Handwritten lyrics to “Hotel California” at the center of the lawsuit
The lyrics to “Hotel California” and other classic Eagles songs should never have been auctioned, Don Henley said in court Wednesday.
“I always knew these lyrics were mine. I never gave them as gifts or gave them to anyone to keep or sell,” the Eagles co-founder said on the last of three days of testimony in the trial of three collectibles experts accused of a scheme to sell about 100 handwritten pages of song lyrics.
The rarities dealer Glenn Horowitz and the rock memorabilia connoisseurs Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski are on trial. Prosecutors allege the three spread false stories about the documents' ownership history to try to sell them and stave off Henley's demands for them.
Musician Don Henley (left) arrives in court in New York on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Seth Wenig / AP
Kosinski, Inciardi and Horowitz have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit criminal possession of stolen property.
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Defense attorneys say the men legally owned and were free to sell the documents they acquired through an author who worked on a never-published Eagles biography decades ago.
The lyric sheets document the creation of a number of 1970s rock hits, many of them from one of the best-selling albums of all time: The Eagles' “Hotel California.”
“CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King asked Henley in 2016 about the meaning of “Hotel California.”
“Well, I always say it’s a journey from innocence to experience. It's not really about California; it’s about America,” Henley said. “It's about the dark underbelly of the American dream. It's about excess, it's about narcissism. It's about the music business. It's about many different things. … There can be a million interpretations.”
The case revolves around how the notebook pages made their way from Henley's Southern California barn to the biographer's home in New York's Hudson Valley and then to the defendants in New York City.
The defense argues that Henley gave the draft text to author Ed Sanders. Henley says he invited Sanders to review the pages for research purposes, but the author was obliged to return them.
In a series of snap questions, prosecutor Aaron Ginandes asked Henley who owned the papers at every stage, from the time the pads were purchased at a Los Angeles stationery store to the time they appeared at auction.
“I did,” Henley replied each time.
Sanders is not accused of a crime and has not responded to messages seeking comment on the case. He sold the pages to Horowitz. Inciardi and Kosinski bought them from the bookseller and then began offering some of the sheets for auction in 2012.
“I wonder how these comments will age”
While the trial revolves around the song's lyrics, the fate of another set of pages – Sanders' decades-old manuscript of his biography – has been raised repeatedly as prosecutors and defense attorneys examine his interactions with Henley, Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey and Eagles officials.
Work on the authorized book began in 1979 and extended beyond the band's dissolution the next year. (The Eagles reformed in 1994.)
Henley testified earlier this week that he was disappointed with a 100-page first draft of the manuscript from 1980. Revisions apparently softened his opinion somewhat.
In 1983, he wrote to Sanders that the most recent draft “flows well and is very humorous to the end,” according to a letter submitted to the court Wednesday.
But the letter went on to ponder whether it wouldn't be better for Henley and Frey to “send these bitter pages to each other and let the book end on a somewhat gentler note”?
“I wonder how these comments will age,” Henley wrote. “Still, I think the book has merit and should be published.”
It never was. Eagles manager Irving Azoff testified last week that publishers made no offers, that the book never received the band's approval and that he believed Frey ultimately failed the project. Frey died in 2016.
The defense has also questioned how clearly Henley remembers everything he told Sanders during the book project, which spanned a tumultuous and fast-paced period for Henley.
When the Eagles first broke up in 1980, Henley was arrested that same year after authorities said they found a 16-year-old girl naked and suffering from a drug overdose at his Los Angeles home. He was sentenced to probation and fined $2,500 after pleading no contest to the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Asked if he had consumed “significant amounts of cocaine” before his arrest, Henley replied: “Significant?”
“You know, 'Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll' is not a revelation,” he said.
He said he used cocaine “intermittently” in the 1970s but was always lucid during performances and business.
“If I was some kind of drug-addicted zombie, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish everything I did before 1980 and after 1980,” Henley said.
In his 2016 interview with Gayle King, Henley said the band actually lived a “life in the fast lane” in the 1970s.
“Yeah… Everyone did it. It was the ’70s,” Henley said. “It was what everyone did, which doesn’t necessarily make it right. And you know, looking back, there are some regrets about it. We probably could have been more productive…although, considering we were pretty productive.”
The trial is expected to continue for weeks with additional witnesses.
Meanwhile, Henley returns to the streets. The Eagles' next show is Friday in Hollywood, Florida.
Don Felder performs “Hotel California” at the Met