Heaven and Hell

by Don Felder

  Most of all, I’m looking forward to getting back out on the road and playing music again, promoting the new album and working on other, similar projects in the coming years. There are other singer/songwriters besides Don Henley and Glenn Frey. All I ever wanted to do, and what I came to California for, was to make music. Music is in my blood. My father first fostered it in the days when I used to plug my guitar into the television set and make up the soundtrack for Mighty Mouse cartoons, and with his encouragement, I’ve never lost the passion. I’m not exactly sure which direction I’m going to point the compass on the bow of my boat after this, but it will undoubtedly involve music. It’s not as if I have a choice.

  Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my last performance with the Eagles was on December 31, 1999, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles as part of the Millennium celebrations. It truly was the eve of a new dawn.

  I didn’t give my finest performance. We’d all played a lot better at various times over the past three decades. Despite my ill health and the divisions that were tearing us apart, we put on a show that seemed to satisfy those who’d paid so much money to hear us play. Glenn was right. Bringing our unique mix of country, bluegrass, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul, Dixieland, and folk to the band from all parts of America, we somehow came up with the cinematic soundtrack to a generation. Sonic wallpaper, someone once called it. More than that, the music we’d played had been the soundtrack of our own lives. Every song we’d worked so slavishly over had its own secret story. Every guitar riff, drum track, and vocal had been agonized over. We all had our own favorites, songs that struck a chord with us as well as the fans. For me, “Hotel California” represents the pinnacle of my musical career.

  As I stood on that stage beneath those crystal chandeliers and heard the roar of the crowd as I played the opening bars of the song I’d made my own, I knew that, whatever else happened in my life, this was as good as it gets. In my fevered brain, I closed my eyes and swayed in time to the chords I’d written that golden day in Malibu. For a moment, I was back in my childhood bedroom, standing alone under a single red lightbulb, playing for all I was worth. Or on the stage of the State Theater, my shirt sticking to my back with fear, as I hammered out a Ventures classic. Mine had been a remarkable journey. All of ours had. Here we were, the most successful American band of the century, televised to the world, for thousands of people who, like us, wondered what the new millennium would bring.

  Behind me, the hands of the giant clock moved inexorably toward midnight. My fingers straining under the pressure of the complicated chords, I belted out the music I loved and allowed my mind to drift momentarily beyond all the petty bickering and the jealousy and the rivalry which had, in its own way, I knew, helped to make us great. It was a blessing and a curse, the price we had to pay for our genius. For now, I wanted to forget all that, to soar away on that dark desert highway. Against all odds, we’d made it. At the start of the twenty-first century, we were still together and still in California, taking it to the limit, one last time.

  In March 2007, my mother passed away. She was ninety-one years old, and on her way home from church on a beautiful Florida morning. I went home to Gainesville to help Jerry bury her. The entire family flew in for the service and we had a wonderful get-together, recounting her life in photographs and sharing stories of our childhood. Walking around in my past filled me with a childish sense of wonder. I went to the palm meadows where Leonard Gideon and I used to play forts, and I found the swamp pond where I was nearly bitten by a water moccasin. I searched in vain for Irene Cooter’s chinaberry tree, which must have been cut down long before. I took some photographs of the house I grew up in. It’s still standing, a testament to my father’s remarkable building skills. I couldn’t believe how small it was. Two bedrooms with a bathroom in between, and two rooms downstairs. The jalousie windows have long since been replaced.

  A battered Dodge was parked in the driveway instead of Dad’s old Chevy. Some other young family lives in it now, and I wondered, as I watched their kids playing noisily in the backyard that my mother had us grade so painstakingly, if they had air-conditioning for the sweltering summer nights, or something better than the kerosene heater in the winter.

  I like to think I made my peace with my father before he died. I might not have become a lawyer like my brother Jerry, but being in one of the most successful rock groups in the world proved to him, I hope, that I’d done something valid with my life after all. He might never have acknowledged it with me, but he knew from my mom and Jerry how well I had done. The older I get, the more I appreciate just how much of an influence Dad was, from the first time he plugged me into his Voice of Music machine or bought me the gold Fender Musicmaker from the daughter of a guy at the plant. I know now how much we really meant to one another, even if we never got around to telling each other. I have come to realize that, despite all the fighting we did for all those years, it was never really wasted time.

  Turning to leave and heading back to the brand-new car I’d rented to drive out to our old house, I caught sight of my own reflection in the glass of the driver’s window. Staring back at me was a smiling, tanned, middle-aged man in sunglasses, standing in the dappled sunlight in front of a small and unremarkable building. I wasn’t much younger than my father was when he died, and yet I was glowing with good health, having avoided a life of hard labor fixing machinery at the local plant.

  My hand went instinctively to my hair. It wasn’t as short as he might have wanted it to be, but it was cotton-white, well groomed, and a few inches above the collar line. I think Dad would have been pleased.

