• Writer: Jack Tempchin
• Producer: Glyn Johns
• Recorded: February and March 1972 at Olympic Sound Studios in London
• Released: June 1st, 1972 (album), February 3rd, 1973 (single)
• Players:
  Glenn Frey — vocals, guitar
  Don Henley — drums, vocals
  Bernie Leadon — guitar, vocals
  Randy Meisner — bass, vocals
• Album: Eagles (Elektra/Asylum, 1972)
• Also On:
  Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 (Elektra/Asylum, 1976)
  The Selected Works 1972-1999 (Elektra/Asylum, 2000)
  The Very Best Of The Eagles (Rhino, 2003)
• The Eagles formed in 1971 in Los Angeles. Singer-drummer Don Henley and singer-guitarist Glenn Frey had been working in Linda Ronstadt‘s backing band, bassist Randy Meisner came from Poco, and guitarist Bernie Leadon was in the Flying Burrito Brothers.
• Before landing a recording contract, the group made a name for themselves by playing the various Sunset Strip clubs in Los Angeles.
• “Peaceful Easy Feeling” was written by Jack Tempchin, whom Frey befriended after they met at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.
• It sounded to some people like a slowed-up alternate version of Jackson Browne‘s “Take It Easy,” which was the Eagles’ first single, and helped to define not only the group’s sound but also the laid-back, acoustic-tinged L.A. rock scene.
• “Peaceful Easy Feeling” was the group’s third single and peaked at Number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
• The recording of their first album in England was fraught with arguments between the band and producer Glyn Johns. The group — particularly Frey and Henley — wanted more of a rock sound, while Johns wanted to play up the country element. Henley said, “The sound he was creating for us wasn’t powerful. Glyn had this image of us as a ballad group… He was a complete tyrant. We were really young and green and he just lorded it over us… And he had worked with all the heavies, so we couldn’t argue.”
• The cover of Eagles was shot at Joshua Tree National Park, and Leadon remembered that before the session, “We met at the Troubadour at one in the morning, just drank our faces off, all the pot and dope we could find, and we went out in my Toyota Jeep and somebody else’s car and drove off to Joshua Tree… We made a fire and a camp and began making peyote tea and trying to eat peyote without throwing up… Those pictures were pretty well stoned.”
• Eagles peaked at Number 22 on the Billboard 200 chart and has been certified platinum.

FAST FORWARD:

• Leadon left the Eagles in 1975, and Meisner left in 1978, at the conclusion of the Hotel California tour. Both felt slighted not to have been included in the group’s 1994 Hell Freezes Over reunion.
• The Eagles broke up when Frey quit in 1981.
• All of the members went on to solo careers, with Henley’s being the most successful.
• The Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
• The Eagles album Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, which includes “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” has been certified for sales of more than 29 million copies, making it the top-selling album in U.S. history, ahead of Michael Jackson‘s Thriller. Hotel California has been certified at 16 times platinum, making the Eagles the only act in history to have two albums topping 16 million shipments.
• Guitarist Don Felder was fired from the Eagles in early 2001.