{"id":85898,"date":"2025-08-22T21:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T21:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/85898\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T21:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T21:05:10","slug":"the-artist-who-made-the-eagles-turn-nasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/85898\/","title":{"rendered":"The artist who made the Eagles turn “nasty”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Don<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Derek Russell)<\/p>\n

Fri 22 August 2025 18:00, UK <\/p>\n

The Eagles were never going to be a band that were known to be rock and roll wildmen every time they picked up their instruments. Their music has always been made for being enjoyed on the open road or with a drink in your hand on a beach, but Don Henley<\/a> knew that they could kick out the jams when they wanted to.<\/p>\n

Granted, their version of \u201ckicking out the jams\u201d was a lot different from what most other people thought. They were never the MC5 in any respect, and while they had the potential to make some damn good rock and roll riffs for their time, it\u2019s not like they were going anywhere near what Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple were doing. If there was one thing they did nail down, though, it was that Wall of Sound whenever they sang.<\/p>\n

But whereas Jimmy Page could create an entire army of guitars whenever Zeppelin made a new record, some of the best moments of the Eagles\u2019 career came from their voices more than anything. They always got the same thrill when their harmonies gelled perfectly together, and when listening to the isolated voices for a song like \u2018Desperado\u2019, they seem almost ethereal as they play off of Henley\u2019s story about a cowboy on the run from his troubled past.<\/p>\n

If they were going to sound dangerous, though, they weren\u2019t going to get nearly as far with Bernie Leadon in the guitarist slot. Glenn Frey had always wanted the group to be eclectic, but every time he wrote a rock and roll song and handed it off to Leadon, he was bound to get something that fit in more on a Johnny Cash project than what they were going for. While Joe Walsh may have brought more edge to their sound, Don Felder was the first sign that things were changing.<\/p>\n

After \u201cauditioning\u201d by playing a handful of licks on songs like \u2018Already Gone\u2019,<\/a> Felder had the reputation of flying all over the neck of his guitar. The band were dangerously close to becoming too predictable, but once they started honing their skills even further on the album One of These Nights, Henley knew that they were making something far different from the country roots that they started with.<\/p>\n

And with Felder playing that four-string intro to the title track, Henley felt that they had that fifth member that was going to give them a lot more bite whenever they played, saying<\/a>, \u201cWith Don Felder, we can really rock. He\u2019s made us nastier, and he\u2019s done a great guitar solo on \u2018One Of These Nights\u2019.\u201d Felder was still the new kid, but hearing his solo next to what Leadon would have done was like night and day.<\/p>\n

Leadon always favoured a fairly delicate sound when he played his lead licks, but whereas he would make the guitar sound like a banjo at times, there\u2019s a lot of teeth in Felder\u2019s solo from the moment he hits that glorious guitar bend. He was certainly fast on the album before, but this made everyone think that they were capable of making an all-time classic album, which only became more apparent when they got Joe Walsh in the group one album later.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still a lot of piano-heavy moments on \u2018One of These Nights\u2019, but considering how well Felder worked on this one track, he could have picked up any instrument and been equally as dangerous with it. The Eagles had already won over the hearts of thousands of fans by the time Felder found his footing, but him joining the group was the first time they flirted with the idea of actually sounding badass.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Derek Russell) Fri 22 August 2025 18:00, UK The Eagles were never going to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43260,30948,27602,96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-85898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-don-felder","9":"tag-don-henley","10":"tag-eagles","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}