the play or an early dinner. His reply cut right through me. He said he'd been in LA for two months and that he was "very sick" and described his illness. He said it was not life threatening, but demanded, "Tell no one" and even said "I repeat, tell no one." I texted him on his birthday a month later and never heard back. I knew it was more serious than he had thought.

I know how many millions of lives Glenn touched through his music. But he touched mine in a way that only a certain kind of man could. While we would only see each other occasionally, our genuine friendship never waned. My life has been enriched because my friendship with Glenn Frey. And not because he was so fucking cool. Because he was truly a great man.

Rick Cooper

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Dear Bob,

Thanks for providing such a heartfelt forum for both Bowie and Glen. Folks of our times see our heros and inspirations passing and, through the memories of our generation, reflect on the beauty and wonder of those times.
It was a smaller world back then. It seemed like eventually everybody met everybody at gigs and nights in the canyons and we would recognize the spark and share the joy in each other's art and success.
I sound like the old fart I am but, as all the old farts say, ya had to be there!
Thanks for the memories, Bob.

Charles Haid

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Bowie's death was hard, but Glenn's was personal.

I have a quick story about how much the Eagles and Glenn Frey impacted my life at a critical moment.

In late April and May of 2012, I was finishing up my time at Berklee in Boston. I had a great, great band with a killer vocalist who decided, a week before graduation (aka to most 21 year olds the time when "real life" begins, whatever that means), that she was going to leave the band. I was devastated, lost. I had a plan, and then with a few words, the rug under my feet was gone. My world was turned upside down, and it was the Eagles who made things right again.

Each year Berklee gives various musicians and music industry people honorary doctorates for outstanding contributions to music. The year that I graduated, the Eagles were amongst the honorees. I always liked the Eagles, but it wasn't until I was chosen (somehow, out of over 250 eligible guitarists, I snuck into that lineup of five killer slingers and me) to be in the student band to play several Eagles songs in an arena for my peers, family, and the Eagles themselves that I became a devout follower.

I was forced to focus on these Eagles songs for close to two weeks straight with rehearsals every night spanning from four to eight hours. And if it weren't for Glenn and the gang, I promise you I would have lost my head. I'd have been drowning in my own sorrows, but I didn't have the time to do that because I had to do these songs justice. The songs of Glenn (and Don and Joe and the rest) saved my life. Or at the very least, gave me something to focus my energy into.

So, thank you, Glenn, for making one 21 year old girl's toughest times (at that point) a lot better. I will miss you, but your music lives on forever.

Thank you, Bob, for the great tribute to Glenn. And for telling it like it is.

Best,
Amy Mantis

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You talk about the age of the artist and how that's evaporated. I grew up listening to the Eagles and they kept me sane at during an insane time. I was an instant fan of Glenn Frey for some reason he was our spokesman. Just as we used to say a class act. His death was like a look into mortality. I feel as sense of loss that I have not felt. He will live forever in our memories and in the music. Thank you Glenn Frey and thank you to the Eagles.

Sincerely
Allen Miller

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In the venue management game we don't have to go to/sit through every show. With the Eagles I always did. Man they were sooooo damn good. The songs, the harmonies, the perfect sound and the audiences always loved them!. We last hosted them March 2/4/6 here in Sydney fully expecting that they will be back at some point. Now we live with the knowledge that they won't, not like that anyway.

Hope you are in good health and doing what you love.

Cheers from down here,

Don Elford

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Hey Bob, it's great to see all the comments and history that is Glenn Frey.

I'll never forget at the Melbourne 2003/4 show (that was filmed for the DVD) he said: "this song is about my credit card and my wife, it's called Take It To The Limit"

Always loved his humor, his songwriting, (even though i only became a fan from Hell Freezes Over)

I teach my students Take It Easy when they all reach the open chord changes fast enough level.

Glad I saw them when I did.

Best,

Neville Kaye

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As a younger twenty-six year old, this tribute moved me. The historical picture behind the Eagles and Glenn Frey was not something I was aware of. We "millenials" are rightly accused of misunderstanding - or just not knowing - history.

I never saw the Eagles, but was lucky enough to see Glenn Frey in 2008 somewhere in central Minnesota during the summer. I had recently graduated high school and desperately wanted to hit the road, for lack of a better or less clichéd phrase. I was with some friends at a cabin. The parents there said we should come along to the show, so we did. Being 18 and full of youthful gusto, we snuck in some vodka in water bottles and enjoyed the hell out of the show. Glenn had to stop playing at one point, because of a massive thunderstorm that briefly passed through. After the rain, he and his band came out and started again with "Take it Easy". Soon after was "Hotel California" and some of the other major hits. But what stands out the most, was seeing the parents and other older folks there. They looked like my friends and I did when we would go away for weekends of music at Alpine Valley. I had not seen this before, and for the one of first times, was truly aware of the power of music.

It is clear to me now, that the Eagles and Glenn set a tone that has yet to be distorted.

Thanks for the great tribute.

David Reiersgord

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Hi Bob,

Thanks for your Glenn Frey post. When I heard the news on NPR driving home from work, I reached down and started playing the Desperado CD. That CD seemed to find it's way to my player often over the past many years. It's my favorite Eagles album, though my cell phone ring tone is Take it Easy. Love that song.

Could you forward Bernie Leadon's reply to your post?

Thanks

Doug Thompson

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I understand that I'm late to the party and you may be all Glenn Frey tributed out, but I'll still give my bit.

