How Don Felder changed the Eagles, according to Glenn Frey
Despite going on to conquer the world with their later releases, the Eagles’ career didn’t exactly get off to the most positive or encouraging start, with the band failing to really make much of an impression on the charts or on critics with their first couple of albums.
There’s nothing explicitly wrong with their self-titled debut that came out in 1972, or with its follow-up only a year later, Desperado, but they evidently arrived at a time when their brand of country-inflected soft rock wasn’t going to appeal to a wide audience. Time has certainly been kind to the albums, allowing listeners to reevaluate their initial assessment of these carefully crafted records with a retrospective lens, but at the time, country-rock just wasn’t going to fly with their target audience.
Both of their principal songwriters, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, knew that something had to change in order for their fortunes to improve. It didn’t need to be any form of drastic action, but the Eagles weren’t going to survive much longer if they didn’t change tack and attempt something different.
Aside from recognising that the country-rock angle wasn’t working in their favour, they also felt as though their lineup could be bolstered with the addition of another musician, one who could contribute with multiple instruments and assist with the songwriting.
After a period of deliberation, they ended up settling on bringing Don Felder on board, someone who had previously been acquainted with their other guitarist, Bernie Leadon, having both attended the same school, and who had worked as a session musician relentlessly since the start of the 1970s. It was a risk bringing in an additional member, but what Felder offered to the group in terms of his ear for composition and ability to switch to whatever instrument was required ended up being a godsend.
His introduction to the band on On The Border didn’t immediately change their fortunes, but the difference in sound is immediately noticeable, with extra layers and dynamism showing through in places they hadn’t on their first two outings.
In 2016, after the death of Frey, Felder reflected upon his time with the band in an interview with Rolling Stone, and recounted how he was the person who had advocated for him in the first place. “Glenn was the person in the band who asked me to join,” Felder claimed. “The main reason is because they wanted to shift from the country music approach to more of a rock and roll approach to writing and records and being on the AM radio.”
Speaking of how he managed to slot in place immediately, he stated that he and Frey worked tirelessly to try to alter the band’s sound and push it in a positive, forward-thinking direction. “We shared guitar solos and played off each other and did guitar runs together on ‘One of These Nights’ and had a great time working together.”
There was a definite uptick in fortune after he joined, but then again, you could say the same about when Joe Walsh came on board as well, so whether or not Felder was the one who truly changed the Eagles for the better or whether it was a case of audiences slowly warming to them and what they had to offer is up for debate. Either way, his contributions to the band are among some of the most important and beloved in the band’s catalogue, and had he not joined, they possibly wouldn’t have made it much further as a group.
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