“I’m losing my voice,” Don Henley said in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday. No surprise: The 76-year-old leader of the Eagles was wrapping up his third day of testimony in a case involving allegedly stolen pads containing developmental lyrics for Eagles songs.
After being handed a lozenge by one of the prosecutors in the case, Henley resumed answering questions about the pads, a 1979 contract between the band and writer Ed Sanders (who was writing an authorized biography of the group), and other matters from his past. In the case, in which three men are charged with criminal possession of stolen property (the pads containing hand-written lyrics by Henley to Eagles songs), Henley was the third witness — following Eagles manager Irving Azoff and a former Christie’s manuscripts executive whose company was offered some of the pages for auction but opted against the sale.
The first day of Henley’s testimony included his recounting of an 1980 incident involving a woman identified as an underage sex worker at his home, as well as his account of the band’s arrangement with writer Ed Sanders, who had the lyric pads in his possession for over 30 years (and sold them to Horowitz in 2005). Although many bases had been covered that day, there was still plenty of ground to cover, as the subsequent two days demonstrated.
What did everyone know about a crucial contract, and when did they know it?
Attorneys for the defendants — rare-books dealer Glenn Horowitz, rock memorabilia businessman Edward Koskinski, and former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi — repeatedly circled back to the Eagles’ original 1979 paperwork with Sanders, which set up the terms for the authorized biography. Signed by all parties, it stipulated that all “materials” supplied to him for his research remained the property of the band, which, in the eyes of Henley and his team, meant he had no right to sell them. “There is no tape or document anywhere where I say, ‘Mr. Sanders, you’re free to keep these items in perpetuity, and you’re free to sell them,’” Henley testified on Wednesday. Later he added, “I had a common-sense understanding that he [Sanders] would return the material when he was done with it.”
The first batch of lyrics appeared at an auction house, Kosinski’s Gotta Have Rock and Roll, in 2012. Lawyers for the defendants tried to hammer home the idea that none of their clients were, at the time, told about the contract or given a copy of it. The same, they brought up, with Sotheby’s, which was planning to auction some of those papers. This argument is one of the grounds for the defendants’ case: They were unaware the paperwork and the pads weren’t technically stolen since they were given to Sanders for his project.
One of the first police reports claimed the pads had been burglarized from Henley’s barn in Malibu, California. Given it was established that at least one package of research materials was mailed to Sanders at his home in Woodstock, New York, Inciardi’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, asked Henley, “The idea that the items were stolen from your barn was perhaps an overstatement, fair to say?”
Kosinski’s lawyer Scott Edelman asked Henley if he knew the location of the original copy of the contract: “In whose file would it have been for 30 years? Did you ever look?” In both cases Henley said he didn’t know.
Thomas Jirgal, one of Henley’s lawyers, testified about that he hadn’t sent a copy of the contract to Sotheby’s once the auction house had been contacted about the allegedly stolen pads. Jirgal asserted attorney-client privilege numerous times, but did say that Sotheby’s didn’t request a copy of the contract either. A testy moment came when Horowitz attorney Jonathan Bach asked Jirgal if he’d reached out to his client. Jirgal didn’t remember, leading Bach to exclaim, “You had a phone, sir? You had email, sir?”
Some of the much-discussed yellow note pads finally emerge
During questioning, Henley was handed several manila envelopes and asked to open each and identity their contents. Pulling out pads, he began rattling off the names of drafts of songs, from “After the Thrill Is Gone” to several songs from The Long Run (the title track and “Sad Café”). Unfortunately, the papers weren’t held up for all in the courtroom to see, making the moment less dramatic than it could have been.
More details about Sanders’ unpublished book dribble out
In an earlier presentation of evidence, a letter from Henley to Sanders was displayed; sent in the Eighties, it included Henley’s largely positive words about the work Sanders had done and how it was a publishable product. As part of the follow-up questioning, another part of the letter was discussed, this time about the ending of the book.
The Eagles broke up in 1980 while Sanders was writing and reporting his work, and details of that collapse, which apparently included testy comments from band members, was included in Sanders’ draft. In the letter to Sanders, Henley wondered if the book would end with that portion or if they should “let the book end on a slightly gentler note?” (The Eagles had final say on the book’s contents.) As Henley wrote, “I wonder how those comments will age.” It’s unclear how the final draft of the book wrapped up.
Frank Ocean cameo!
To demonstrate Henley’s inclination towards legal action whenever he felt his creations, intellectual property, or likeness were infringed upon, lawyers for the defendants brought up several past cases. One was Henley’s 2014 lawsuit against the clothing maker Duluth Trading Co., makers of the Henley shirt. In court, Henley clarified that the suit was the result of advertising copy for the product. (Although the musician didn’t state it in court, he referred to marketing text that read: “Don a Henley and Take It Easy.”)
Henley was also asked about the time the band theatened legal action in 2014 against Frank Ocean, who incorporated the melody of “Hotel California” into “American Wedding” from Nostalgia, Ultra, without securing permission. “I think we talked some sense into him,” Henley said. “He’d written new lyrics over the top of the melody. You can’t do that.”