  INDEX

  “After the Thrill Is Gone”

  Airborne

  Alexander, David

  Allman, Duane

  Allman, Gregg

  Almost Famous

  “Already Gone”

  Anaheim Stadium

  Anderson, Jon

  Asylum/Elektra

  Asylum Records

  Atkins, Chet

  Aykroyd, Dan

  Azoff, Irving

  Eagles reunion and

  Felder’s firing and

  Felder’s lawsuit and

  at Hall of Fame induction

  “Bad Girls”

  Band, the

  Barnett, Mike

  Bayshore Recording Studio

  Beach Boys

  Beatles

  Bee Gees

  Belushi, John

  Berry, Chuck

  “Best of My Love, The”

  Beverly Hills Cop

  Black, Ed

  Blue, David

  Blues Brothers

  Bohn, Isa

  Booty, Jan

  Boylan, John

  “Boys of Summer, The”

  Bramlett, Delaney and Bonnie

  Breslauer, Gerry

  Brigman, Grandpa

  Brown, Charles

  Brown, Jerry

  Browne, Jackson

  Buckingham, Lindsey

  Buffalo Springfield

  Buffett, Jimmy

  Building the Perfect Beast

  Busey, Gary

  Butterfield, Paul

  Byrds

  Calagna, John

  California Jam

  Canned Heat

  Capaldi, Jim

  Carl, Max

  Carrack, Paul

  Carter, Ron

  Castaneda, Carlos

  Cavaliere, Felix

  Cetera, Peter

  charities and benefits

  Charles, Ray

  Chicago

  Chipley, Lee

  Chong, Tommy

  Clapton, Eric

  Clark, Gene

  Clarke, Allan

  Clinton, Bill and Hillary

  Cohen, Leonard

  Collins, Jimmy

  Coltrane, John

  Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles

  Continentals

  Cooper, Alice

  Cooter, Irene

  Corey
, John

  Cornish, Gene

  Corvettes

  Crago, Scott

  Cranston, Alan

  Criteria Studios

  Crosby, David

  Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

  Crosby, Stills & Nash

  Crosby & Nash

  Crowe, Cameron

  Cyrkle

  Dacus, Donnie

  Danelli, Dino

  Davidson, Gordon

  Davis, Miles

  Davis, Patti

  Delaney & Bonnie

  Derek and the Dominoes

  Desperado

  “Desperado”

  Dillard, Doug

  “Dirty Laundry”

  “Disco Strangler, The”

  Dog House

  drinking

  drugs

  cocaine

  heroin

  marijuana

  peyote

  Quaaludes

  Drury, Timothy

  Dunn, Sam

  Dylan, Bob

  Eagles:

  breakup of

  Felder fired by

  Felder joins

  formation of

  Hall of Fame induction of

  Leadon quits

  Meisner quits

  Millennium concerts of

  resumption of

  Schmit joins

  Walsh joins

  Eagles

  Eagles—Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975,

  Eagles’ Greatest Hits Volume 2,

  Eagles Limited

  Felder’s lawsuit against

  Eagles Live

  Elder, Boyd

  Elektra/Asylum

  End of the Innocence, The

  Erwin, Richard

  Evers, Rick

  Faltermeyer, Harold

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High

  Feiten, Buzzy

  Felder, Charles “Nolan” (father)

  Felder, Cody (son)

  Felder, Don:

  autograph seekers and

  birth of

  boating of

  childhood of

  Eagles’ firing of

  Eagles Ltd. and

  first band of

  first public performances of

  guitars of

  infidelity of

  intruder incident and

  joins Eagles

  Kathrin and

  lawsuit of

  marital problems and divorce of

  moves to Boston

  moves to California

  polio of

  real estate ventures of

  solo projects of

  as teenager

  in therapy

  wedding of

  Felder, Doris Brigman (mother)

  death of

  remarriage of

  Felder, Grandpa

  Felder, Jerry (brother)

  Felder, Jesse (son)

  guitar playing of

  marriage of

  saxophone playing of

  Felder, Jesse “Buck” (uncle)

  Felder, Kurt (grandson)

  Felder, Leah (daughter)

  Felder, Marnie (sister-in-law)

  Felder, Rebecca (daughter)

  Felder, Susan Pickersgill (wife)

  Felder’s firing and

  jewelry business of

  marital problems and divorce of

  marries Don

  moves to California

  pregnancies of

  thyroid problems of

  Fernandez, Richie

  Fleetwood Mac

  Flow

  Flow

  Flying Burrito Brothers

  Fogelberg, Dan

  Forsey, Keith

  Frey, Glenn

  in Eagles breakup

  in Eagles formation

  Eagles Ltd. and

  in Eagles resumption

  Felder’s fight with

  Felder’s firing and

  Felder’s lawsuit and

  fiftieth birthday party of

  fund-raising and

  at Hall of Fame induction

  “Hotel California” and

  “Life in the Fast Lane” and

  marriage of

  Selected Works and

  solo career of

  studio of

  Takamine guitars and

  victimization by

  “Victim of Love” and

  Front Line Management

  Full Moon

  “Funky New Year”

  Fun TV

  Furay, Richie

  Galaxy High

  Galuten, Albhy

  Gaye, Marvin

  Geer, Will

  Geffen, David

  Geffen-Roberts Management

  Getz, Stan

  Gibb, Barry

  Gibbs, Kenny

  Gideon, Leonard

  Goldberg, Danny

  “Good Day in Hell”

  Green, Peter

  groupies

  Guitar

  Guthrie, Arlo

  Hancock, Herbie

  “Heartache Tonight”

  Hearts Flowers

  “Heat Is On, The”

  Heavy Metal

  Hell Freezes Over

  Helms, Levon

  Hendrix, Jimi

  Henley, Don

  arrest of

  Clinton and

  in Eagles breakup

  in Eagles formation

  Eagles Ltd. and

  in Eagles resumption

  Felder’s firing and

  Felder’s lawsuit and

  fund-raising and

  at Hall of Fame induction

  health problems of

  “Hotel California” and

  letter writing of

  “Life in the Fast Lane” and

  marriage of

  Selected Works and

  solo career of

  studio of

  women and

  Hilburn, Robert

  Hillis, Paul

  Hillman, Chris

  Hollies

  Hotel California

  “Hotel California,”

  writing credits for

  Hough, Wayne “Boomer”

  Howe, Steve

  Hubley, Season

  Hunt, Helen

  I Can’t Stand Still