Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

BIZARRE: Don felder - What They Never Told You

Mexican reggae! Gunslinger duels! Chainsaws! The making of the Eagles' 1976 masterpiece Hotel California

Fifty years after it was recorded and released, Don Henley and producer Bill Szymczyk revisit the making of the Eagles' most successful album

Louder

“He would show up in a station wagon full of Les Pauls, Teles and Strats. I bought probably 20 pieces from him over the years”: The classic (and unlikely) gear behind the Eagles’ Hotel California

What Joe Walsh and Don Felder needed was Les Pauls and Teles, and lots of them – and Felder in particular made use of a Texan horse trader who also stocked some thoroughbred guitars

Guitar World

“One night, Duane was sitting on the floor playing slide. I said, ‘You’ve got to show me how to do that’”: Don Felder on what he learned from Duane Allman, how many guitars are in his awe-inspiring collection and why he isn’t stopping any time soon

A little dehydration aside, there is nothing stopping the former Eagles man. Here he discusses his epic guitar collection and his new compilation, The Vault 1975-2025: Fifty Years of Music

Guitar World

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

"It's an exploration of the dark underbelly of the American dream." The story behind the Eagles "spooky" classic Hotel California

How a "Mexican reggae" demo turned into one of classic rock's greatest ever anthems

Louder

“I was just playing, warming up for the show, and Glenn comes busting in… ‘What the hell’s that?’ ‘I don’t know, it’s just this lick I warm up with.’ He said, ‘No, that‘s an Eagles song, dude!’” The making of the Eagles’ 1976 masterpiece Hotel California

How the Eagles harnessed their cresting creative powers – and resisted their appetite for destruction – to create one of rock’s all-time classics

Guitar World

“Felder and Walsh were in the control room, one to the right, one to the left, like gunfighters! Felder was the ultimate technician. Walsh was the ultimate ‘feel’ guy. Together they were phenomenal”: The making of the Eagles’ masterpiece

“It was obviously our creative peak. Every band, every artist, has one”

MusicRadar

“I played that on just about every Eagles record”: Don Felder names the most important guitar in his 300-strong collection

Every guitar is painstakingly ordered in his vault, but there's one he finds himself grabbing more than most

Guitar World

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

“None of it sat well with him. The further we went into rock, the less he liked it”: When the Eagles’ founding guitarist knew it was time to leave

Bernie Leadon left the band amid a changing lineup and creative differences

Guitar World

“He wrote some of the best parts of Hotel California and Desperado. He wrote some pivotal lines that I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years”: Don Henley’s praise for his Eagles bandmate Glenn Frey

“We wrote the soundtrack to a lot of people’s lives”

MusicRadar

“I opened the case and Glenn went, ‘Wow. What’d you pay for that?’ I went '$1,200...’ He said, ‘Cheap!’ in a very derogatory way –so I called my ’59 ‘the cheap Les Paul’”: Don Felder on medical emergencies, Eagles sessions and his million dollar ’Burst

With The Vault – Fifty Years Of Music, the ex-Eagles guitarist marks a career milestone by bringing lost demos to life and re-recording the classic Heavy Metal. And he isn't stopping any time soon

Guitar World

“That song should have been finished on an Eagles record with Joe and I following up on Hotel California with some dazzling guitar solos”: The song that started life as an Eagles track – but ended up as the theme song for an animated film

Plans for a Hotel California sequel were in motion, but the track wouldn’t emerge from the Eagles archive until a few years later

Guitar World

“I wrote it so that Joe and I could play even harder than we did – or edgier than we did – on Hotel California”: How Don Felder planned to rock out with Joe Walsh on the last Eagles album of the ’70s

"It had harmony parts, trading-off solos and a much harder rock edge"

MusicRadar

“I had no way to play Hotel California live. I played so many guitar tracks on that song”: Don Felder on why he had to mod his white Gibson doubleneck to play the Eagles’ biggest hit – and how he got the idea from Chet Atkins

What do you do when a standard doubleneck is just not enough?

MusicRadar

“Glenn Frey said it best when he said we ‘created a monster with Hotel California, and it ate us’”: Don Felder on the making of the Eagles’ The Long Run

Just how does a band follow an album like Hotel California? With great difficulty, is the answer. Don Felder looks back at an triumph from a band that was coming apart at the seams

Guitar World

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Louder

"I was afraid something inside of me was dying. Leaving was an act of survival": Life in the fast lane and the turbulent tale of the Eagles

Fistfights, ulcers and run-ins with the law were all part of the Eagles’ everyday life: A look behind the rise, fall and unexpected rise again of the ultimate Californian band

Louder

"How anyone can be 'deeply disturbed and hurt' by this is beyond me": REO Speedwagon charity show bickering continues as Bruce Hall fires back at Kevin Cronin

Why can't we all just get along?

Louder

"I am deeply disturbed and hurt by all of this": Kevin Cronin slams REO Speedwagon concert organisers after being "knowingly excluded" from hometown show

The charity show in Champaign, Illinois, will pay tribute to late REO Speedwagon members Gary Richrath and Gregg Philbin

MusicRadar

“The solos were not planned, they were spontaneously playing off of each other. We were really good at that": Joe Walsh tells the story of the Hotel California solo

Trading lines and working their way towards immortality… All live… All once-in-a-lifetime… All magic

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Guitar World

“I started the introduction for Tequila Sunrise, and was like, ‘Wait a minute. This feels like acid.’ I just felt like I'm leaving my body”: Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder speaks out after mid-performance medical emergency

The veteran guitarist was ushered offstage just last Thursday

Guitar World

“We appreciate everyone’s concern regarding Don Felder’s abrupt stop to his show last night”: Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder issues statement after being rushed offstage due to medical emergency

Felder had just started performing 1973's Tequila Sunrise during his Rock Legends Cruise performance

Guitar World

“It is with profound regret that I find I must bow out of my role with the Eagles while I can still do so gracefully”: Longtime Eagles guitarist announces retirement from band following health struggles

Veteran guitarist Steuart Smith, who's been touring with the Eagles for 24 years, revealed that his recent Parkinsonism diagnosis had a profound impact on his decision to retire

MusicRadar

"He didn't tap a foot or move his head or anything. He listened to it all the way through and I thought he hated it": When an Eagle, Heartbreaker, Roger Linn and an Oberheim OB-X combined forces for a pop masterpiece – the Boys Of Summer story

Best of 2024: Tom Petty rejected Mike Campbell's synth and drum machine demo, Don Henley didn't make that mistake… but the 1984 hit had other obstacles to overcome

Louder

"The songs will live on with this band and with me under the name Kevin Cronin": REO Speedwagon have played their final ever show but the band formerly known as REO Speedwagon will continue

Watch Kevin Cronin pay tribute as REO Speedwagon officially step away from the stage

Louder

"Peyote didn’t make me puke, but some of the other guys puked for all of us": The Eagles on Indian tribal rituals, playing with Guns N' Roses and the lyric police

In early 2001 the Eagles were about to start work on their comeback album, Long Road Out Of Eden – so we tracked them down

The Guardian - UK

‘Only three more songs till I kick your ass!’ Rock’n’roll’s biggest onstage bust-ups

Jane’s Addiction’s future is in doubt after a mid-song spat last weekend – but from the Kinks to Oasis, such squabbles are extremely common

1 2

People

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Organisations

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

Topics

Places

Fourteen days free

Download the app

One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.