Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (13 page)
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Authors: Don Felder,Wendy Holden
Tags: #Arts & Photography, #Music, #Musical Genres, #Popular, #Rock, #Biographies & Memoirs, #Arts & Literature, #Composers & Musicians, #Entertainers, #Memoirs, #Humor & Entertainment, #Theory; Composition & Performance, #Pop Culture
BOOK: Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles
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The wedding was to be in a historic church north of Boston that Susan’s mother wanted us to get married in. My parents stayed in a cheap hotel somewhere nearby. Susan was going to wear her grandmother’s wedding gown, which was a hundred years old and which her mother had worn. Her ensemble was to be topped by a large, white, lacy hat. Since I didn’t own a suit, and jeans and T-shirts were apparently not permitted, I was dragged off by Jerry and Susan’s brother Bill to a discount store to buy a double-breasted gray pinstripe suit and some decent shoes. I never wore either again.
At the ceremony itself, I was far less nervous. We even managed to recite our own vows; we thought that was pretty cool. The reception was in a nearby country club, with a half-decent high school band banging away in the corner. “Just don’t play ‘Louie Louie,’ ” I’d told them. Hearing the song I’d played a hundred times on Daytona Beach would have been too depressing. The women of the Pickersgill family made all the food and the wedding cake, which we ceremonially cut before fleeing in our car, a rusty white 1965 Volvo with 120,000 miles on the odometer. Susan’s brother-in-law, Bobby, had decorated it with shaving cream and tied cans and streams of paper to the rear bumper.
Dad shook my hand just before I left. “Well, you’ve got responsibilities now, Don,” he told me sternly. “Make sure you live up to them.” Mom cried as we hugged good-bye, and she made me promise to come visit. Jerry wished me all the best, and I thanked them for coming.
We went back to our new home in Hingham, and I carried Susan over the threshold. “Where’s the wedding certificate?” I asked her, once we were inside.
“Why?” she asked, handing it to me from her purse.
Before she could say anything, I pulled a hammer and a nail from my toolbox and pinned that damn certificate to the bedroom door so that nobody could question us further.
“It’s official,” I told her. “We’re respectable enough to live here.”
At the age of twenty-three, I was somebody’s husband. The responsibility seemed awesome.
We didn’t have very much money,
but we were young, in love, and living in half a house next to a graveyard. Life suddenly seemed sweet. From the local dog pound, we rescued a white German shepherd mix, with huge, floppy ears. We called him Kilo, after a kilo of weed. He guarded the apartment while we went out to work each day, and he kept Susan company when I played the clubs at night.
but we were young, in love, and living in half a house next to a graveyard. Life suddenly seemed sweet. From the local dog pound, we rescued a white German shepherd mix, with huge, floppy ears. We called him Kilo, after a kilo of weed. He guarded the apartment while we went out to work each day, and he kept Susan company when I played the clubs at night.
Susan never minded having to be the main breadwinner, bringing home a steady wage while I bummed around town, doing session work and running in and out of studios looking for more employment. With Bernie’s amazing versatility in mind, I was constantly trying to improve my musical skills to increase my commercial worth. Using the equipment available to me, I taught myself rudimentary drums, keyboards, and bass guitar, and I learned how to mix tracks and overdub them. I couldn’t give up my day job to play any of my new instruments, but I could get by. I just wished I could find something worthwhile to do with my new skills.
“You’re a musician, Don,” Susan would tell me matter-of-factly, making me coffee when I got in late and tired from a club. “What else can you do?”
Despite my intense personal happiness, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d somehow missed the boat. That feeling was compounded when John Winter, the former keyboard player and saxophonist from Flow, called up and asked if he could come and stay. He’d just been released from a mental institution in New York State after suffering some drug-related emotional problems, and he needed a place to crash until his mother and sister could take care of him. I was shocked by his appearance. He seemed like a shell of the gifted young man he’d once been. I called up his family to let them know he was safe, and we looked after him and gave him some money.
“Do you hear anything of the other guys?” I asked.
“Not much,” he said, glumly. “All I know is that Mike Burnett moved to Woodstock and spends his time drawing and taking drugs. Andy Leo’s living in a hippie commune in Hawaii.”
