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 enlarge | Author: Don Felder
Creator: Wendy Holden
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.22
You Save: $11.73 (45%)
New (48) Used (19) Collectible (4) from $14.00
Rating:  87 reviews
Sales Rank: 1924
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0470289066
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9780470289068
ASIN: 0470289066
Publication Date: April 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good Biography October 31, 2008
The book recounts Don's youth and provides a good perspective on his early years and what influenced him. The book keeps you consistenly interested in reading on as well. He points out that the Eagles were a high stressed, high ego band before his arrival. I would recommend the book if you are an Eagles fan.
 So Often Times It Happens That We Live Our Life In Chains October 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well written and even-handed. Felder spends a lot of the book complimenting Frey and Henley for their considerable songwriting and performing skills. Henley doesn't get quite as burned as Frey. Felder makes it clear Henley is a controlling perfectionist, but that it is good for the music and the final product. Frey on the other hand is portrayed as an egotistical sadist who enjoys being cruel and controlling to those around him (except for Henley). Starting with the third album, Don Felder's guitar work and song contributions are an intregal part of the Eagles sound and success, but he was always treated like a session player by Frey and Henley, a.k.a. "The Gods." Manager Irv Azoff isn't much help, as he divides his interest between the lucrative Henley Frey camp and the "sidemen" camp (which ironically also includes the ultra-talented Joe Walsh). The financial picture becomes more and more unbalanced as the Eagles get more profitable, and Walsh and Schmidt seem to go with the flow. Only Felder objects and questions the ever shifting arrangement to "The Gods" favor, and in the end gets fired for his effort.
All the background of Felder's life and the network of California musicians, and how Felder finally got the call from the Eagles, is very interesting. From a musician's perspective, I could really relate to Felder and what he went through. It's tough dealing with entertainers who are "on" all the time, and can't seem to turn it "off" even behind the scenes in how they work with others. I don't think Felder is going for sympathy with this book, because he obviously made some poor personal decisions and rode an unhealthy situation longer than he should have perhaps. But the book does confirm what a lot of us probably suspected: Don Henley and Glenn Frey are two of the most egotistical, arrogant, callous, and condescending people in pop music.
 Hotel Bitterness October 24, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I did find Don Felder's Early years very interesting. I love reading about how talented people develop and who they meet along the way.
To think that he played with a young Tom Petty, The Allmans, Crosby , Stills and Nash is great.
There is no doubt that He was quite talented, and rose like a comet in the musical world as a guitarist.
Here is where i have problems with his book.
No matter how you slice it, writing the opening chords to Hotel California is pretty much this man's sole contribution to The Eagle's. Yes, he was instrumental ( no pun intended) in their sound, Yes hes a great musician, but even IF Frey and Henley are as controlling and miserable and greedy as he depicts, they would have wanted to use whatever Don had that was good. For two decades he was an equal partner in that group. Its unfortunate for him that he really was outshone by stronger talent, but that IS what happened. Who cares that they were controlling or neurotic?
Throughout the book Don pays lip service to loyalities with his band mates but always looks out for number one. Then is amazed when his bandmates dont stick up for him.
He spends most of his marriage on the road, and his wife raises the kids largely on her own. After he comes back down to earth and is disenchanted with the Road and the Eagle's he wants to play daddy and husband and is floored when they have moved on.
This is a classic case of someone who showed great early promise,
who coulda been a contender,
but he simply didnt have the all around talent, drive or charisma of a Don Henley
or a Tom Petty, Or anyone else he worked and played with. Joe Walsh managed to strike out a name for himself more than Felder did.
Don Felder was hired to be the "fingers"
he was.
His problem is that he wanted what he couldnt have and what he proposed to not want,
individual accolades and a higher talent.
Yes, Henley and Frey edged him out, but only after he kept trying to sue, and stop the group from doing anything that he didnt have complete say in.