When Richman asked about Azoff’s role in protecting the group and its brand, Henley seemed genuinely bemused. “Are we a brand? Campbell’s Soup is a brand.”
The infamous Eagles after-show parties made a cameo too
Under cross examination from Richman, Henley was asked about the Eagles’ reported, long-ago habit of distributing passes to “good-looking women,” in Richman’s phrase, for after-show parties. (Former Eagle Don Felder described those supposedly hedonistic bashes, called E3, in his memoir Heaven and Hell.)
Asked if the story was true, Henley chortled, “No, but that’s a good idea!” The crack resulted in the loudest laughs of the trial to date.
The infamous 1980 incident at Henley’s home returned
Within his first hour of questioning on Monday, Henley was asked about the infamous incident in 1980, when a sex worker (who turned out to be 16, something Henley said he did not know at the time) went into a seizure at his home. Both were eventually arrested for drugs, and Henley pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and served two years’ probation.
Asked by Edelman whether Henley knew the girl’s age, Henley replied, “It never occurred to me that she was underage. I don’t ask for ID when they come to my house.” That response prompted Edelman to retort, “Do sex workers come to your house often?” Replied Henley, “It was just a general statement.”
Henley was also grilled on his drug use at the time and whether it could be deemed significant. “Significant?” Henley replied. “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll is not regulatory. We used cocaine throughout the Seventies … If I was some kind of a drug-fueled zombie, I couldn’t have accomplished everything I’d accomplished.” When asked if he continued to use cocaine after the 1980 incident, Henley said, “I used it less and eventually stopped.”
More moments of levity!
During a conversation about the recording of “Hotel California,” Henley was asked by defense lawyers about the number of guitars used on the song, apparently as a way to further demonstrate the involvement of Felder, who also co-wrote the song with Henley and Frey. When Henley said there were four, including a bass, Judge Farber said, “I don’t know how relevant it is, but it’s interesting.”
When the first batch of lyric pads appeared on Kosinski’s Gotta Have Rock and Roll memorabilia site in 2012, the Eagles were on tour. “Let’s go back to South Africa,” lawyer Bach announced. “I’d rather not,” Henley retorted.
Assistant District Attorney Aaron Ginandes concluded his initial questioning of Henley by asking him about the ownership of the pads, from the time he bought them in a stationery store to the current day. Each day, Henley answered, “I did.” On the way out of the courtroom for the last time, he walked past the table where the defendants sat and gave the slightest of disapproving nods.
“I’m losing my voice,” Don Henley said in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday. No surprise: The 76-year-old leader of the Eagles was wrapping up his third day of testimony in a case involving allegedly stolen pads containing developmental lyrics for Eagles songs.
After being handed a lozenge by one of the prosecutors in the case, Henley resumed answering questions about the pads, a 1979 contract between the band and writer Ed Sanders (who was writing an authorized biography of the group), and other matters from his past. In the case, in which three men are charged with criminal possession of stolen property (the pads containing hand-written lyrics by Henley to Eagles songs), Henley was the third witness — following Eagles manager Irving Azoff and a former Christie’s manuscripts executive whose company was offered some of the pages for auction but opted against the sale.
The first day of Henley’s testimony included his recounting of an 1980 incident involving a woman identified as an underage sex worker at his home, as well as his account of the band’s arrangement with writer Ed Sanders, who had the lyric pads in his possession for over 30 years (and sold them to Horowitz in 2005). Although many bases had been covered that day, there was still plenty of ground to cover, as the subsequent two days demonstrated.
What did everyone know about a crucial contract, and when did they know it?
Attorneys for the defendants — rare-books dealer Glenn Horowitz, rock memorabilia businessman Edward Koskinski, and former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi — repeatedly circled back to the Eagles’ original 1979 paperwork with Sanders, which set up the terms for the authorized biography. Signed by all parties, it stipulated that all “materials” supplied to him for his research remained the property of the band, which, in the eyes of Henley and his team, meant he had no right to sell them. “There is no tape or document anywhere where I say, ‘Mr. Sanders, you’re free to keep these items in perpetuity, and you’re free to sell them,’” Henley testified on Wednesday. Later he added, “I had a common-sense understanding that he [Sanders] would return the material when he was done with it.”
The first batch of lyrics appeared at an auction house, Kosinski’s Gotta Have Rock and Roll, in 2012. Lawyers for the defendants tried to hammer home the idea that none of their clients were, at the time, told about the contract or given a copy of it. The same, they brought up, with Sotheby’s, which was planning to auction some of those papers. This argument is one of the grounds for the defendants’ case: They were unaware the paperwork and the pads weren’t technically stolen since they were given to Sanders for his project.
One of the first police reports claimed the pads had been burglarized from Henley’s barn in Malibu, California. Given it was established that at least one package of research materials was mailed to Sanders at his home in Woodstock, New York, Inciardi’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, asked Henley, “The idea that the items were stolen from your barn was perhaps an overstatement, fair to say?”
