flruTMffiM[JffiT[trDN

T DoESN'T sEEM THAT LoNG eco sinceourlastannualgathering

- but don't worry

you haven't had a memory lapse or experienced an

extended lost weekend: Last year's ceremonies were held later in the
year than usual, on May 6, at Cleveland's Renaissance Hotel. GAs I write

- on what F.D.R. referred to

as"aday that will live in infamy''back inry4r but just another day of El
Nfio in Los Angeles inry97 - I welcome you all to the thirteenth annual
this, trapped indoors on Sunday December

Rock and Roll Flall ofFame Induction Ceremoryr GTonight, we celebrate

the achievements of artists whose recording careers began twenfy-five or
moreyears ago, prior to the eligibilitydate ofDecember3r ,1972. GYou've

probably noticed that the Seventies have returned in a bigway: in fashion,

with the polyester, skintight look proliferating on runways and in nhtclubs; in film, with the release of such period blockbusters as Boogie Nigbts
andThe lce Storm, and more -lke 54 andTbe Last Days ofDisco -to follow
(Some new films set in the present offer a nod to Seventies sryle, too

as

inALife Less Ordinary,with the decor of certain home interiors and Ewan
McGregor's loud print shirts and Cadillac Eldorado.) Recent music
videos by English artists Oasis and Blur, among others, also have featured

Seventies style. Closer to home, two top Seventies bands based in

California, the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, both of whom are among
those honored here tonight, have reunited in the Nineties, staglng some

of the music industqy's greatest-ever comebacks.

Er's RECr\LL rHE MAJoR EvENTS oft972: Duringthelastfullyearof theVietnamSTar,
President Nixon ordered the mining of North Vietnam's ports, effectively blocking all land and
sea routes into the country, in retaliation for Communist land victories throughout South
Vietnam and the chaotic retreat of SouthMetnamese troops. Later, as Nxon campaigned for reelection. \ational Securin'Adviser Henry Kissinger announced that peace was at hand and that the
number oi L-.S. troops u'ould be decreased to 27,ooo by year's end. The presidential campaign was
punctuated br- the neu's of a break-in at the Democratic National headquarters at'Washington's
\\ irtergate Hote l. Despite courageous investigative reporting by the W'asbington Post's Bob XToodward

B\

SE

\IOU

STE

,rncl (-.rri Bcrnste in. the eit-ects oi\\'atcrgatc \\'ere not tullr ti-it
until ;\ugust 9, I9;+, u-hen Nrxon r.r-as fbrce d to resign and \-ice
President Gerald Ford became the thirry-eighth U.S. President.
Back to'Tz,andonamore positive note: Nixon and Kissinger
traveled to Communist China for the first official U.S. visit in
twenty-two years. They met Premier Chou EnJai, with whom
they issued a joint statement calling for greater communication
between the two po'\Mers. After visiting the Great }7all, the
heads of state returned with gifts (including a pair of pandas
sent over later), thus opening the doors for the strong trade
relationship we have with China today Nxon also visited the
Soviet Union in an effort to help thaw the Cold \Var, while
seeking Brezhnev's support in ending the war in Vietnam.
'Watergate was not the only indication of government misdeeds.JournalistJack Anderson disclosed in his newspaper column that a memo written by lobbyist Dita Beard suggested
that theJustice Department had settled an antitrust suit in

exchange for campaign contributions. Later, Anderson

revealed a CIA tie to the assassination of Chile's socialist
President Salvador Allende. The crusading Anderson and the
Neza Tork Times were awarded r97z Pulitzer prizes for their
combined roles in publishing the Pentagon Papers.
During the Munich Summer Olympics, the U.S.S.R. won fifty
gold medals andAmerican swimmer Mark Spitz earned seven of
the gold. Tiagically, the Games were marred by the deaths of
eleven Israeli athletes at the hands ofPalestinian guerrillas.
In the States, too, gunfire rang out, as an assassination
attempt was made on Democratic presidential primary candidate George Wallace, who was left paralyzed.
In world events, violence between Catholics and Protestants
in Northern Ireland reached an all-time high and Britain
imposed direct rule. There were election upsets in Australia,
where the Labor Party under Gough $Thitlam scored a victory,
ending twenty-three years of Liberal/Countryparty rule, and in
New Zealand, where Norman Kirk's Labor Party unseated the
National Parry, bringing to a close twelve years of leadership. In
Canada, Prime Minister Pierre Tiudeau came close to losing
the election, but after a recount ofvotes stayed in office.
Elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan,
was given its independence after a brief war with Pakistan, and
Ceylon officially changed its name to Sri Lanka.

