Don fields

Don Fields (2009)

Donald William "Don" fields (* 21st September 1947 in Gainesville , Florida ) is an American rock - guitarist , who from 1974 to 1980 and between 1994 and 2001 member of the country-rock - band Eagles was. He is co-author of the successful piece Hotel California , which became world famous not least because of the extraordinary guitar duet played by him and Joe Walsh .

life and career

Felder became aware of the music when he saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show . At the age of about 11 he got his first guitar from a friend in exchange for a handful of snap peas. One of his guitar teachers was Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers . Don Felder in turn gave guitar lessons to Tom Petty . He was heavily influenced by rock 'n' roll and joined his first band, The Continentals at the age of 15 , which also included Stephen Stills (later Crosby, Stills & Nash ). It was also around this time that he met Bernie Leadon , who later became a founding member of the Eagles , but initially he replaced Stills and the band was renamed Maundy Quintet .

After the band broke up, Felder went to New York City and joined a band called Flow , which released only one jazz album. During this time, Felder was able to significantly improve his guitar playing and improvisation. After Flow ended , Felder moved to Boston and initially worked in a recording studio. In 1971 he met the rest of the Eagles who were on tour at the time. A year later, Felder moved to California to record an album with David Blue and played with him for nine months as opening act for Crosby and Nash.

Eagles

In 1974 Felder was invited to record the Eagles in order to play another guitar for the piece Good Day in Hell . The next day he was suggested to join the band. A year later, Joe Walsh came to replace Bernie Leadon, who had left the Eagles. Walsh and Felder were friends before they played together with the Eagles and changed the style of the band significantly. While the early tracks tended towards country rock , the newer tracks were rockier and heavier. On the fourth album of the Eagles, One of These Nights , Felder sang the lead voice for the only time on the piece Visions , which he had written together with Don Henley . Glenn Frey later commented on this insofar as it was believed that Don Felder did not meet the high vocal standards of the Eagles.

The first album after all these changes was Hotel California , the music for the title track of the same name came from Felder. After the overwhelming success of the album and the tour that followed, the band was under enormous pressure to succeed in recording an equal follow-up album. After this follow-up album, The Long Run , the band broke up. At this point in time, the band members were so divided that there was open, verbal aggression between Don Felder and Glenn Frey even on stage. The situation escalated after a concert when Felder smashed his guitar behind Frey's back on the wall while leaving the stage - “one of his cheap ones”, as Frey later laconically remarked.

Career after the 1970s

After the Eagles broke up, Felder focused more on his family and solo career. In 1983 he released a rock 'n' roll album called Airborne , which remained his only solo LP until 2012, although he also wrote some film soundtracks, including the titles for Heavy Metal and The Wild Life . In 1985/86 he hosted a comedy music show called FTV on television. In 1986 he wrote the soundtrack (including the theme song) for the animated series Galaxy High .

In 1994 the Eagles got together again with Don Felder for the Hell freezes over tour, which was followed by the album of the same name. Felder stayed with the band through the New Years Concerts 1999/2000. In 2008 the Eagles without fields made a comeback with the album Long Road Out Of Eden .

On October 9, 2012, his second solo album Road To Forever was released after almost 30 years . Numerous well-known musicians worked on this album, such as Steve Lukather and David Paich from Toto or David Crosby , Stephen Stills and Graham Nash ( Crosby, Stills and Nash ).

Litigation

On February 6, 2001, Don Felder was in a dispute over alleged breaches of contract and withheld profit sharing from the joint marketing company Eagles Ltd. finally kicked out of the group. In response, he filed two lawsuits against the Eagles as a band, as well as Don Henley , Glenn Frey and 50 other people. Because of breach of contract, breach of duty of care and other offenses, he demanded damages of US $ 50 million. Felder claimed, among other things, that Frey and Henley took advantage of him in dividing the profits. The process ended in spring 2007 after the parties reached an out-of-court settlement.

For another Eagles tour in 2013 it was planned to integrate at least one former member into the band . Bernie Leadon agreed and played the first concerts with the band, Randy Meisner had to decline the offer for health reasons. Only Don Felder did not receive an invitation at all because of ongoing legal disputes.

Discography

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Airborne   US 178 02/18/1984 (8 weeks) American rock and roll   DE 83 05/03/2019 (1 week)

Singles

Heavy Metal (Takin 'A Ride)   US 43 07/25/1981 (17 weeks)

Studio albums

• 1983: Airborne
• 2012: Road To Forever
• 2019: American Rock'n'Roll

literature

• Don Felder and Wendy Holden: My Life with the EAGLES - Through Heaven and Hell . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-295-9 (Original edition: Heaven And Hell - My Life In The EAGLES 1974-2001 )

Web links

• Don Felder in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Allmusic.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Short biography
2. ^ ^{A b} History of the Eagles - The Story Of An American Band. DVD documentation, April 2013
3. ↑ http://donfelder.com/?news.html (August 31, 2012)
4. ↑ Eagles Tour will feature founding guitarist Benie Leadon . In: Rolling Stone, July 5, 2013
5. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE US