Overview
The Long Run is the sixth studio album by American rock group the Eagles. It was released in 1979, on Asylum in the United States and the United Kingdom. This was the first Eagles album to feature Timothy B. Schmit, who had replaced founding member Randy Meisner, and the last full studio album to feature Don Felder before his termination from the band in 2001.
This was the band's final studio album for Asylum Records. It also turned out to be their last studio album as the Eagles disbanded in 1980 until 2007's Long Road Out of Eden after the band had reformed in 1994.
Three singles were released from the album, "Heartache Tonight", "The Long Run", and "I Can't Tell You Why". "Heartache Tonight" reached No. 1 on the singles chart and won a Grammy Award. The album was certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA and has sold more than eight million copies in the US.
Background
The album was originally intended to be a double album. The band could not come up with enough songs and the idea was therefore scrapped. The recording was protracted; they started recording in 1978, and the album took 18 months to record in five different studios, with the album finally released in September 1979. According to Don Henley, the band members were "completely burned out" and "physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively exhausted" from a long tour when they started recording the album, and they had few songs. However, they managed to put together ten songs for the album, with contribution from their friends J. D. Souther and Bob Seger who co-wrote with Frey and Henley on "Heartache Tonight". (Souther also got songwriting credit on "Teenage Jail" and "The Sad Cafe".)
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).