Almost a third of this year had passed when it suddenly dawned on us that it's the Eagles 30th Anniversary. Although this group first came together in the summer of 1971, we didn't hit the airwaves and the ears of the public-at-large until late spring of 1972. "Take it Easy" was our first single release and our first hit. We never expected to have a solid, nine-year run, but then we didn't expect a lot of things that eventually happened. We never thought that "the Long Run" album, released in 1979, would be our studio swan song and nobody expected everything to come to a screeching halt in the fall of 1980. Some has had never considered having solo careers, but we did. None of us would have ever believed that the Eagles would reunite fourteen years later for one the most successful tour in rock history. It appears that, while we were all going our separate ways, the fans and rock radio kept the torch burning; album sales continued to mount, averaging a million or more units a year. Our Greatest Hits (volume 1) has become the largest selling album (domestically) in music business history--or, so we're told by the people who keep track of such things. go figure.

Last summer, we had a grand tour of Europe and performed in Russia for the very first time. I remember peering down from my hotel window onto the rain-slicked Moscow street while the strains of "Theme from a Summer Place" wafted from the radio in my room. It was one of those odd, ironic little moments that stick in the brain. I just sat there with a goofy grin on my face.

On month and many miles later, the rain stopped, the clouds parted and we played, also for the very first time in Belfast, under a brilliant blue sky to an audience of 20,000 who had gathered on the intensely green lawn of Stormont Castle. That beautiful edifice serves as Northern Ireland's parliamentary building, and inside, history was being made only a hundred or so yards from our stage. First Minister, David Trimble, resigned and Parliament was disbanded that day. People were hanging out the windows of the Castle and we ran through our soundcheck and when the show began, Trimble and several other members ambled down the lawn, took seats in front and proceeded to enjoy the concert while knocking back several pints, It was a memorable day, filled with great beauty and mixed emotions....as Ireland always is.

I'll never forget the show we did two weeks later in the piazza of Lucca, an ancient walled city in Italy (another first for us). The crowd sang every work at the tops of their lungs--and in English.

I could go on, but you get the idea. These past three decades have been marked not only by hard work and travails, but also by tremendous reworks including a bird's-eye view of the world and the ability to do a few good things for its inhabitants--and it all started right here in the USA thirty years ago. The members of this group, both past and present, are products of what can loosely be defined as "the heartland of America" --the Midwest, the South, the Plains States and, finally, the West. Though the media has permanently labeled us a "California band," we hail from almost every corner of this country and brought with us to California the regional, musical influences that touched our individual lives from infancy. The sum of the parts is an American sound. We're not a musical hybrid; we're a musical mutt--and mutts survive.

Now, some twenty-three years after "the Long Run," we are working on our first collection of new material since that album. We never thought this would be happening either, but it is. It's happening because you, to our eternal wonder and gratitude, will not let us go--and we, in turn, can't let go of you either--at least not yet. Hopefully, we'll know when it's time to make our exit and we will exit gracefully. Meantime, cynics and pundits will continue to break journalistic wind, but we love what we do and acutely aware that you are the one who make it possible to continue. Don't ever think we don't appreciate it. "Thank you' seems inadequate, but--thank you. Thank you very much.

Don Henley
Los Angeles
May, 2002