Glenn Frey, Eagles Founding Member, Dies at 67
By BRUCE WEBER

Glenn Frey, the guitarist, singer and songwriter who co-founded the Eagles, whose country-tinged, melodic rock tunes, wistful love ballads, philosophical anthems, observations of the outlaw life and testaments to the wages of decadence made it perhaps the leading American band of the 1970s, died on Monday in New York City. He was 67.

An announcement on the band’s website said the cause was complications of rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.

The Eagles, founded in Los Angeles in 1971 by Mr. Frey and the drummer and singer Don Henley, lived furiously in the musical spotlight for nearly a decade, pumping out hits that defined a post-Beach Boys California pop in the midst of an era that otherwise gave birth to both disco and punk.

The band flamed out in 1980 and disbanded. It got back together 14 years later with its popularity barely subsided, but it was the rocket-like rise and spectacular early success that landed it in 1998 in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whose website said the Eagles sold more records than any other band in the 1970s. It had four consecutive No. 1 albums, five No. 1 singles and its “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” album alone sold upward of 26 million copies.

The band’s hit songs included yearning, battle-of-the-sexes musings like “Lyin’ Eyes” and “Heartache Tonight,” and the cool-cat lifestyle statements “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” all of which featured Mr. Frey’s light, casual, relaxed lead vocals, as well as the No. 1 hit “Hotel California,” the band’s signature song from its 1977 album of the same name.

Its imagistic, vaguely mystical lyrics — the song was written by Mr. Frey, Mr. Henley and Don Felder — hint at a drug-fueled state of being, perhaps promising rapture, perhaps not, and have supplied fuel for countless interpretations:

There she stood in the doorway;

I heard the mission bell

And I was thinking to myself,

“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”

Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

There were voices down the corridor,

I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year (Any time of year)

You can find it here

Glenn Lewis Frey was born in Detroit on Nov. 6, 1948, and grew up in the suburb of Royal Oak. His father was an auto factory worker; his mother, as he described it in “History of the Eagles,” a 2013 documentary about the band, “baked pies at General Motors.”

He took piano lessons from the age of 5 — “that alone could get you beat up after school in suburban Detroit,” he said — but he switched to guitar after seeing the Beatles perform live in downtown Detroit and having the girls in the audience go wild.

He played in bands around Detroit (he played acoustic guitar on an early recording by another local rocker, Bob Seger), before moving to Southern California and crossing paths with the likes of Jackson Browne (with whom Mr. Frey wrote the song “Take It Easy”) and Linda Ronstadt.

He also met Mr. Henley, and the two of them toured with Ms. Ronstadt’s band. Mr. Frey and Mr. Henley, with two other members of Ms. Ronstadt’s band, the bassist Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon, who plays guitar and other stringed instruments, were the first incarnation of the Eagles.

The band members were known for their often conflicting personalities, which led to changes in personnel — other members included the guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh and the bassist Timothy B. Schmit — and eventually to the breakup of the band.

Mr. Frey and Mr. Henley battled over creative control and other matters; Mr. Frey, whom People magazine once referred to as the Warren Beatty of rock, has acknowledged a certain profligate lifestyle during the band’s first decade.

“By ’76, ’77, Glenn and I were living in a big house that belonged to Dorothy Lamour, up in the hills with a 360-degree view,” Mr. Henley said on the website superseventies.com. “Glenn and I were the odd couple. I was sort of the housekeeper, the tidy one. He was the lovable slob. All around the house he’d leave these little cigarette butts standing on end. They looked like miniature cities.”

After the band broke up in 1980, Mr. Frey embarked on a solo career, producing hit songs including, “The Heat Is On.”

Survivors include his wife, Cindy, and three children, Taylor, Deacon and Otis.

An underestimated reason for the success of the Eagles, perhaps, was their perfectionism, especially Mr. Frey’s.

“Glenn, I think took three days in the studio on the word ‘city’ at the beginning of ‘Lyin’ Eyes,’ ” Mr. Felder, who joined the band in the mid-1970s, said in an interview on the website ultimateclassicrock.com. “It would either be a little early, or a little late, or the ‘T’ would be too sharp. It literally took a long time to get that word perfect — maybe to an extreme. But every time that word goes by now and I hear it, I can appreciate the time and dedication and perseverance that it took to get it perfect.”

「老鷹」吉他手格林佛萊病逝 享壽67歲

合寫「加州飯店」、「快車道人生」等膾炙人口名曲的老鷹合唱團創始團員格林佛萊（Glenn Frey），18日因病急逝，享壽67。

老鷹合唱團的官網貼文表示，佛萊最近幾周一直飽受類風溼性關節炎、急性潰瘍結腸炎與肺炎等併發症折磨，18日終於不敵病魔在紐約去世。

老鷹主唱唐亨利發表聲明說：「我不確定我是否相信命運，然而1970年和格林佛萊的相遇改變了我的人生，而這也影響了地球上數百萬人。要在沒有他的世界繼續生活感覺很奇怪，但我將永遠感激他曾經走入我生命。我的兄弟，安息吧。」

樂團發布的聲明說：「佛萊的家人感激所有陪伴他對抗病痛、為他祈禱的人。」「我們感激他帶給我們、家庭、音樂圈與全球千百萬樂迷的一切，我們的愛、尊敬和悲痛都不是言詞所能形容。」

佛萊是吉他手，1970年代初期和鼓手唐亨利、另一吉他手李東與貝斯手麥斯納在洛杉磯組成「老鷹」合唱團，雖然團員中沒有加州本地人，對很多人來說，他們的旋律卻成為當時洛杉磯樂風的具體寫照。

雖然有人批評他們的風格華美、不夠創新，但他們揉合了甘醇的敘事和陽剛的搖滾節奏，兼有民謠和鄉村音樂的風味，對廣泛的樂迷卻有難以抵擋的魅力。

老鷹合唱團1970年代中期的一張精選合輯，以及1976年發行的「加州飯店」專輯，都狂銷逾2000萬張，是現代流行樂史上最暢銷的唱片之一。

佛萊和唐亨利組成流行樂史上最成功的創作組合，老鷹的多首成名曲如「從容不迫」（Take It Easy）、「日升塔基拉」（Tequila Sunrise）等，都有格林佛萊創作的身影。他和唐亨利合寫的「加州飯店」及「亡命之徒」（Desperado），更是為老鷹合唱團贏得六座葛萊美獎的傑作。

老鷹合唱團1980年解散後，格林佛萊單飛仍活躍於美國歌壇，灌錄過The One You Love，當時紅遍全球，成為不朽情歌，還有The Heat Is On以及You Belong to the City等好歌。1994年，格林佛萊和唐亨利吸收另兩名團員重新組團，復出依舊獲得廣大樂迷支持，2011年2月曾來台開唱。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/arts/music/glenn-frey-a-founding-member-of-the-eagles-dies-at-67.html

2016-01-19．聯合晚報．A6．國際焦點．編譯陳澄和