Guitar Tricks Insider February/March Digital Edition | Page 15
CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK
“The whole thing
(harmony guitar
ending) was supposed
to be similar to
Mexican trumpets.
I grew up learning
my phrasing and
thinking melodically
as a horn player”
Back Track - The Eagles’
Don Felder on “Hotel California”
Do you know Don Felder? Did you know that
at the age of 15 this Gainesville, Florida boy
started his first rock band, The Continentals,
which included Stephen Stills? Did you know
that he gave guitar lessons to a young Tom
Petty? Did you know that he learned to play
slide from Duane Allman? Did you know he
moved to New York with a band called Flow,
which were on Creed Taylor’s CTI jazz label?
His label mates were Ron Carter, Hubert Laws,
and Freddie Hubbard. Did you know that in
January, 1974, he was asked to add slide to the
tune “Good Day in Hell” from the third Eagles
album, On the Border, and was invited to join
the band the very next day? Of all the things
you might not know about Don Felder (or do
now); the one thing you’ll remember is that he
wrote the music for “Hotel California.”
FEB/MAR
In this installment of Backtrack, we asked him
to tell us his story about coming up with and
developing one of the cornerstone songs in all of
rock music.
I write a lot of music tracks. Like, “Hotel
California” was a total music track, finished top
to bottom, with the exception of a solo here and
there. Some of the lines weren’t quite finished
but all that harmony stuff and a whole track
was all written. I gave it to Henley on a reel of
16 other pieces of music that I had done. For
some reason he latched onto that and came
up with this idea lyrically and melodically. Don
doesn’t write music. He writes lyrics and vocals.
Usually he’s reliant on someone else to provide
him with the musical foundation – the changes
and colors and stuff. He is brilliant at taking a
simple acoustic guitar figure and encouraging it,
DIGITAL EDITION
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