Don Henley says lyrics to ‘Resort California’ and different Eagles songs have been at all times his sole property

NEW YORK (AP) — The lyrics to “Resort California” and different traditional Eagles songs ought to by no means have ended up at public sale, Don Henley advised a court docket Wednesday.

“I at all times knew these lyrics have been my property. I by no means gifted them or gave them to anyone to maintain or promote,” the Eagles co-founder stated on the final of three days of testimony on the trial of three collectibles experts charged with a scheme to hawk roughly 100 handwritten pages of the lyrics.

On trial are rare-book supplier Glenn Horowitz and rock memorabilia connoisseurs Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski. Prosecutors say the three circulated bogus tales concerning the paperwork’ possession historical past with a purpose to attempt to promote them and parry Henley’s calls for for them.

Kosinski, Inciardi and Horowitz have pleaded not responsible to costs that embrace conspiracy to criminally possess stolen property.

Protection legal professionals say the boys rightfully owned and have been free to promote the paperwork, which they acquired by way of a author who labored on a never-published Eagles biography many years in the past.

The lyrics sheets doc the shaping of a roster of Nineteen Seventies rock hits, lots of them from one of the best-selling albums of all time: the Eagles’ “Resort California.”

The case facilities on how the legal-pad pages made their approach from Henley’s Southern California barn to the biographer’s residence in New York’s Hudson Valley, after which to the defendants in New York Metropolis.

The protection argues that Henley gave the lyrics drafts to the author, Ed Sanders. Henley says that he invited Sanders to evaluate the pages for analysis however that the author was obligated to relinquish them.

In a collection of rapid-fire questions, prosecutor Aaron Ginandes requested Henley who owned the papers at each stage from when he purchased the pads at a Los Angeles stationery retailer to after they cropped up at auctions.

“I did,” Henley answered every time.

Sanders isn’t charged with any crime and hasn’t responded to messages looking for touch upon the case. He bought the pages to Horowitz. Inciardi and Kosinski purchased them from the guide supplier, then began placing some sheets up for public sale in 2012.

Whereas the trial is concerning the lyrics sheets, the destiny of one other set of pages — Sanders’ decades-old biography manuscript — has come up repeatedly as prosecutors and protection legal professionals examined his interactions with Henley, Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey and Eagles representatives.

Work on the licensed guide started in 1979 and spanned the band’s breakup the following yr. (The Eagles regrouped in 1994.)

Henley testified earlier this week that he was dissatisfied in an preliminary draft of 100 pages of the manuscript in 1980. Revisions apparently softened his view considerably.

By 1983, he wrote to Sanders that the most recent draft “flows properly and could be very humorous up till the top,” based on a letter proven in court docket Wednesday.

However the letter went on to muse about whether or not it is likely to be higher for Henley and Frey simply to “ship one another these bitter pages and let the guide finish on a barely gentler notice?”

“I ponder how these feedback will age,” Henley wrote. “Nonetheless, I feel the guide has benefit and needs to be printed.”

It by no means was. Eagles supervisor Irving Azoff testified final week that publishers made no provides, that the book never got the band’s OK and that he believed Frey finally nixed the venture. Frey died in 2016.

The trial is predicted to proceed for weeks with different witnesses.

Henley, in the meantime, is returning to the highway. The Eagles’ subsequent present is Friday in Hollywood, Florida.