Even the highest-soaring Eagles have their share of hardships - and on Feb. 6, 2001, tensions within the rock band of the same name came to a head when longtime guitarist Don Felder left the group.
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Felder, the band's guitarist from 1974 until their 1980 split, rejoined for the aptly-named Hell Freezes Over Tour in 1994. But after Felder was dismissed for undisclosed reasons, he took Don Henley and Glenn Frey to court, claiming the duo had tried to edge him out of royalties and other financial windfalls. "Despite each being a one-third owner of Eagles Ltd.," the suit stated, "Henley and Frey have consistently treated Felder as a subordinate, with complete disregard for his rights."
Henley and Frey in turn countersued Felder for breach of contract, noting that he was shopping a tell-all memoir. After some delays, that book, Heaven and Hell: My Life with the Eagles (1974-2001) arrived on shelves in 2007. By then, both suits had been settled out of court, but Felder didn't hold back in the pages to his book, derisively referring to the pair as "The Gods" throughout.
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Felder maintained close ties to fellow ex-band members including guitarist Bernie Leadon and founding bassist Randy Meisner. But he criticized the group's History of the Eagles documentary ("I thought a lot was omitted," he told Billboard) and later mourned his failure to reconcile with Frey before his passing in 2016.
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