During the hiatus of the Eagles from 1980 to 1994, Frey embarked on a successful solo career. He released his debut album, No Fun Aloud, in 1982 and went on to record Top 40 hits "The One You Love", "Smuggler's Blues", "Sexy Girl", "The Heat Is On", "You Belong to the City", "True Love", "Soul Searchin'" and "Livin' Right". As a member of the Eagles, Frey won six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards. The Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, the first year they were nominated. Consolidating his solo recordings and those with the Eagles, Frey had 24 Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
Early life
Born in Detroit, Michigan, on November 6, 1948 and raised in nearby Royal Oak, Frey studied piano at age five, later switched to guitar, and became part of the mid-1960s Detroit rock scene. One of his earliest bands was called the Subterraneans, named after Jack Kerouac's novel, and included fellow Dondero High School classmates Doug Edwards (later replaced by Lenny Mintz) on drums, Doug Gunsch and Bill Barnes on guitar, with Jeff Hodge on bass.
Immediately after graduating from Dondero in 1966, Frey was invited to join The Four of Us, a local band led by Gary Burrows, who had seen him performing with the Subterraneans. Frey also attended Oakland Community College while in the band, and he learned to sing harmonies performing with The Four of Us. In 1967, he formed the Mushrooms with Gary Burrows' brother Jeff, Bill Barnes, Doug Gunsch, Ken Bash, and Lenny Mintz. That year Frey also met Bob Seger, who helped Frey get a management and recording contract with a label formed by Seger's management team, Hideout Records. Seger also wrote and produced the band's first single, "Such a Lovely Child", and the band made television appearances to promote it. Frey had intended to join Seger's band, but his mother blocked that course of action for smoking cannabis with Seger. In the later part of 1967, Frey also pulled together another band called Heavy Metal Kids with Jeff Burrows (piano), Jeff Alborell (bass), Paul Kelcourse (lead guitar), and Lance Dickerson (drums).
At age 19 in 1968, Frey played the acoustic guitar and performed background vocals on Seger's single, "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man". Frey has said that Seger strongly encouraged and influenced him to focus on writing original songs. They remained good friends and occasional songwriting partners in later years, and Frey would also sing on Seger's songs such as "Fire Lake" and "Against the Wind".
In Detroit, Frey also met and dated Joan Sliwin of the local female group The Mama Cats, which became Honey Ltd. after the group moved to California in 1968. Frey went to Los Angeles hoping to reconnect with his girlfriend, and he was introduced to J. D. Souther by her sister, Alexandra Sliwin, who was with Souther at the time. Frey returned to Detroit after three weeks, but then went back again to Los Angeles to form a duo with Souther called Longbranch Pennywhistle. They were signed to Amos Records and released an eponymous album in 1969, which contains songs he wrote such as "Run, Boy, Run" and "Rebecca", and "Bring Back Funky Women" he co-wrote with Souther. Frey also met Jackson Browne during this period. The three musicians lived in the same apartment building for a short time, and Frey later said that he learned a lot about songwriting from hearing Browne work on songs in the apartment below.
The Eagles
Frey met drummer Don Henley in 1970. They were signed to the same label, Amos Records, at that time and spent time at the Troubadour. When Linda Ronstadt needed a backup band for an upcoming tour, her manager John Boylan hired Frey because Boylan needed someone who could play rhythm guitar and sing. Frey approached Don Henley to join Ronstadt. Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon were also hired. Because the backing band personnel changed during the tour, the four played together only once: at a gig at Disneyland. While on the tour, Frey and Henley decided to form a band together. And they were joined by Meisner on bass and Leadon on guitar, banjo, steel guitar, mandolin and dobro, forming the Eagles, with Frey playing guitar and keyboards and Henley playing drums. The band went on to become one of the world's best-selling groups of all time. Frey wrote or co-wrote (often with Henley) many of the group's songs, and sang the lead vocals on a number of Eagles hits including "Take It Easy", "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Already Gone", "Tequila Sunrise", "Lyin' Eyes", "New Kid in Town", "Heartache Tonight" and "How Long".