There but for the grace of God,
I thought.
There but for the grace of God,
I thought.
Bernie, meanwhile, was going from strength to strength with the Flying Burrito Brothers; Stephen Stills was an established rock star, with a million-selling solo album featuring Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Ringo Starr; and the Allman brothers were flying incredibly high. Then, that fall, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in Georgia. The band had just recorded its classic album
At Fillmore East
and was halfway through the next,
Eat a Peach
.
At Fillmore East
and was halfway through the next,
Eat a Peach
.
The news came as a terrible blow to those of us who’d known and loved Duane. Ripples of shock passed through the music community. Eric Clapton announced that, like me, he’d been inspired to play slide guitar after listening to Duane Allman play. Duane had been a huge part of
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
by Derek and the Dominoes and was on fire during that whole album. He played slide live with every note in tune, which is really hard to do. When I first heard it, I thought, “Oh, my Lord, Clapton is God, but Duane is the second God, and this is too much!” Every time I hear that distinctive guitar sound, I still think of him.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
by Derek and the Dominoes and was on fire during that whole album. He played slide live with every note in tune, which is really hard to do. When I first heard it, I thought, “Oh, my Lord, Clapton is God, but Duane is the second God, and this is too much!” Every time I hear that distinctive guitar sound, I still think of him.
Duane was the same age as me. I felt like we’d grown up together. He’d taught me so much. “Close your eyes and listen to the music, man,” he’d once told me. “Feel it in your heart, and when your spine tingles, you’ll know it’s right.” It hurt like a physical pain to think I’d never hear him play again.
The following summer, Stephen Stills came to Boston. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young had split for a while as part of their ongoing development, and Stephen had set up a new band called Manassas, with a great pedal steel guitarist named Al Perkins, and Bernie’s friend Chris Hillman from the Flying Burrito Brothers. I was very excited at the prospect of seeing Stephen again and went along to the gig to hear him play. He was great. He still had that distinctive voice and the ability to bang it out with great gusto. The band was really tight and the show impressive.
High on adrenaline and music, I wandered backstage. There was so much we had to catch up on. I wondered if he’d remember our mad night in Palatka, drinking Jack Daniel’s and bouncing on the bed, or whether he was still in touch with Jeff, the drummer from the Continentals.
A gorilla in a security jacket stopped me in my tracks. “What do you want?” he growled.
“Oh, I need to speak with Stephen Stills.”
“Why?”
“I’m an old friend of his.” I grinned.
He looked highly skeptical.
“We were in a band together in Florida.” Still no sign of movement. “Listen, just go tell him Don Felder would like to see him, OK?”
After much persuasion, the guard did as I asked. I stood waiting by the door along with a few other hopefuls, confident that at any minute my messenger would return with an apology and a backstage pass.
Finally, he came shuffling back to his post, his face as blank as it had been before. He didn’t say a word.
“Well?” I asked, impatient now.
“Well nothing,” the ape said. “Mr. Stills is too busy to see you right now.”
I sank to an all-time low
over the next few months and began to wonder if my father was right. I was married, nearly twenty-five, and if I hadn’t made it by now, I probably never would. Maybe there was no future for me in music, and maybe I should have gone to college as Dad had always wanted. At least I’d have had something to fall back on. Then a friend of mine I’d met in New York, a great electric bass player, called me up one day.
over the next few months and began to wonder if my father was right. I was married, nearly twenty-five, and if I hadn’t made it by now, I probably never would. Maybe there was no future for me in music, and maybe I should have gone to college as Dad had always wanted. At least I’d have had something to fall back on. Then a friend of mine I’d met in New York, a great electric bass player, called me up one day.
“Hey, Don, I’m in Boston,” he told me on the telephone. “I’m opening for Delaney & Bonnie, you know, that husband-and-wife band who worked with Clapton and George Harrison. Why not come and hear us? We’re playing at the college campus.”
