Java Hair

It’s almost Thanksgiving and I haven’t posted anything about music in while so here’s one that’s been sitting as a draft for some time now.  I hope you find it interesting.

If you are an Eagles fan, you probably know this already, for those of you that are not familiar with him, Don Felder was one of the driving forces behind the Eagles great success. He and Joe Walsh really were largely responsible for transforming the Eagles from a country band to a rock band in the mid to late seventies.

I been an Eagles fan ever since l spent hours upon hours listening to Eagles Live over my buddy’s house. I was ten or eleven years old and his brother had a decent collection of 70’s rock including Springsteen, Billy Joel, and the Eagles. One of our favorites was Eagles Live, a great album even now. Back then I had no idea who Felder was and even as I grew older I was mostly aware of Henley and Frey as being the driving force behind the Eagles.

Felder’s recently published book, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles 1974-2001, describes in detail his childhood and especially his involvement in the Eagles. I always suspecting Henley of being a bit of a ass, but after reading that book and hearing him interviewed on Howard Stern’s radio show a couple weeks ago, I realize that both Henley and Frey were complete ego-maniacs, control-freaks, and just plain greedy.  Now I know this is coming from Felder himself and I’m sure everyone has their own side of the story, but Felder really comes across as honest overall, if a little bitter.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the many Rock icons that Felder either grew up with or worked with before joing The Eagles.  For instance, he actually taught Tom Petty to play guitar early in his life.

If you are a fan of the Eagles or a fan of rock music in the 70’s, i recommend you take a look at this book, it’s really surprisingly well written and quite interesting. It is a little depressing, however, in that it really sounds like being a member of the band during their heyday wasn’t nearly as much fun as it should have been.

You can check it out at Google Book Search.

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