2016 Grammy Awards to Pay Tribute to Glenn Frey
The 2016 Grammy Awards will include a very special musical tribute to singer-songwriter Glenn Frey, who passed away in January at the age of 67.
Frey's bandmates in the Eagles will join together with Jackson Browne for a musical performance in honor of Frey, who died Jan. 18 from complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia. Billboard reports that Don Henley and Bernie Leadon, guitarist Joe Walsh, bassist Timothy B. Schmit and Browne will perform together, and although their exact plans have not been announced, it seems likely they'll play "Take It Easy," which Frey and Browne co-wrote in their early, pre-success years, when the two struggling musicians were neighbors in the same apartment complex. The song reached No. 12 on Billboard's Hot 100 when the Eagles released it as their debut single in 1972, and has since become a staple of rock radio.
Though the Eagles had a famously rancorous breakup in the '80s, their music proved to have such staying power that they reunited in the mid-'90s, and the group toured regularly after that, wrapping what turned out to be their final tour just six months before Frey passed away. Henley recalled their sometimes tempestuous relationship with fondness in a post to Facebook, saying Frey was "more like a brother to me."
"Glenn was the one who started it all,” he states. “He was the spark plug, the man with the plan. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was funny, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven. He loved his wife and kids more than anything. We are all in a state of shock, disbelief and profound sorrow. We brought our two-year History of the Eagles Tour to a triumphant close at the end of July and now he is gone.”
“I’m not sure I believe in fate, but I know that crossing paths with Glenn Lewis Frey in 1970 changed my life forever, and it eventually had an impact on the lives of millions of other people all over the planet,” he adds. “It will be very strange going forward in a world without him in it. But, I will be grateful, every day, that he was in my life. Rest in peace, my brother. You did what you set out to do, and then some.”
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