DECEMBER 26, r972, we lost one of the truly great

statesmen and leaders of the fwentieth Century Harry
S. Tiuman, thirty-third President of the United States.
Other ry72 deaths: FBI founding directorJ. Edgar Hoover; the
Duke of Sfindsor, the former King Edward
of Gre at
Britain; cartoonist Max Fleischer, creator of Popeye and Betty

VIII

Boop; EEC founder Paul-Henry Spaak; former Ghanaian

President Kwame Nkrumah; baseball greats Jackie Robinson
and Roberto Clemente; composers Rudolf Friml and Oscar
Levant; cowboy star'William Boyd, better known as Hopalong
Cassidy; pioneer hotelier HowardJohnson; French actor and
singer Maurice Chevalier; Charles Atlas, who grew from a ninety-seven-pound weakling to become the world's most famous
strongman; gospel great and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
inductee MahaliaJackson; R&B legend Big Maybelle Smith;
poet Ezra Pound; 'Amos 'n'Andy" creator Charles Correll; the
silver screen's Dame Margaret Rutherford, George Sanders and
Brandon De'Wilde; King Frederik IX of Denmark; and diplo-

mat Llewellyn ThompsonJr.

Important sports events of ry72:The Oakland Athletics won
the World Series after beating the Cincinnati Reds; the Dallas
Cowboys trounced the Miami Dolphins 24 to 3 in the Super

Bou'l: antl Bobbv Frschci c.lprij:(rl ::.:

- - -- : - ::

:--

Boris Spasskr:

On Broadu'ali afier an unprecedentecl;.: : :::i ::rJncc\.

Fiddler on the Roof closed. Other hit Broads'al shos's inclucled
Prisoner of SecondAvenue, Follies, Lenny and Sticks and Bones.

Bigar

the box office were the critically acclaimed films The French
Connection, Klute, Cabaret, Tbe Godfathe4 Play It Again Sam and
Bufluel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Popular on the small
screen: All in the Family, Columbo andThe MaryTyler Moore Sbou.
In recording-industry news, there was a lot ofaction over at
Columbia Records, with Clive Davis inking a buzz band out of
Boston, Aerosmith, andJohn Hammond signing an unknown
Asbury Park rocker, Bruce Springsteen. More on this next year!
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" captured both Record
and Song of the Year at the Grammys, with Album of the Year
going to The Concertfor Bangladesh. Other big hits o{ ry72 included 'American Pie" by Don Mclean, "\Tithout You" by Nlsson,
"Let's StayTogether" byAl Green, 'A Horse \fith No Name" by
America, "Nights in\7hite Satin" bythe MoodyBlues, "Heart of
Gold" by Neil Young, "Oh Girl" by the Chilites, "Betcha By
Golly \Wow" by the Srylistics, "My Ding-a-Ling" by Chuck Berry
"Burning Love" by Elvis Presley "Papa\7as a Rollin Stone" by the
Temptations, "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson, "Freddie's Dead"
by Curtis Mayfield and "Ben" by MichaelJackson.

I r rs AGATNST THrs BAcKDRop that we honor tonight's

I inducteest
I The Eagles, whose Their Greatest Hits rg1r-rgZt is the secI

ond biggest-selling album of all time at twenty-four million units

(playing tag for first place with MichaelJackson's Tbriller);

