Eagles Postpone Kennedy Center Honors Due to Glenn Frey’s Surgery
The Eagles have postponed their appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors, scheduled for December 6th, after Glenn Frey was forced to miss the ceremony due to health issues. In a statement, the band announced that the guitarist “has had a recurrence of previous intestinal issues, which will require major surgery and a lengthy recovery period.” Instead of being feted at the 2015 ceremony, the Eagles’ Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh will instead receive the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016, Billboard reports.
This year’s class of Kennedy Center Honorees, which celebrates artists whose “impact and genius” have left reverberations in American culture, includes singer-songwriter Carole King, Star Wars mastermind George Lucas, actresses Cicely Tyson and Rita Moreno and classical conductor Seiji Ozawa. The ceremony will take place at the Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 6th, with its television broadcast scheduled for December 29th on CBS.
“We are deeply grateful to have been named a Kennedy Center honoree,” the Eagles said in June in a collective statement. “The members of the Eagles hail from different regions of this great nation, and we feel very fortunate that our music has been embraced by people from all walks of life, all over the world. Popular music is one of America’s greatest exports – a bridge that spans geographical and cultural boundaries. We are truly humbled to have been able to be a part of this global connection.”
In December 2014, Sting, Al Green and Tom Hanks were named as Kennedy Center Honors recipients. Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars performed Sting’s songs at the event, while Usher, Jennifer Hudson and Mavis Staples paid tribute to Green.