Don Felder and the Eagles

This is a fascinating thread. I mean that sincerely.

Having perused a number of Eagles threads, I can't escape the sense that some posters go out of their way to minimize the contributions of Henley and Frey. This is somewhat understandable, given that there is ample evidence to suggest that neither one has been that easy to like.

Regardless of what you think of the individual members, to me it's a clear case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. And I would consider J.D. Souther to be one of those parts, even if he was not an official member.

 

I'm not crediting Felder with anything on Best Of My Love. I am trying to establish "state of the band" at the time he had joined. Best Of My Love apparently was recorded and in the can before Felder was there. At the time it was unreleased and I don't think the band was thinking "Hey we've got a #1 here" since it was only released as the third single.

It's ironic because they stopped working with Glyn Johns because he kept pushing them in a "Best Of My Love" direction which they felt was a pigeonhole. Yes, they had single success, but this is the era of Led Zeppelin, Yes, you have it. Neil Young's height, Neil could be plenty melodic, but even he had only a few hit singles. Heart Of Gold did go #1.

Yes, Best Of My Love hit #1, but they never went back and used Glyn Johns again regardless. Eagles continued to push for a more guitar oriented sound. If I'm making a wall chart of the Eagles' success, Felder era starts before release of On The Border, so every rise after that is part of his era with the band, whether he contributed equally to all of the hits or not. When he joined I think they were a decent mid-level band, but clearly had concerns about their rep. It's why Felder was brought in as a full member.

 

This post I did has a interview with Felder
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/posts/13683243/
apparently we will have to steal Don's wife's phone to hear that demo. It may now be property of Eagles, Inc. or Ltd. or W.E.T.F., so we will never hear it otherwise.

 

actually it is isn't it...

 

sadly some people think it is, they are about as devoid of humour as Don a Henley ( allegedly )

 

thankfully probably not lol

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was on Already Gone that Felder first made an impact with his guitarwork. I seem to recall reading some comments by Frey that the band knew they wanted a bit more of a harder rocking edge and that they knew from that song that Felder was their guy.

 

if wiki says it it must be true, Henley also says he wrote the melody, clearly the melody is not regarded as part of the music so it must be part of the lyrics then.

Yes i am reading that the Eagles had some order to the songwriting credits, however i see no contradiction in putting Felder first regardless of contribution since he brought it first to the table and everything hangs off of his contribution. Nobody can argue about that.

 

A little Arab too maybe?

 

In the music industry you want to be part of the touring band making money or one of the credited singer-songwriters so I'm sure J. D. Souther doesn't much care if he is an official Eagle or not when the postman rings his door with his final accounting of the royalty check from the publisher.

 

Phew, at last a point of agreement!

 

Frey was kicked out of our family for trying to eat too much cake at the parties...

 

you missed the line
"in some cases"

sometimes handed the riffs makes things easy

according to the documentary
Leadon gave Don Witchy Woman and he came back with the lyrics the next day

 

Glen is a reliable source
he diminishes plenty of people's contributions

 

... But no more than the 50% that he owned.

 

Don and Glen would have never come up with Victim of Love if it weren't for Felder's punchy guitar part

it merges beautifully with Henley's forceful vocals (just as critical as the guitar part)

that's where Felder failed to realize it

 

Yeah, but when he jacked it up to 70% without telling us, we had to act.

 

BTW, what's the best turntable to listen to Don Felder's guitar solos on?

 

You can't blame him either. Felder was a ripper with a nice thick tone. They wanted 3rd guitarist to round out the sound and Felder was a talented, hungry guy who was also friends with Leadon. It must have seemed like a no-brainer to offer him a slot in the band.

 

You mean like you diminishes Glenn's contributions? (By the way, his name is spelled with two n's, not one).

 

It would be diminish not diminishes

 

Yes, of course you're right, I stand corrected. Don't know why I wrote that. I know that it's "he/she diminishes" and "you diminish". You won't find grammatical errors like that in my reviews and blog posts. That said, your comment is in bad taste. I'm Danish. How's your Danish? How many languages do you speak, Mr. Redneck-Hillbilly? Yeee-haaaw!

 

Grammar and spelling police have taken over the thread.

 

While I completely understood what you meant, please do not underestimate the readability of the many, many posts in this forum. I have a great respect for grammar that so eluded me throughout my high school years. There can be some tough reading going on in forums when when folks insist on posting without an ounce of writing skills or they had too much to drink.