I, like the band, ended up just wanting this man to shut up and play.
life in the American Dream...you can check out but you can never leave! October 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved this book for the first 3/4's of it, the last 1/4 gets a demoted star because it gets a little whiny as we see our rock star go through what seems like a mid-life crisis. But I love the Eagles, always have and this book gives you all the fascinating details as Don Felder sees it. It is a fascinating story as Don goes from a dirt-poor kid in Gainseville FL where his father introduces him to music and encourages him to learn guitar. Some pretty incredible artists in Gainesville around that time as a high school kid he plays with a yong Steven Stills, a young Tom Petty auditions for the band also Don becomes friends with Duane Allman. Eventually after years of struggle in FL, New York and Boston, Bernie Leadon finally convinces him to come out west where it is all happening, so Don takes his girl(wife to be Susan) and dog and heads to LA. As fate would have it he auditions for a young band that is trying to expand it's horizons from country rock to more harder rock 'n roll. Fingers as the band leaders later call him blows them away and he is asked to join the Eagles! The rest is rock n' roll history and Don Felder lets it all hang out in this absorbing book that was initially banned in the US. Loved it! Made me go home after work and put on an old Eagles LP on my turntable and grab my kids hands and dance a lil jig. This is the music of the soundtrack of our generation and it still sounds so good. It must be from THE GODS!
Inside look at the Eagles and it ain't pretty... October 13, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
September 18, 2008, the Eagles, or I should say two Eagles out of the original band -- Don Henley and Glen Frey -- plus their two highly paid sidemen, Tim Schmit and Joe Walsh, roll into Nashville.
I pay an arm and a leg for the family to see them and we're treated to a concert that sounds a bit too perfect. No spontaneity, just a somewhat robotic performance. My 16-year old son is bored and I keep telling him -- hey, just wait ! These are the EAGLES -- they're just getting warmed up! However, after awhile, even I am wondering if these guys are even awake. We have a lot of really excellent musicians come and go through our area and the Eagles -- at least on this particular night -- just don't have it. Even Joe Walsh, one of my favorite guitarists of all time, is relegated to acting out the part of a rock and roller. (Man is he playing for the wrong band !)
The next day I'm curious as to what's the deal with the version of the Eagles I heard versus the band I enjoyed so much during the 1970s and 1980s, so I track down and read "Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001)" by Don Felder -- and, I find the answer.
This is a great book; well-written with a good narrative flow that makes it difficult to put it down. Being from Jacksonville, Florida, I especially enjoyed Felder's recounting of his younger years in Gainesville, Florida. What a small world it was -- playing frat parties at UF with Stephen Stills who was only 15 at the time; teaching guitar lessons for Mr. Lipham of Lipham Music in exchange for his first Fender Stratocaster and having as his star pupil 10-12 year old Tommy Petty -- you know, of Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers (now there's a great band!). Those were great years as northeast Florida had a lot of really great bands forming and learning the ropes on the frat party-prom circuit, including Duane and Greg Allman who had just moved with their mom from Nashville to Daytona Beach.
But, for Eagles fans -- it's all here, the life and death of the real Eagles, before it became the Henley-Frey glitzy nightmare, laid out like a dissected frog. The real story that includes Bernie Leadon, his old Gainesville, Florida buddy whose dad was a nuclear physicist at UF and Randy Meisner of Poco.
Making the book even more interesting is the tension Felder has with his father; trying to adjust to living in Boston, then LA; the musicians that influenced him, including Miles Davis, B.B. King, and the Allman brothers; going to Woodstock; his struggle to be a good father and husband; and, the step by step journey that led him to becoming one of the Eagles. Readers will enjoy reading of his friendships and playing with contemporaries such as Crosby & Nash and David Blue. And, touring with a veritable Who's Who of the 70s and 80's rock world.
For those readers only interested in the Eagles, start on page 109, the beginning of Chapter 9. From this point on the narrative speeds up from being that of a memoir of a musician, to the story of the Eagles written by an insider. While very appreciative of the opportunity for being part of the group, Felder holds no punches and describes the almost evil egos of Henley and Frey; the sex, drugs and stress of the over-the-top excesses of their lives; and the emotional toll of being "fired" by Heley and Frey from the Eagles.
All in all, it's a great read -- one of the best of the genre I've ever read.
R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University
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