7/25/2019 Glenn Frey: The Long Run

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R&R

GLENN FREY 1948-2O16

The

Long

Run

Glenn

Frey was

a

dedicated

family

man

who

fought

through

years

of illness

to

keep

the

Eagles

flying

BY DAVID

BROWNE

f

N

LoursrANA

oN

JU

Ly

29TH.2015,

I

Glenn Frey was

about to

go

onstage

I

for the last

encore

ofthe final

show

of

I

their History

of the

Eagles

Tour.

He

seemed

in

a

good

mood

-

and

he

had rea-

son

to be.

Bernie

Leadon,

afounding mem-

ber

of the Eagles

who'd

left in

1975,

had

re-

joined

the band for

the

shows.

On the way

to

the

stage,

Frey

gave

Leadon

a

hug and

told him how glad

he was

to

play

together

again

-

then

he added,

"This

isnt

the end."

Sadly, though,

it was: The

show

turned

out to

be

Frey's

last public

gig.

On

January

18th, Frey,

who had

been coping

with

rheu-

matoid

arthritis

for

more

than

15

years,

succumbed

to the

disease,

in combination

with

colitis and

pneumonia

he may

have

developed

from his

arthritis medications.

He was

6f.

"It's

a

complex

medical history,

and in the

end,

all

those

things

ganged

up

on

him,"

says

longtime

friend

and collabo-

rator

JD

Souther.

Outside

of

his

illnesses,

life

was good

to

Frey.

The Eagles

toured regularly

since

re-

uniting in

199.+

and

sounded

as

strong

as

ever in recent years.

A 2013

documentary,

History

ofthe Eagles,

generated

further

interest in

the band, which

earned

$too

million in 2014.

"I

saw

them

less

than

a

year

ago,

and they were

damn

good,"

says

Randy

Newman.

"Sedate

crowd

-

maybe

it's L.A.

-

but it

was

tremendous.

Hit

after

hit. And

put

together."

With his wife,

Cindy,

a choreographer

he

met

on one

ofhis video

shoots, Frey

had

three

children

(Deacon,

Taylor and

Otis).

"I

have a

nine-year-old

son,"

he

told

Ror,l-

rrqc

SroNn in2012.

"I

have

two kids

that

havejust

now

gone

offto

college. So

those

are big responsibilities.

Obviously,

there's

more

to life

than

making

records."

Frey had

homes in L.A.

and Hawaii,

and in recent years,

he

and his family

had moved to

New York, where

he

picked

up his

son

after school

and

even

took

the

subway

to

one

ofthe

Eagles'shows

there

last

year.

Fitting

the Eagles into

that life

could

be tricky.

"Don

[Henley]

lives

in

Dallas,

and I live in L.A.,

but

I

really

want to live

in Hawaii,

and

Timothy [Schmit]

and Joe

[Walsh]

are

kind

of spread

out here,"

he

told Ror,r,rNc

StorqB.

"It's

not

so

much

about

tension

as

much

as

geography."

"[Mykidsl

arebig

responsibilities,"

Frey

told

RollingStone

in20l2.

"Obviously,

theres

more

to

life

than

making

records."

Frey

battled health

issues

for

decades.

In

the Nineties,

he

d

had

two

bouts of

di-

verticulitis

(inflammation

of

the

digestive

tract) that required

surgery,

including

one

in 1994 that

forced

him offthe

road.

"We

actually

postponed

a tour

and

flew

back

to

L.A.,

and

he

had

surgery,"

recalls former

Eagle

Don

Felder.

Frey remained

active outside the Ea-

gles.

In 2012,he

released,After

Hours,

a

collection of pop-standard

covers. The

set came about

after he

delivered

im-

promptu

versions

of some

of the

songs

at

a

golf

tournament

(Frey,

an avid

golf-

er, had

been

invited to

perforn

by

Clint

Eastwood). When

he

died,

he

was

writing

songs

for what

would have been his first

album of original

material since

1992's

Strange Weather. Plans

for

an Eagles-

themed

musical

have

been

in

the works

for

years,

and Frey recently

took in

Beau-

tiful,tt'e

Carole King Broadway

show,

for

inspiration. Asked

ifthe

Eagles

produc-

tion would include the

band's infamous

fights,

he called them

"conversations

-

give

and

take."

But

Frey's

health

was

a

constant

prob-

lem. He

would

sometimes

playwith

aban-

dage

on

his wrist

to dull hii

arthritis

pain.

Last

summer,

his

treatment

led

to intesti-

nal

issues, and

while

preparing for

a

third

surgery,

he

developed

pneumonia

and was

hospitalized in NewYork

in October.

The

Eagles were

forced to

postpone

their par-

ticipation

in December's Kennedy

Center

Honors. Frey

never

left the hospital.

At

press

time, plans

for a memorial

were

still in

the works,

and the

future

of

the

Eagles

is

unclear.

"Glenn

is

the first

one of the Gentlemen

Boys

to

go

-

that's

what

Glenn, Jackson

[Browne],

Don

and

I called

each

other

when

we sang

on

other

people's

records,"

Souther says.

"Linda

3

Ronstadt called me last night

and

said,

g

'lt's

a

different world,

isn't

it?'

I

said,

'Yes,

it is.' It will not

be

the

same

without

the

4

biglaugh andbig,

gregarious

approach

to

:

life that

Glenn

had."

@

3

18

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