AT the dawn of the FM radio age, America was searching for that peaceful, easy feeling, and The Eagles were eager to fill the demand with their breezy, laid back, country rock sounds.
California of the early 1970s was the hub of a freewheeling lifestyle, and the songs of The Eagles provided the perfect soundtrack for rolling down the highway with the soft top down and your beard flapping loosely in the warm summer breeze.
Their music was arguably as bland as the endless parade of malls, gas stations and fast food joints which lined the roads around Los Angeles; later in the decade, when West Coast living descended into a coke addled escape from reality, the music of The Eagles mirrored it perfectly from the balcony of Hotel California.
The Eagles can thank singer Linda Ronstadt for helping to bring them together. In 1971, she recruited four young musicians, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, to play in her backing band for a three month tour. At the suggestion of a friend and local musician, the four decided to stay together and form a band, and so The Eagles were born. FM radio would never be the same again.
At that time, Glenn Frey was sharing a house with singer/ songwriter Jackson Browne and the pair penned what was to become The Eagles' first hit, Take It Easy.
With its lines about "runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load", the tune encapsulated the laid back Californian mood. It spoke of a semi mythical place known as "the road" where folk just cruised along in their convertibles without a care in the world, only stopping to pick up the odd girl in a tight T-shirt.
In rainy old Ireland, still caught in the vice of sexual repression and still crawling through a petrol crisis, it was like a vision of Valhalla.
The Eagles' 1972 debut album expanded on the basic theme of cool, countrified Californian living, with songs like Peaceful Easy Feeling, Early Bird and Chug All Night. Their second single, Witchy Woman, hit the US Top Ten, but it wasn't till three years later that One of These Nights became The Eagles' first UK hit single.
By that time, however, albums like Desperado, On The Border and One Of These Nights had already established the band on both sides of the Atlantic as radio friendly unit shifters.
Long hair, moustaches, plaid shirts and jeans were the uniform of a new, affluent, couldn't care less youth, and everybody knew the chords to Lyin' Eyes and Tequila Sunrise. A whole generation who didn't buy the lifestyle waited patiently for punk to happen.
The Eagles reached their creative and commercial peak in 1977 with Hotel California, their commentary on the shallowness of the LA lifestyle which they had previously eulogised.
Songs like Life In The Fast Lane, Victim Of Love and The Last Resort were cutting and caustic in comparison with earlier, benign efforts, but they weren't merely cautionary tales of excess and overindulgence.
The Eagles were living through this, and it was poisoning their professional and personal lives.
Tales of drug abuse and profligacy followed the band along the highway, and in one much publicised incident, Don Henley was arrested at his home in the company of a naked 16 year old girl. Said Glenn Frey of those turbulent times: "Led Zeppelin might argue with us, but I think. we had the greatest travelling party of the 70s ... The wine was the best, the drags were good and the women were beautiful."
The Eagles broke up in acrimony after their disappointing 1979 album, The Long Run, and Henley and Frey immediately embarked on relatively successful solo careers.
Meanwhile, the West Coast myth created by their music and promulgated by Classic Hits radio continued unabated, till their songs seemed to swallow up the whole highway.
It was inevitable that someone would suggest a reunion, but by the end of the 1980s, nothing had been agreed, although Henley and Frey did appear onstage together at a concert in Los Angeles in 1989.
Blame Travis Tritt for getting the ball rolling in 1993, the American country star recorded a cover of Take It Easy, and somehow managed to get all five Eagles on to the Hollywood set where he was filming the video.
A year later, The Eagles' official reunion album, Hell Freezes Over, was Number One in the US, and a nation relived those lazy, hazy, crazy days of endless - Summer in southern California.
Despite the 14 year interruption in their career, The Eagles have managed to sell more than 90 million albums since they started on the road. That should give them quite a peaceful, easy feeling whenever they decide to finally knock it on the head.