Fleetwood Mac, whose Rumours album is the third highestselling album at seventeen million (a tie with Led Zeppelin's
fourth album); Gene Vincent, the rockabilly and rock & roll
great whose hits "Be-Bop-a-Lula," "Bluejean Bop" and "Lotta
Lovin' " were even bigger sellers in the U.K. and Europe than
theywere in the United States; Lloyd Price, best known for lateFifties recordings "Stagger Lee" and "Personality" but whose
r95z smash "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" was a great influence on Elvis
Presley; Santana, one of the most enduring acts to emerge from
the San Francisco Fillmore and Avalon concert scene of the late

r96os; and the Mamas and the Papas, one of rock & roll's great
harmony quartets. In our specialized categories, we honor New
Orleans arranger, producer, songwriter and keyboardist Allen
Toussaint and another Crescent Citylegend, early jazzvisionary
Jelly Roll Morton.
As we begin 1998, we can look forward to beginning a new
chapter rvithin the music industry: 1997 marked the hundredth anniversary of EMI Records, which began life as the
Gramophone Company in England. EMI was the first truly
international record company becoming a global entity in rgit
with the purchase of Capitol Records for a reputed $7 million which has to rank somewhere on the list of great international deals up there with Peter Minuit's purchase of New York

(NewAmsterdam) from the Indians for $24 worth of beads in

16z6 and \Tilliam Seward's purchase of Alaska from the

in fi67 for S7.z million.

This year, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of one of
America's original independent labels, the great Atlantic
Russians

Records (now part of the $Tarner Music Group), whose founder

and chairman Ahmet Ertegun - also cofounder and chairman of
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - has always been a pioneer and
innovator. Ahmet began celebrating in r958 on the occasion of
Atlantic's tenth anniversary and has not stopped yet. Hopefully like the Energizer bunny, he never will!

INBUCTEES
PERFORMERS

THE EAGLES
FLEETWOOD

THE

IVI

ANdAS ANI D

[WAE

THE PAPAS

LTOYD PRIEE
5 A [.{ TA

GE[\I

NI

E VLI NEENT

EARLYINFLUENCE

JELTY R[XLL MORT

ONPERFORMER

ALLEN TgU55AINT

PERFOR^\IERS

THE

AffiL
THE EAGLES SOARED ABOVE THE RAPIDLY CHANGING LANDscape of America in the Seventies, casting the social mores of those
high-flving years into keenly observed songs that everyone came to
know by heart. In their flight across a decade that they defined as
authoritatively as anyband, the Eagles mirrored the larger changes taking place in sociery They began as wide-eyed innocents with a countryrock pedigree and ended as purveyors of grandiose, dark-themed
albums chronicling a world of excess and seduction that had begun
spinning seriously out of control. A Hollywood scriptwriter couldn't
have plotted out the parallel history of a band and the decade they
inhabited any better than this: The Eagles were born inr97r and died in
r98o. The ultimate plot twist is that theywere reborn inry94 for another go-round as the public demonstrated an insatiable appetite for their

A
best-of collection , Tbeir Greatest Hits r97t-r975, has the distinction of
music and messages. GThe stats on the Eagles are hugely impressive.

being the second biggest-selling album of all time, having sold in excess

of twenty-four million copies to date. It was also, I rne i;sres, ier*:clenl

incidentally, the first album ever to be certified plat- Li"i ; , ;,,;1l',.,::',,inum (one million sold) by the Recording Industry I irar:rif!'ff:efi)
Association of America, which introduced that classification in 1976.
How complete was the Eagles' conquest of the Seventies, particularly
the latter half of the decade? Consider that theyreleased four consecutive Number One albums between ry75 andrg1g

BYPARKE

One ofThese Nigbn,

PUTERBAUGH

*A

,!
-*#
4ti

.rF
- r,fsq

Tl:tir Gr;;::,: ii:::. il,'rtl Ctli-fitrni't;nci f':.' I' ':: !,:,': -'.r'r-rra
collectivelv topped Billboard's album chart tor r\\'rnt\'->r-\'tn

.;:;#
*

,'#

weeks. They had five Number One singles ancl an equal number
that made the Top Ten. They are one oi three sroups in historv
(along with the Beatles and Pink Flovd) rvith nr-o albums that

have sold more than ten million copies apiece in the United
States. The Eagles sold more albums in the Seventies than anr'
other American band - and that's just part of the story

