This inclusion to our “Milestones” might surprise you a little bit because not only is it an album by The Eagles, which is not a band that I normally speak of here, but it’s also a greatest hits compilation release. With the passing of the bands founding guitarist Glenn Frey last month I think that it’s great to raise a glass of whatever in the honor of this great compilation. On this day in music history some forty years ago, the music buying world saw copies of “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) by The Eagles on the shelves. The album came care of Asylum Records and the text below comes from the albums official Wiki entry to quickly fill you all in on this one.

“Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) comprises nine singles released between 1972 and 1975, plus the album track “Desperado.” All of these singles except “Tequila Sunrise” charted in the top 40, with five in the top ten, and “One of These Nights” and “Best of My Love” both topping the singles chart. With such airplay success in the span of a little over four years, the band became a formidable presence on American commercial radio in the 1970s, and Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 album chart upon its release and later reached number one”.

Personally speaking I have very fond memories of this album and it’s all thanks to my Mom who owned a copy and played it over and over when I was growing up. Considering I was not quite eleven years old at the time of this release I didn’t have much control over the family record player but I didn’t mind since I really loved listening to this album whenever the folks played it. Eventually I would learn how to work the player and begin using the allowance for my own albums and would continue to play this one since I was blown away by its smooth rock catchiness. What’s interesting to me about this one when I think back on it is how all of these great songs come from a short span of only five years and yet now at forty years after they were collected are still fantastic numbers. To this day my favorites still remain with “Take It Easy”, “Lyin’ Eyes” and “Take It To The Limit” if I had to select only three from the ten offered up tracks. The Eagles back during this time were Glenn Frey (guitar), Don Henley (drums), Bernie Leadon (guitar), Don Felder (guitar) and Randy Meisner (bass). All members did vocals while some also added mandolin and pedal steel to their duties in the band. In today’s music world The Eagles are Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy Schmit along with other hired musical guns for the tours and albums. I never got to see them in concert over the years and the time to do it would have been during those “Hell Freezes Over” tours but that stuff was super priced but I digress. That tour was not The Eagles that made this particular collection so special.

Some of you might recall the episode of Seinfeld “The Checks” where Elaine’s boyfriend was hypnotized by the song “Desperado” and would ask her to be quiet while it played. The song originally appeared on their 1973 album of the same name but thanks to this compilation would be the first time some of us got to hear it. Of course, the same can be said for this episode of Seinfeld. Elaine tried to counter the boyfriend by doing the same thing with the song “Witchy Woman” which is also on this historic collection. Below is the original track list from the vinyl. Which were your favorites? Let me know in the comments section below.

Track Listing:
1. Take It Easy
2. Witchy Woman
3. Lyin’ Eyes
4. Already Gone
5. Desperado
6. One Of These Nights
7. Tequila Sunrise
8. Take It To The Limit
9. Peaceful Easy Feeling
10. Best Of My Love

You can keep up with The Eagles and their current activity via their official website and learn some finer points about this release from its official Wikipedia entry on the links that I have placed below for your edification and oh yeah before I forget. I STILL have that album that I mentioned a little while earlier and have placed a photo of it here as well. It’s a little worse for wear at this point but it is 40 years old today and was played ALL THE TIME as I also said. Thanks for the music and this super special collection.

Official Website: http://www.eagles.com
Official Album Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Greatest_Hits_%281971%E2%80%931975%29