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Don Henley music biography continued...

again. Born July 22, 1947, in Gilmer, Texas, Henley got his start playing in a late '60s Texas band named Shiloh. He got a big break when friend and fellow musician Glenn Frey invited him to play in Linda Ronstadt's backup band. He did, and by 1971 the pair had hooked up with guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner to form the Eagles. With a 1972 debut album containing two top 20 singles--"Take It Easy," co-written by Frey and Jackson Browne and "Witchy Woman," penned by Henley and Leadon--the Eagles were airborne from the start. During the span of their 10 years together, the band met gigantic international success and sold over 80 million albums worldwide. By the time they broke up in 1981, they had garnered four No. 1 albums, five No. 1 singles, and four Grammys. Although Henley was the band's drummer, he co-wrote all 10 of the group's top 10 hits and sang lead on many of them.



Glenn Frey announced his plans to make a solo record in 1980, and soon after the Eagles broke up, leaving Henley to pursue his own solo career as well. Hounded by the press after a drug possession charge, Henley scored his first solo hit with the tune "Dirty Laundry," which zoomed to the top 5. The song helped push Henley's 1982 debut album I Can't Stand Still to No. 24. With 1984's double-platinum Building The Perfect Beast, Henley's solo career started to flourish. Henley's third solo album, 1989's The End Of The Innocence, reached No. 8 and went triple-platinum, enhancing Henley's reputation as a top solo artist. Shortly thereafter, the Eagles reunited, for Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and new studio tracks. While Henley continues to work on solo projects, he has also toured intermittently with the Eagles since that time. In 2007, the Eagles released Long Road out of Eden, their first full studio album in 28 years. The album boasted two hit singles--a cover of J.D. Souther's "How Long", and "Busy Being Fabulous"--. As both a soloist and a member of one of the greatest bands of all time, Henley shows no signs of slowing down—a comfort to his millions of fans.