Although the band was on hiatus for the whole of the

Eighties, their back catalogue continued to sell a million and a

half copies annually Moreover, the seeds they'd sown as a group
bore fruit in their respective solo careers - particularly those of
founding members Don Henley and Glenn Frey - while their
influence helped spark the renegade "new country" movement.
'When
a baker's dozen of country's hottest stars recorded the
tribute albtm ComnonThread: The Songs of tbe Eagles in 1993, its
unexpected triple-platinum success prompted the Eagles to
reunite a year later. The subsequent album and tour were titled
Hell Freezes Oae4 adrollappropriation of Don Henley's response
to a journalist's question - "\fhen will the Eagles get back
together?" - way back when the wounds were still fresh.
\7hat went right and what went wrong with the Eagles is an
archetypal Seventies tale of inspiration, hard work, success,
excess, conflict and, happily resolution (albeit fourteen years

after their unofficial breakup). The Eagles formed in Los

Ange les

at the start of a new decade as a quartet of musicians

fiom different backgrounds and locales. Drummer Don Henley

from Texas with his band Shiloh (which recorded a lone
album he's described as "awful"). Guitarist Glenn Frey was a
can.re

rockcr tiom Detroit who headed west, where he befriended and

roomed rvith then-obscure fellow musicians Jackson Browne
andJohn David Souther. He formed a duo with Souther, cutting
one album as Longbranch Pennl'whistle. Bernie Leadon, who
plavs a variery of stringed instruments, came from a bluegrass
background and belonged to the proto-country-rock outfits
Hearts and Flowers, Dillard and Clark and the Flying Burrito
Brothers. Bassist and high-harmony singer Randy Meisner

played with such country- and folk-rock mainstays as Rick

Nelson,James Thylor and Poco. Piece by piece, the four original
Eagles first came together in r97o as Linda Ronstadt's backing
band.By ry7l they'd gone off on their own and had honed their
repertoire at an Aspen, Colorado, club called the Gallery
Their manager, David Geffen, released the Eagles' debut
album on Asylum Records, a label he formed as a vehicle for
artists like them and Jackson Browne. (It would also provide
asylum to such kindred spirits asJoni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt
and \Tarren Zevon, among others.) Early pressin gs of Eagles,
released in 1972, had a gatefold sleeve that opened to reveal a
picture of the group members gathered around a fire, absorbed
in an Indian peyote ritual. At this point, their music was as pure
and full of sparkle as spring water, and their songs evoked the
broad and boundless vistas of the Far'West. The album's first
single, the rousing, anthemic "Thke It Easy" (cowritten by Frey
and Browne), and tracks like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and
"-Witchy'Woman" have become Eagles standards. "The whole
country-rock movement . . . was very much connected to the
earth, and everybody was wearing earthy clothes and celebrating the outdoors," Henley reflected in a r 99o Rolling Stone irterview "I lament that loss, that contact we had with nature."
In the Seventies, the way of Southern California became the
way of the world, and the Eagles were
in the thick of that social and musical
milieu. It was in avery real sense a new

kind ofsocial frontier, and it directly

inspired the central metaphor of their

second album, Desperado. In that
album, the Eagles exploredthe notion
of rocker-as-outla\4{ retelling the story

ihn
l l,t'

l.*#i*fr'
Luu,L J

ti"t

t 1ft3A,

t1ltd t't4.

*r*ftf
l3

r*"1",

fi#'!U?

lln*

iirr#

ltz^ic*n
!Y!U!5!retr,

*lon* frn'r flnn fol14or

#ernre L**el** lfr*m 1*fl)

of an Old West gunslinger - Bill

Doolin, of the Dalton gang - as a kind of parable about their

gen-

eration, ingeneral, and the rise and fall of rock stars, inparticular.
Released in1973, it yielded such Eagles favorites as "Tequila
Sunrise" and the richlymoving and metaphorical title track. It also
served notice that the Eagles possessed an ambitious intelligence
that refused to be confined by the strictures of genre.
The recording of the Eagles'transitional third album, t974's On

witnessed a shift in producers (GlynJohns to Bill

Szymc4rk) and locales (-ondon to LosAngeles). Aharder-rocking
album than its predecessors, it also saw the Eagles beef up their
sound with the addition of guitarist Don Felder late in the sessions. Ironically, after the middling success of two uptempo

the Borde4

rockers,'Already Gone" and'James Dean," it was an acoustic

ballad, "The Best ofMyLove," that served as the Eagles'breakthrough single. It carried them to the top of the charts in March
r975,where they'd remain for most of the rest of the decade.
One of Tbese I'{igbts, the Eagles' fourth album, appeared in
June ry75. The album reflected the onset of a strain of disillusionment that infiltrated both the political and personal realms
at mid-decade.