I was impressed. Delaney Bramlett and his wife, Bonnie, had been linked with some pretty legendary names in the music business, and although they hadn’t done so well since Clapton left the fold, I was still interested to hear their unique mix of vocals, brass, and percussion. At my friend’s request, I arrived a little early and went backstage to jam with him first. I found him sitting with the bass player from the band, who was softly strumming to himself on an old Gibson. At the same time, I spotted an electric guitar leaning up against a wall.
“Mind if I join in?” I asked.
“Not at all.”
I was so used to sitting and jamming with musicians in the studios, I thought nothing of picking that guitar up and starting to play with this man I’d never met before. I was fearless like that; there was really nothing anyone could throw at me that I couldn’t deal with. I figured I had nothing to lose, other than someone grabbing me by the seat of the pants and throwing me out the door.
The bass player could play very well, and we had a good time. One by one, the other band members drifted into the dressing room, drawn by the music. After a while, somebody lit a joint, someone else opened a few beers, and we kept on having fun.
“Hey,” Delaney finally said when we came to a natural conclusion and everyone broke into spontaneous applause, “why don’t you come out and sit in with us onstage tonight?”
“What?” I said, amazed.
“Yeah, come on, it’ll be fun,” his wife added. She was a pretty pixie of a woman with short blonde hair.
“Oh, OK. I mean, sure,” I said, smiling and shrugging my shoulders. Later that night I was introduced as Delaney & Bonnie’s “new discovery” and brought out to play blues with them. It was a great gig, really spontaneous and fun, like the best days of Flow, and it did a lot to lift my spirits. Music was what I was good at, I reminded myself. From my earliest days playing Chet Atkins in my bedroom, I’d never been happier than when I was playing my guitar, and it was never better than this. After the show, the band surprised me by inviting me to go on the road with them.
“When?” I asked, suddenly excited by the prospect. If touring with them for a couple of weeks was half as enjoyable as that gig, then I couldn’t see why not. I was sure Susan wouldn’t mind my being gone for a while, and I could probably get some time off from the studios.
“Tomorrow morning,” they replied brightly. “We’re leaving on the bus at four A.M. for a three-month nationwide tour.”
My heart sank. I knew I couldn’t leave on such short notice, and three months was much longer than I could bear to be apart from Susan.
“Sorry, guys,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “I’m married. I have responsibilities. I just can’t do it.”
Clearly dismayed, they told me they understood, and for the second time in my life, I watched a great opportunity slip through my guitar-playing fingers.
SEVEN
Bernie and I kept in touch
as our lives and careers followed very different paths. By 1971, he’d split from the Burritos and was working with a series of bands, including one gig he did with Linda Ronstadt. He liked Linda and her producer John Boylan, and he was glad for the work. For this one gig, at Disneyland in Anaheim, his fellow musicians were three young men he’d met at various locations including the Troubadour in L.A. Bernie had the best track record of them all, after his experiences with the Scotsville Squirrel Barkers and the Burritos; the others were relative unknowns—Randy Meisner, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey—Henley and Frey being the driving force and the ones who were later to recognize what a rare combination of talent their group had.
as our lives and careers followed very different paths. By 1971, he’d split from the Burritos and was working with a series of bands, including one gig he did with Linda Ronstadt. He liked Linda and her producer John Boylan, and he was glad for the work. For this one gig, at Disneyland in Anaheim, his fellow musicians were three young men he’d met at various locations including the Troubadour in L.A. Bernie had the best track record of them all, after his experiences with the Scotsville Squirrel Barkers and the Burritos; the others were relative unknowns—Randy Meisner, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey—Henley and Frey being the driving force and the ones who were later to recognize what a rare combination of talent their group had.
Randy Meisner, known to all as “Meis,” was a shy young singer and bass player from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, the son of sharecroppers. He’d married his childhood sweetheart at fifteen and had a son. In 1963, he kissed them good-bye and moved to L.A. with a band called the Soul Survivors, later renamed the Poor, because that is what they became. Randy joined up with Richie Furay and Jim Messina of the recently disbanded Buffalo Springfield and formed Poco. Randy passed the audition that a young bassist called Timothy B. Schmit failed, but Schmit later replaced Randy when he quit Poco over musical differences.
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