I, too, am an 80's kid, and it wasn't "cool" to still like the Eagles when I was in high school back in Ohio, but I did. I didn't care – I just loved listening and drumming along to it.

So, coincidentally, just last week before Glenn passed, when making another of what seemed to be an endless series of trips to the doctor and hospital for my son, I needed to cheer up. I wanted to just open the car window and sing and drum along to something good.

For some inexplicable reason, I decided to search for Glen Frey on Spotify and listened to the entire "Solo Collection." And I opened the all my windows and the sunroof, drummed the crap out of my steering wheel and sang my lungs out. And it *was* good.

Thanks, Glenn. RIP.

Greg Heibel
Menlo Park

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Dear Bob,

I miss Glenn Frey. Mind you, I've never met the man. But I miss him. Badly. Real grief. Real bewilderment about what to do next. I have always loved the Eagles, but I didn't realize the almost intangible depth their music has had in my life. I can't be alone.

I grew up in the standard 70's home. Shag carpet, divorced parents, no small amount of desperation about what tomorrow held. But when my sister and her boyfriend pulled into the driveway in his Grand Am with an 8-Track of "Take it Easy" blaring, everything was ok. In fact, it was better than ok. I just knew listening to all those songs that I didn't even understand yet that life was gonna be ok.

When life gets rough today, I go back to that place. Maybe it's arrested development, I don't know. But it wipes the slate clean for me - those songs. I used to sit on my sister's bed and stare at the album cover for One of These Nights – feathers and horns and wings and shit. I had no idea what that artwork meant – It was just cool. And when my sister put the record on and kicked me out of her room, I didn't care. I could still hear Glenn Frey singing "Lyin' Eyes" through the walls. Like some kind of beautiful, musical Prozac. The whole world was out there, and I was ready. Confident.

In 1995, I bought tickets to the Hell Freeze Over show in Little Rock. Somehow the ticket dispenser at the record store kicked out 5th row seats. Never happen today. Won the lottery. I took a girl with me on our first date. A full moon rolled over War Memorial Stadium. One of those rare moments that – even if given the opportunity to trade for any other moment - you wouldn't trade for anything. Perfect! We've been married now for 20 years. I feel like Glenn Frey was our best man.

We've lost dozens of cultural icons over the past several years. Always will. But this is different. This isn't just sad. This hurts. Thought you might understand. Thanks for your work.

Paul Leinhardt

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Thanks for the notes you made on Glenn and his passing. You struck a major chord with me about Glenn and I had to write back.

The Eagles were in the Cali arc of time from Sweetheart of the Rodeo to around Running with the Devil. Glenn Frey was there guiding the finest ship to sail these waters. It's easy to forget the war of escalating guitar sounds that was playing out in the top 100 in the 70s. They went from Take It Easy to Hotel California in just a few years. That transition in style was instinctual for this band and never felt contrived. They could make me cry in my beer one moment and the next tune, jump to my feet to bang my head and pump my fist. That said, I always wished they would get back to the Cali country roots in a new record, but now my hope is Buck Owens has other plans for Glenn.

Of the many talents that one needs to be a legend in music, Glenn was probably not the worlds best at any of them. He just possessed a wider range and combination of the many talents needed to succeed in the music industry and continued learning new skills later in life. A Man of many talents. I think his longest lived songwriting will be the early Eagles material so long as country musicians continue to want to ply their trade. In many ways, modern country owes more to the Eagles than even Buck or George or Hank. That had to be written. I hope the thought someday embarrasses a bigwig in Nashville, but these days, money covers up shame.

The sad thought I had when I got the news is there will not be another Tequila Sunrise. The hangover from the 70s has long faded.

David Fink
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I went hiking today and found myself on top a ridge looking out over a valley and mountain range, played Lyin Eyes over and over and over and thought Glenn would have liked that setting and maybe a great location for cover shoot. In a way I wish they was more public about his condition over the last 6 months so he could have seen just how huge of a presence he had and how loved he was.

John Rotella

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Springsteen put up a free Chicago concert this week to make up for his NYC show being snowed out.

His version of Take It Easy acoustic with the crowd singing along will make you cry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6sC66RNK68

Joe in PDR

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One of my favorites is Glenn's answer to a question in a 60 Minutes episode in 2007 about "why were the Eagles so successful?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-enduring-popularity-of-the-eagles/

To quote Irving from History of the Eagles…it's all about "song power"

Brad Moist

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A profound tribute to Glenn Frey ... reads like an Eagles tune.

Nancy Kauffman

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Lyin' Eyes is my favorite Glenn Frey song. Since he died I have been watching the live performance from the 70s on my iPad all the time.
Today I was driving and switched stations and as it came through the speakers I began sobbing. So much is lost, so much time has passed. It was damp and grey like the northeast and I recalled my college depression. All these years later and I'm still back there. I managed to make it through to tonight, but for me January 18, 2016 was the day the music died.

Wendy Morris

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I hope that Glenn is looking down and smiling. So many heartfelt things have been shared now that he is gone. I hope he felt all the love while he was here - the impact he had on people not just as an Eagle but as a person.

It reminds me how important it is to share love and respect while the people I care about are still here to hear it.

Thanks for all the great music Glenn.

Kim Garner

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Mr. Lefsetz,

Your Glenn Frey blog was spot on perfect. Well said, well done. I agreed and cried with every word. Every single word. Sometimes the clear truth does indeed bring me to tears.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Mary Lou Peterson


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