Kosinski’s lawyer Scott Edelman asked Henley if he knew the location of the original copy of the contract: “In whose file would it have been for 30 years? Did you ever look?” In both cases Henley said he didn’t know.
Thomas Jirgal, one of Henley’s lawyers, testified about that he hadn’t sent a copy of the contract to Sotheby’s once the auction house had been contacted about the allegedly stolen pads. Jirgal asserted attorney-client privilege numerous times, but did say that Sotheby’s didn’t request a copy of the contract either. A testy moment came when Horowitz attorney Jonathan Bach asked Jirgal if he’d reached out to his client. Jirgal didn’t remember, leading Bach to exclaim, “You had a phone, sir? You had email, sir?”
Some of the much-discussed yellow note pads finally emerge
During questioning, Henley was handed several manila envelopes and asked to open each and identity their contents. Pulling out pads, he began rattling off the names of drafts of songs, from “After the Thrill Is Gone” to several songs from The Long Run (the title track and “Sad Café”). Unfortunately, the papers weren’t held up for all in the courtroom to see, making the moment less dramatic than it could have been.
More details about Sanders’ unpublished book dribble out
In an earlier presentation of evidence, a letter from Henley to Sanders was displayed; sent in the Eighties, it included Henley’s largely positive words about the work Sanders had done and how it was a publishable product. As part of the follow-up questioning, another part of the letter was discussed, this time about the ending of the book.
The Eagles broke up in 1980 while Sanders was writing and reporting his work, and details of that collapse, which apparently included testy comments from band members, was included in Sanders’ draft. In the letter to Sanders, Henley wondered if the book would end with that portion or if they should “let the book end on a slightly gentler note?” (The Eagles had final say on the book’s contents.) As Henley wrote, “I wonder how those comments will age.” It’s unclear how the final draft of the book wrapped up.
Frank Ocean cameo!
To demonstrate Henley’s inclination towards legal action whenever he felt his creations, intellectual property, or likeness were infringed upon, lawyers for the defendants brought up several past cases. One was Henley’s 2014 lawsuit against the clothing maker Duluth Trading Co., makers of the Henley shirt. In court, Henley clarified that the suit was the result of advertising copy for the product. (Although the musician didn’t state it in court, he referred to marketing text that read: “Don a Henley and Take It Easy.”)
Henley was also asked about the time the band theatened legal action in 2014 against Frank Ocean, who incorporated the melody of “Hotel California” into “American Wedding” from Nostalgia, Ultra, without securing permission. “I think we talked some sense into him,” Henley said. “He’d written new lyrics over the top of the melody. You can’t do that.”
When Richman asked about Azoff’s role in protecting the group and its brand, Henley seemed genuinely bemused. “Are we a brand? Campbell’s Soup is a brand.”
The infamous Eagles after-show parties made a cameo too
Under cross examination from Richman, Henley was asked about the Eagles’ reported, long-ago habit of distributing passes to “good-looking women,” in Richman’s phrase, for after-show parties. (Former Eagle Don Felder described those supposedly hedonistic bashes, called E3, in his memoir Heaven and Hell.)
Asked if the story was true, Henley chortled, “No, but that’s a good idea!” The crack resulted in the loudest laughs of the trial to date.
The infamous 1980 incident at Henley’s home returned
Within his first hour of questioning on Monday, Henley was asked about the infamous incident in 1980, when a sex worker (who turned out to be 16, something Henley said he did not know at the time) went into a seizure at his home. Both were eventually arrested for drugs, and Henley pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and served two years’ probation.
Asked by Edelman whether Henley knew the girl’s age, Henley replied, “It never occurred to me that she was underage. I don’t ask for ID when they come to my house.” That response prompted Edelman to retort, “Do sex workers come to your house often?” Replied Henley, “It was just a general statement.”
Henley was also grilled on his drug use at the time and whether it could be deemed significant. “Significant?” Henley replied. “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll is not regulatory. We used cocaine throughout the Seventies … If I was some kind of a drug-fueled zombie, I couldn’t have accomplished everything I’d accomplished.” When asked if he continued to use cocaine after the 1980 incident, Henley said, “I used it less and eventually stopped.”
More moments of levity!
During a conversation about the recording of “Hotel California,” Henley was asked by defense lawyers about the number of guitars used on the song, apparently as a way to further demonstrate the involvement of Felder, who also co-wrote the song with Henley and Frey. When Henley said there were four, including a bass, Judge Farber said, “I don’t know how relevant it is, but it’s interesting.”
When the first batch of lyric pads appeared on Kosinski’s Gotta Have Rock and Roll memorabilia site in 2012, the Eagles were on tour. “Let’s go back to South Africa,” lawyer Bach announced. “I’d rather not,” Henley retorted.
Assistant District Attorney Aaron Ginandes concluded his initial questioning of Henley by asking him about the ownership of the pads, from the time he bought them in a stationery store to the current day. Each day, Henley answered, “I did.” On the way out of the courtroom for the last time, he walked past the table where the defendants sat and gave the slightest of disapproving nods.