\7ith the nation poised between the jarring

near-impeachment of

scandal-ridden president and the jingo-

istic celebration of a Bicentennial that missed the point, the

Eagles unerringly captured the prevailing minor-keyed mood
of uncertainty and distrust. For their labors, the group was

rewarded with their first Number One album and a trio of hit
singles: "One ofThese Nights," "Lyii Eyes" and "Thke It to the
Limit." But success came at a cost. One of These Nigbts took six
months to make, and the grueling experience occasioned by

the group's increasing studio hermitage drove Bernie Leadonto leave

the band. He was replaced byJoe

\Yalsh. an old friend u'ho added

iffi*,

.:r'r-rock ballast to the Eagles' sound.

-,',.

rhe Eagles were an in-demand concert attraction and

::= tirst bands of Seventies vintage who could justifiably

,

Rising to the challenge of how to top themthev were informally competing against such
- --: t:rers of Seventies songcraft asJackson Browne and
- ::r. :he Eagles upped the ante and then showed aroyal
::. r:rr tltth album of newmaterial, the masterfulHotel
' ''' : ,: that album's title track, they devised another
- : -' ::irhor. this one forthe decadent malaise thathad set'-: .-^:r.rica during the excessive Seventies (otherwise
- : - r.1: "-\Ie Decade").ITriterAnthony DeCurtis insight- "- i .! :e I C,tlliornia's "depiction of agorgeous paradise
: i :::,r a kind of sunny hell of unsatis$ring pleasure."
-::iist \\ illiam Ruhlmann compared the album to
" '- : ', -:: :.orh sen-ing to tell "a cautionary tale about the
. - - -: :-- r:-rocence to experience and disillusionment."
- - .. - :::re, the Eagles had T:shirts made up that
- s':pe rstars.

:-.:a

.
'

r.S

. . -.t,--.r :::do as musicians: soNG PowER.

-'.: .cd in the studio over a long period of time,

- :

'':

'.'.... released in December r976

- it had been a
- :r. : . :,-, issue an album of musical commentary
- - :.-:-.r.a:ri,rl rear - and leapt to Number One by
"'.:

-,

i;. :' :: -:-iL)-i. no doubt little suspecting that it

r-,-- -: -.:,'r:r:.rk best-se1ler.) Obviously, the band

--

- : -r. - ::.:cle of con-rpilations). Among other

:,r.--' .: : :. -.f:'lr3se tothepopularlericon:"lifein
::. ::sr 1ane." u-i-rich u-as the title of
., r'---,

S,

,rg Thoueh the album ri-as

ing of its guitar-driven title track,

there was

discernible undercurrent

of tension that reflected a smoldering discontent. Citing exhaustion,

bassist Randy Meisner left in

September and was replaced by
Timothy B. Schmit, late of Poco. Meanwhile, intragroup relations - particularly between Frey and Henley the Eagles' main
songwriters and creative core - were growing strained.
Sessions for the next album ,The LongRun, dragged on for two
years and drove the Eagles to the breaking point, as the perfection-obsessed group endeavored with difficulty to improve
upon Hotel Caltfornia, which cast a long shadow Though it was
in commercial and even critical terms a successful album, yield-

ing yet another trio of hits ("Heartache Tonight," "The Long

Run" and "I Can't Tell You Why"), The Long Run had been a
draining experience that ultimately spelled the demise of the
Eagles. Their swan song was Live, a double album released late
in r9Bo, by which time the group was effectively defunct,
though no formal announcement to that effect was ever made.
Thus, Glenn Freywasn't exactlylyingwhen he announced at the
outset of a ry94 concert for MTV's cameras that the Eagles'
fourteen-yearvacation had ended. "\)fe see this not as a reunion
but a resumption," Frey explained.
As for the specter of resuming their life in the fast lane, "N7e
grew out of it," Henley told USA Tbday's Edna Gundersen in
1994. "N7e survived the Sixties, the Seventies and the Eighties.
Nfe survived mentally and physically and our music survived.

That is no mean feat."

Indeed, that canny survival instinct - along with a decade's
ri'orth of incredible music - is good reason to celebrate the
Easles'induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight.
Lons

mar-ther-i-h,

,z
ft,

Ui)

:)
-+l
i-c
r.A

J)

#ha\

&
or$