THE long run of the Eagles began with a sad, funny little gig at the Westlake School for Girls and nights spent in the dingy confines of the Troubadour, where their crystalline harmony -- at least on stage -- would define the world-famous "Southern California sound."
Now, in fact, it's hard to think of Los Angeles without thinking of the music of the Eagles and it's impossible to consider the band without L.A. as a frame.
The L.A. story of the Eagles is on the first page of the final chapter. The band has a new album in stores for the first time in 28 years and the members seem to know their own swan song when they hear it.
"It was painful birth," lead guitarist Joe Walsh said of the struggle to finish "Long Road Out of Eden," which ended up as a double album. "I can't think we have another one in us. I really can't."
When the new edition of the Billboard 200 chart is released Wednesday, it will show that the No. 1 album in America is "Blackout" from Britney Spears. But in reality, the bestselling album in the country over the last week was in fact "Eden" -- because it was sold exclusively through Wal-Mart stores and the veteran band's website, "Eden" is ineligible for the Billboard tally.
The first Eagles album since the Carter administration has a first-week total that looks to be about 700,000 copies, according to the band's manager, Irving Azoff. That doubles the sales of the new Spears album and makes "Eden" one of the fastest-selling CDs of the year even though it was not released by anything resembling a traditional record label.
"I'm not even sure what the recording industry is anymore," said Don Henley, who with Glenn Frey is the most familiar voice in the Eagles. To add to the sense of strangeness, the iconic band finds its new music is getting its most significant radio airplay at country stations. Embracing that, the Eagles will perform Wednesday on the Country Music Assn. Awards on ABC, which, shockingly, will mark the first time the band has ever appeared on an awards broadcast.
In other words, if you think you are bewildered by the carnival fun house that is the music industry of 2007, try being a member of the Eagles.
"I couldn't tell you what a hit record is these days," said Frey with a shrug. He and Henley are the only founding members left from the days when the Eagles got their start as a backing band for Linda Ronstadt.
They went on to claim the bestselling album in the history of American music, "Their Greatest Hits, 1971-1975," which is creeping toward 30 million copies shipped to stores, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. But that titan status in the boom of the 1970s has given them a collective impatience with the wilting industry around them now. "I feel like I was part of Camelot," Frey said, "and it's not coming back."
"Eden" is an epic album (many critics, in fact, are saying it's too long, although the reviews have also been largely positive) and all four members -- Henley, Frey, Walsh and bassist Timothy B. Schmit -- get a turn in the spotlight. It's almost like they are taking their bows. The 20th and final song on "Eden" is a farewell tune, "Your World Now."
"It's a sort of a passing of the torch song, it's an adios song," Henley said. "It works on that level for our children and also on the band level."
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