Don Henley and the Eagles soar into Aloha Stadium

Eagles co-founder Don Henley almost lost a bit of musical history during last month’s California wildfires, which threatened a second home of his in Northern California.

“I almost lost all my vinyl,” said Henley in a phone call from his primary base in Dallas. “Miraculously, my place survived due to the heroic efforts of my caretaker, who lives on the property. All my neighbors’ houses are gone.”

Henley and his bandmates in the Eagles lost a far more valuable part of their history two years ago, when Eagles frontman Glenn Frey died after complications from surgery.

At the time, it seemed that would be the end of the road for the band, which epitomized American rock music in the 1970s and beyond. In August, the Eagles album “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)” was certified as the best-selling American album of all time.

Recent developments, however, have brought the Eagles back together, with Frey’s son Deacon and country music star Vince Gill joining in.

That is great news for Eagles fans: The band is back, all of its hits intact and played with the authentic energy.

“I was among those who didn’t think we would ever be able to perform again” after Frey’s death, Henley said. “But about a year or so went by, and we were mourning his loss appropriately, and then about a year and two months after he passed away, our manager came to me and said, ‘You know, there are still people that would still like to see this band continue.”

Henley’s manager suggested that Vince Gill, a giant in country music with 21 Grammy Awards to his credit, who also was a good friend of Frey’s, might work well with the band.

Henley said he knew that “on a technical level,” Gill would work well, but he was still dubious.

“I said, ‘Glenn’s spirit lives on in the songs. So if we continue, we need the blood. We are neither all spirit, nor all clay, we’re both,” Henley said, showing the poet’s sensibility that led to him and Frey being praised as “America’s Lennon-McCartney.”

“I said, ‘We need Glenn’s son Deacon in the band.’ I think that kind of shocked everybody, but I knew he could do it.”

In July, 2017, the Eagles, with Deacon in front, debuted at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

“I know Deacon was churning on the inside, but on the outside he was as cool as a cucumber,” Henley said.

“I know it was emotionally difficult for him the first few months, but he’s settled into the role quite nicely now, and people have embraced him.

“We’re still grateful the fans have embraced him, and they’ve embraced Vince.”

EAGLES FANS who make it to Aloha Stadium on Friday (the concert is nearly sold out) can expect a concert that lasts more than two hours, highlighting the band’s classic tunes from “Lyin’ Eyes,” to “Take It Easy,” “Best of My Love” to “Tequila Sunrise,” and of course “Hotel California.”

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, songs like those embodied the American soundscape, merging seamlessly into popular culture.

For Henley, the songs still ring with authenticity, and the performances are as good as ever, he said.

Both Gill and guitarist Joe Walsh show off their virtuoso talents.

“Joe does some of his solo material to showcase his guitar chops, which are still pretty amazing,” Henley said. “I think he’s one of the best guitar players in the world, highly underrated, in my opinion.

“Vince Gill is another. I didn’t quite realize it. I knew he had country chops, but the guy can play electric rock ’n’ roll guitar like crazy, and he loves it.

“The first day of rehearsal, I thought he was going to come in — I always thought of him as sort of an acoustic, bluegrass, country kind of guy — but he comes in with this huge amplifier, and these two giant speaker cabinets, and he just blows me off the stage.”

Fellow band members Bernie Leadon (guitars, banjo), bassists Randy Meisner, then Timothy B. Schmit (since 1977), and Walsh (since 1975) have contributed to songwriting and vocals in the years since the band first formed in 1971, but most Eagles hits emerged from the team of Henley and Glenn Frey.

Henley, while playing piano and guitar but focusing more on drums, was the main lyricist, a talent stemming from his studies as an English major in college. Frey, described by Henley as a “scholar of popular music,” handled much of the composing responsibilities.

Each drew on each other’s talents in both composing and wordsmithing, showing a disciplined work ethic that Henley said was derived from their blue-collar backgrounds: Henley grew up in Texas, the son of a car parts dealer, while Frey was the son of a machinist from Detroit.

“Every time we would start to write an album, we would rent a house and move in together. We were sort of like ‘The Odd Couple,’” Henley said with a laugh.

“Every day we would get up around 11 or noon, and have coffee and break out the legal pads and sit around a table with guitars and piano. And we would write until dinnertime, and then we’d go to maybe the Troubador or Dan Tana’s restaurant. And then we go home and do it again the next day.”

The result was a comfortable, laid-back style of music that would become known as “country rock.” It became associated with California, though only Schmit grew up there — the band was .

Without trying to be revolutionary, the band broke ground in a number of ways, blending rock guitar sounds with the storytelling sensibility of country and creating extended songs that broke the traditional barrier of about three minutes in length.

“Hotel California,” for example, is six minutes long, rambling about the “journey from innocence to experience.”

“Lyin’ Eyes” is a four-minute-plus song about a young woman marrying old money and bearing the consequences.

“There are several stories involved in that song. That’s an amalgam of people that Glenn knew and that I knew,” Henley said. “It’s an old story, really. That’s a story that’s true in romance and in politics. There’s that old saying, ‘Follow the money.’”

AS THE Eagles have broken up and reunited several times over the decades, Henley has also experienced success as a solo artist, with hits like “The Boys of Summer,” “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” and “Leather and Lace” with Stevie Nicks.

He’s also become involved in environmental issues, forming a nonprofit to protect Walden Woods, the area that inspired Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.”

For the moment, though, Henley is happy to be playing the songs that mean so much to him and to his fans, though he said it is “bittersweet” to perform without Frey.

Now 71, Henley does what he can to preserve his voice, communicating by email much of the time between concerts, though his voice over the phone boomed with no sign of weakness.

He has repetitive stress in his hands from drumming, he said, and he expects to eventually stop performing entirely, though he has not set a firm date.

“It’s really not about us now; it’s the songs, it’s about the catalogue,” Henley said. “We’re just the vehicle, the delivery system.

“The songs have a life of their own, and in crazy, uncertain times like these, I think people need something that is familiar and takes them back to perhaps a better time. It comes home to me every night after we do a show, how fortunate we are.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald said, ‘There are no second acts in American lives.’ Well, we’ve had not only a second act but a third act. So we’re grateful.”