Founding member of the rock band Eagles, Randy Meisner, has died at the age of 77 following complications from lung disease.
Meisner sang lead on the band's 1975 hit 'Take It Easy' and featured on tracks such as Hotel California and Take It to the Limit.
He left the band at the height of its popularity in 1977, following a physical confrontation with other band members backstage due to Meisner's reluctance to perform Take It to the Limit during an encore due to illness.He left the band at the height of its popularity in 1977, following a physical confrontation with other band members backstage due to Meisner's reluctance to perform Take It to the Limit during an encore due to illness.
“I liked to be out of the spotlight,” Meisner said, according to Rolling Stone. “One night in Knoxville, I stayed up late and got the flu. We did two or three encores and Glenn wanted another one. I told them I couldn’t do it, and we got into a spat. That was the end.”
This came shortly after the Hotel California album and single by the same name became huge hits, but he was inducted along with all seven of The Eagles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Years later, Meisner told Rolling Stone he had asked to sit in with the band for a show in Los Angeles but was denied.
“I thought it would be nice to sit in with Timothy B Schmit and sing Take It to the Limit, but they pretty much gave me a ‘no’ in a round-about way. I can’t blame them. They have to keep their band the way it is,” Meisner said.
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Meisner was born on March 8 1946, in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska and developed an interest in guitar after seeing Elvis Presley perform on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956.
Meisner, a bass player, joined Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Bernie Leadon in forming the original Eagles lineup in 1971, performing on classic albums such as Eagles, Desperado, On the Border, One of These Nights and Hotel California.
“The whole thing started to end when we started taking separate limos,” Meisner told Rolling Stone magazine.
Internal strife over the musical direction of the band led guitarist Leadon to quit the band in 1975, when he was replaced by Joe Walsh, and Meisner quit two years later, replaced by Timothy B Schmit.