The Eagles broke up around 1980 and reunited in 1994, when they released a new album, Hell Freezes Over. The album had live tracks and four new songs. The Hell Freezes Over Tour followed. In 2012 on The Tavis Smiley Show, Frey told Smiley, "When the Eagles broke up, people used to ask me and Don, 'When are the Eagles getting back together?' We used to answer, 'When Hell freezes over.' We thought it was a pretty good joke. People have the misconception that we were fighting a lot. It is not true. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot more fun than I think people realize." At their first live concert of 1994, Frey told the crowd, "For the record, we never broke up. We just took a 14-year vacation."
The Eagles released the album Long Road Out of Eden in 2007, and Frey participated in the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden Tour (2008–2011). In May 2012, Frey was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music along with Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit. In 2013, the two-part documentary History of the Eagles, directed by Alison Ellwood and co-produced by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney, was aired on Showtime. The documentary won an Emmy Award in 2013 for Outstanding Sound Mixing For Nonfiction Programming. An accompanying two-year History of the Eagles world tour ended on July 29, 2015 at Bossier City, Louisiana, a concert which would be Frey's final public appearance with the band.
Solo career
After the Eagles disbanded, Frey achieved solo success in the 1980s, especially with two No. 2 hits. In 1984 he recorded in collaboration with Harold Faltermeyer the worldwide hit "The Heat Is On," the main theme from the Eddie Murphy action comedy film Beverly Hills Cop; then, Frey performed "You Belong to the City" (from the television series Miami Vice, the soundtrack of which stayed on top of the U.S. album charts for 11 weeks in 1985). His other contribution to the soundtrack, "Smuggler's Blues", hit No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. During his solo career, Frey had 12 charting songs in the U.S. Top 100. Eleven of those were written with Jack Tempchin, who wrote "Peaceful Easy Feeling".
Frey was the first choice to record "Shakedown", the theme for the film Beverly Hills Cop II. Frey did not like the lyrics and then came down with laryngitis, so the song was given to Bob Seger. After the song went to number one, Frey called to congratulate Seger, saying "At least we kept the money in Michigan!"
Frey contributed the song "Flip City" to the Ghostbusters II soundtrack and "Part of Me, Part of You" to the soundtrack for Thelma & Louise. In 2005 he appeared on B.B. King & Friends: 80 on the track "Drivin' Wheel". In the late 1990s, Frey founded a record company, Mission Records, with attorney Peter Lopez. Frey never released any of his own work on the label, and the company has since disbanded.
In 2009 Glenn Frey was voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. On May 8, 2012, he released his first solo album in 20 years, After Hours, featuring covers of pop standards from the 1940s to the 1960s. It would ultimately become his final album before his death.
Acting career
As a television actor, Frey guest starred on Miami Vice in the first-season episode "Smuggler's Blues", inspired by his hit song of the same name, and had a starring role in the "Dead Dog Arc" of Wiseguy. He was also the star of South of Sunset, which was canceled after one episode. In the late 1990s, he guest-starred on Nash Bridges as a policeman whose teenage daughter had run amok and gone on a crime spree with her sociopathic boyfriend. In 2002, he appeared on HBO's Arliss, playing a political candidate who double-crosses Arliss and must pay a high price for it.
Frey's first foray into film was his starring role in Let's Get Harry, a 1986 film about a group of plumbers who travel to Colombia to rescue a friend from a drug lord. Frey also did seven episodes of Wiseguy co-starring with Ken Wahl in 1989. Frey's next film appearance was a smaller role in Cameron Crowe's third film, Jerry Maguire (1996). Frey played the frugal general manager of the Arizona Cardinals football team who, in the film's climax, finally agrees to award Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character, wide receiver Rod Tidwell, a large professional contract.
Personal life
Frey was married twice. From 1983 to 1988, he was married to artist Janie Beggs. He married dancer and choreographer Cindy Millican in 1990. They had three children: a daughter, Taylor, in 1991 and two sons, Deacon in 1993 and Otis in 2002 and remained together until his death. Deacon, following his father's death, toured with the surviving Eagles until he departed in 2022 in favor of a solo career.
Illness and death
From about 2000, Frey had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which affected his joints. The medication that he was prescribed to control the disease eventually led to colitis and pneumonia; and, in November 2015, the Eagles announced they were postponing their appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors because Frey required surgery for intestinal problems and needed a lengthy recovery period. Because of complications from pneumonia, he never had the surgery and was placed in a medically induced coma at Columbia University Medical Center. Frey died there on January 18, 2016, at the age of 67, from complications of rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia. Medications for rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis can compromise the immune system's ability to fight off pneumonia. In January 2018, Frey's widow filed a suit against Mount Sinai Hospital and gastroenterologist Steven Itzkowitz for the wrongful death of Frey.
