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NEW YORK – Sitting on the witness stand in a courtroom, Don Henley opened a large brown envelope Tuesday and flipped through the old yellow pages of a legal pad.
“Well, it has two song titles written at the top,” he explained when asked what was on it. “’After the Thrill is Gone’ and ‘One of These Nights’.”
Then came another envelope and a pad, and another, and one more. They carried drafts of 1970s lyrics from two other Eagles hits, “The Long Run” and “The Sad Cafe.” The four pads were written in what Henley identified as his and occasionally the band’s co-founder Glenn Frey’s handwriting.
It was the first look in court at some of the physical pages at the center of a trial involving Henley’s decade-long effort to recover handwritten drafts of song lyrics, including the mega-hit “Hotel California.”
After spending Monday speaking in court in New York on topics ranging from the Eagles’ songwriting to his past personal problems, the Eagles co-founder was subjected to further questioning Tuesday by attorneys for three collectibles experts who are in court.
Henley was asked about the writing of “Hotel California” and how for decades he didn’t notice the handwritten pages were missing. He was also asked about his past cocaine use (he replied that he was not a “drug-filled zombie”) and even about a $96 limousine bill from 1973.
He continued to insist that he never voluntarily parted with handwritten sheets of work, including the Eagles’ 1976 release, “Hotel California,” the third-best-selling album in U.S. history.
“I thought my property had been stolen,” Henley said.
The album produced one of rock’s most enduring hits, the song “Hotel California,” credited to Frey, Henley and guitarist Don Felder. Henley recalled that Felder provided a “very basic” tape of guitar chords and drum machine rhythm. Frey and Henley worked from that to create the lyrics, and three guitarists (four, if you count bass) contributed to the recording, Henley said.
A prosecutor objected that the questions were not relevant, but Judge Curtis Farber allowed them to continue.
“I don’t know the relevance, but it is interesting,” said the judge, causing laughter from the audience in the courtroom. Farber will decide the verdict, as the defendants chose not to have a jury.
The defendants, Edward Kosinski, Craig Inciardi and Glenn Horowitz, are accused of conspiring to conceal disputed ownership of the lyrics pages and sell them despite knowing that Henley claimed they had no rights. The defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property.
They are not accused of stealing the approximately 100 sheets of notebook paper. Horowitz bought them in 2005 from writer Ed Sanders, who had worked with the Eagles decades earlier on a biography of the band that was never published. Horowitz later sold the documents to Inciardi and Kosinski, who then began auctioning off pages in 2012.
Sanders is not charged with any crime. He has not responded to messages about the case.
Henley again purchased four pages of lyrics from the song “Hotel California” by Kosinski and Inciardi in 2012. He also went to authorities at that time, and again when more pages turned up, some from the hit “Life in the Fast Lane,” On sale in 2014 and 2016.
At trial, Henley testified that Sanders was allowed to see the pages and nothing else.
Henley said Monday that he did not give permission for the drafts of the “very personal and very private” lyrics to be removed from his property in Malibu, California, although he acknowledged that he did not remember all of his conversations with the writer in the late years. 1970s and early 1980s.
In a tape of a 1980 phone call played in court, Henley said he would “try to research” drafts of his lyrics to help Sanders’ book.
But Henley said Tuesday that “there is no tape or document anywhere where it says, ‘Mr. Sanders, you are free to keep these items in perpetuity and you are free to sell them.’”
Sanders’ 1979 book contract with the Eagles said the material they provided him was his property. Defense attorneys have suggested that Henley is pursuing a criminal charge based on a clause in a contract that they say Kosinski, Inciardi and Horowitz did not know about.
“The idea that the items were stolen from your barn was perhaps an exaggeration, is it fair to say?” Defense attorney Stacey Richman asked Henley. He replied that he didn’t know.
The defense has also tried to show that the Eagles provided Sanders with plenty of inside material. Attorney Jonathan Bach noted that the caretaker of Henley’s property sent him a box; Its contents were not listed.
Attorney Scott Edelman pointed to the 1973 car service receipt, which authorities said they found when they searched Sanders’ home. According to testimony, someone wrote “Don Henley’s offensive limo bill” on the receipt, and Henley filled the margins with handwritten comments that were not read aloud in court.
The defense has also questioned how clearly the rock star remembers everything he said to Sanders during the book project, which spanned a tumultuous, fast-paced time for Henley.
The Eagles broke up in 1980 and Henley was arrested that year after authorities said they found a 16-year-old girl naked and suffering from a drug overdose in his Los Angeles home. He was sentenced to probation and a $2,500 fine after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
He wrote to a probation officer that “my environment has led me to accept drugs as a part of everyday life” and that cocaine had strengthened his courage “to write songs and publicly expose my most intimate feelings and emotions,” according to a letter. presented in court. In the undated letter, he said he was quitting drugs.
When asked if he had been using “a significant amount of cocaine” before his arrest, Henley responded: “Significant?”
“You know, ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ are not revealing,” he said, his voice growing hoarse as the testimony progressed. At one point, prosecutors gave him a throat lozenge.
He said he used cocaine “on and off” during the 1970s, but was always lucid when acting or doing business.
“If I were some kind of drug-fueled zombie, I couldn’t have accomplished everything I accomplished before 1980 and after 1980,” Henley said.