Frey was publicly mourned by his friends, fellow musicians and bandmates, including Don Henley, Randy Meisner, J. D. Souther, Jack Tempchin, Irving Azoff, Linda Ronstadt, Don Felder, and Bob Seger. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, the remaining members of the Eagles and Jackson Browne performed "Take It Easy" in his honor. A life-sized statue of Frey was unveiled at the Standin' on the Corner Park in Winslow, Arizona, on September 24, 2016, to honor his songwriting contributions to "Take It Easy", made famous by the Eagles as their first single in 1972. The road which runs next to the high school (now a middle school) that he attended in Royal Oak, Michigan bears his name.
Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Frey
Studio albums
No Fun Aloud (1982)
The Allnighter (1984)
Soul Searchin' (1988)
Strange Weather (1992)
After Hours (2012)
Desperado
Glenn Frey Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You've been out riding fences, for so long now
Oh you're a hard one but I know you got your reasons
These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow
Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy, she'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table
Desperado, oh, you ain't getting no younger
Your pain and your hunger they're driving you home
And freedom, oh freedom, well, that's just some people talking
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow, and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time, from the day
You're losing all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses
Come down from your fences and open the gate?
It may be raining, oh raining but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, let somebody love you
You better let somebody love you before it's too late
The song Desperado by Glenn Frey is a plea to a wild, reckless and independent cowboy, who has been living life on the edge, to return to the fold and to give up the solitary life. The song is an emotional plea to the Desperado to stop hiding behind his tough exterior and allow himself to feel emotions and be loved. The lyrics are full of metaphors that describe the desperado's life; he has been riding fences for too long, he is playing with fire, and only wants what he can't have. The song's chorus aims to persuade the cowboy to open up his heart and notice that the world is not such a terrible place, and to allow somebody to care for him.
Furthermore, the song's final verse indicates that the Desperado is getting older, and the harshness of the world is starting to take its toll. He is now losing his energetic nature, and the highs and lows of his life are starting to evaporate. The song finishes with a plea for him to take action now, to leave behind his solitary life, to open the gate, and to allow himself to be loved.
Line by Line Meaning
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Why are you continuing to behave irrationally when there is an option to stop?
You've been out riding fences, for so long now
You've been living a life of isolation and detachment for a significant period of time.
Oh you're a hard one but I know you got your reasons
You are a person with a hardened exterior, but I believe that there are underlying reasons for this.
These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow
The things you find pleasurable may end up causing harm to you in some way.
Don't you draw the queen of diamonds boy, she'll beat you if she's able
You should avoid engaging with the queen of diamonds as she is likely to outdo you in some manner.
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
The queen of hearts is the safer option for you to pursue.
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table
You have been presented with some great opportunities in life.
But you only want the ones that you can't get
Despite the good options available to you, you actively seek out the ones that are out of reach.
Desperado, oh, you ain't getting no younger
You are not growing any younger and time is passing you by.
Your pain and your hunger they're driving you home
Your desire for something that you lack is leading you back to your place of origin.
And freedom, oh freedom, well, that's just some people talking
The concept of freedom is not necessarily something that is achievable or tangible.
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
You are confined to a life of solitude and loneliness.
Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
I am curious if you feel cold and vulnerable during hard times.
The sky won't snow, and the sun won't shine
It seems as though nothing is going your way lately.
It's hard to tell the night time, from the day
Your struggles have made it difficult for you to differentiate between hope and despair.
You're losing all your highs and lows
Your emotional range seems to be dwindling.
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away
It's ironic how our feelings can evaporate over time.
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses
Why don't you take a moment to reflect and reassess your behavior?
Come down from your fences and open the gate?
Release yourself from self-imposed isolation and let people in.
It may be raining, oh raining but there's a rainbow above you
Even though things may not seem optimal at the moment, there is still hope for better things to come.
You better let somebody love you, let somebody love you
You should allow yourself to be vulnerable and open to love.
You better let somebody love you before it's too late
Otherwise, you may end your life without experiencing the love that is available to you.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Glenn Lewis Frey, Don Hugh Henley
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind