Read Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles Online
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
Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (9 page)
BOOK: Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles
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“Hey, I’m starving, man,” I told Duane and Gregg, with a sudden pang of the munchies. “Let’s go get something to eat.” We found a diner that was open at 4 A.M., and the four of us sat in a booth by the window, drinking coffee, eating doughnuts, smoking cigarettes, and feeling pretty mellow with the sun coming up on the horizon.
Unbeknownst to me, Susan had been hunting for me all over Daytona Beach with Judy, hoping to patch things up. The two of them finally walked into this diner and saw us sitting there. All they could see of Duane and Gregg was the back of their heads, each with beautiful, long, silky hair. Assuming the worst, Susan ran out, crying.
Judy, furious, marched up to confront us. “Hey,” she yelled at Bernie, “what the hell do you think you’re doing with these two girls?”
Gregg and Duane looked up at her in surprise. As soon as she saw their beards and moustaches, she realized their mistake. Man, we laughed till we cried.
Just when things seemed to be going so well with the band, my personal life, and my musical ambitions, Bernie dropped a bombshell. He’d been dissatisfied for a while, wishing for greater success, and still wasn’t getting along with his family. Like my parents, they were often nagging him about what he was planning to do with his life, and wanted him to pursue an academic career. Bernie was upset that they weren’t more supportive.
“There’s nothing here, musically, man,” he’d complain. “New York or California’s where it’s at, and I’m never gonna live in New York. I hate it. One of these days I’m gonna blow, and just go back to California and make some real music.”
He’d been saying it for so long, I’d almost come to ignore it. Then, one day, he announced that he was leaving.
“Come with me, Don,” he urged, his eyes bright. “California has great weather, great women, and everything’s really happening there. It’s where my roots are. We could start up a band together and get something good going.”
I shook my head. “Gainesville might have little to offer, but it’s all I’ve ever known,” I told him. Truth was, I was scared to leave. I’d hated New York too. By contrast, California seemed faraway, alien, and frightening, like moving to the other side of the world. All the magazine articles and television program I’d seen implied it was a sin state, where people “turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.” Drug abuse was rife, and not just pot. LSD and other hallucinogens were all the rage, and anything went, sexually. I was still a naïve young teenager with a rather old-fashioned set of moral values, despite what my father thought. I knew the West Coast wasn’t for me. Not yet, anyway.
Coming from poverty had also made me inherently cautious. I needed certainty, a surefire scheme to make money and pay the rent. It felt so scary to head off somewhere unknown with no offers of work and no solid opportunities identified. Bernie didn’t really know anyone in Los Angeles and had few music contacts there anymore. In my worst nightmares, I imagined him falling in with drug dealers and pimps and never playing banjo again. However, he was determined to make a go of it, and there was nothing I could say to make him change his mind.
The day he left, I went over to his parents’ house and helped him load up his car.
“I wish you were coming with me, buddy,” he said, giving me a hug.
“I know,” I said, feeling unnervingly close to tears.
He flashed me that huge grin of his and patted me warmly on the back. “I’ll call you just as soon as I’m settled. If things work out, then maybe you could come out and join me?”
“Sure,” I lied. “As soon as you’re settled.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat of his Ford Falcon and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired up into life with a big blue cloud of smoke from the exhaust. The car was loaded to the roof with instruments and clothes and equipment. Only the front passenger seat was empty. Bernie was leaving. He was driving to California to follow his musical dream. As I waved him off and watched his car disappear down the dusty trail west, it took all my nerve not to chase after him and jump into that empty seat.
FIVE
Summer ended,
and with it my dream—Susan had to return to Boston. We were still madly in love, but part of her desperately wanted to go home. She missed the northern weather, the myriad colors of fall, and the long, cold winters. She’d also enrolled at a respected girls’ college and was looking forward to starting her next academic phase. In that respect, we couldn’t have been more different.
and with it my dream—Susan had to return to Boston. We were still madly in love, but part of her desperately wanted to go home. She missed the northern weather, the myriad colors of fall, and the long, cold winters. She’d also enrolled at a respected girls’ college and was looking forward to starting her next academic phase. In that respect, we couldn’t have been more different.
When she left town, in the front seat of her brother Bill’s car, I thought I’d die, it hurt so bad. In the space of a couple of months, I’d lost my first true love and my best friend, and I had cut off all communication with my parents. I was barely able to grasp that so much bad stuff was happening to me at once.
I’d rarely been out of Florida—only a few childhood car trips to Oklahoma and Washington and to a couple of gigs in New York—but now I traveled to Boston whenever I could, catching a bus or hitching a ride with Bill whenever he was going home. Once, I even scraped together enough money to fly there. It was my first time in an airplane, a DC-3 tail-dragger, and it seemed like a miracle to be flying over America instead of driving. Susan and I had a great time in Massachusetts, picking up where we’d left off, until I had to fly home again. This time, the parting seemed even harder.
Alone again in Gainesville, everything changed. I was eighteen years old and I felt bereft. The Maundy Quintet disbanded when Tom Long went off to college, leaving me with a drummer and Barry, the bass player. For the first time in many years, I had no band and was, for a while, completely without direction.
My relationship with Susan was under incredible strain because of the distance between us, and—after several months of commuting back and forth, trying to keep it going—I realized it was impossible.
“This isn’t going to work,” I told her, long distance. “Not unless one of us is prepared to move to where the other one lives, and that ain’t gonna happen.” I think I broke her heart and mine too, but I knew it couldn’t last. When I hung up the phone, I didn’t think I’d ever see or hear from her again.
I was still teaching kids
how to play guitar, and I had a couple of other jobs, but I couldn’t decide if I should go back to school or not. My parents and Jerry were pushing me to go to college and learn a profession, but I felt that would be a betrayal of all I’d tried to achieve. Whatever I decided, I knew I desperately needed to play music, which was the only thing I felt remotely good at.
how to play guitar, and I had a couple of other jobs, but I couldn’t decide if I should go back to school or not. My parents and Jerry were pushing me to go to college and learn a profession, but I felt that would be a betrayal of all I’d tried to achieve. Whatever I decided, I knew I desperately needed to play music, which was the only thing I felt remotely good at.
A guy named Paul Hillis, who’d also worked at Lipham’s as a music teacher, had just returned from two years in Boston at the Berklee College of Music. He was six years older than me, an excellent guitar player fluent in jazz techniques. When he came back, I couldn’t wait to hear him play, and see what he’d learned, but, to my surprise, he’d switched instruments. “Guitar is so limiting,” he told me, dismissively. He claimed it was easier to compose, harmonize, and understand theory on a piano.
He opened up the Paul Hillis School of Music in Gainesville, and I signed up to learn jazz theory and composition from him, in exchange for teaching his incoming guitar students. For each hour I’d do for him, he’d give me an hour of his time. In less than six months I learned what Berklee College of Music had taught him in two and a half years. I soaked up every scrap of information.
Through the fraternity circuit and friends in the music business, a young band called Flow, based in Ocala, approached me. “Join us,” they said. “We’ve heard the Maundy Quintet and we know your work. We need a strong lead guitarist.” There were three in the band—Mike Barnett, the drummer, John Winter, who played keyboards and soprano sax, and Chuck Newcomb, who sang and played bass.
Flow was, without doubt, what my father would have called a hippie band. They specialized in free-form jazz-rock and were heavily into pot. I had to travel down to Ocala to practice with them, and at two in the afternoon they’d still be in bed, stoned, or recovering from the night before. Their rental house was filthy, with a sink full of dirty dishes that no one ever seemed to wash. They were complete stoners, but they were good musicians, too, and when we were together, we played really well. They had a genuine commitment to music, not to great songwriting or marketing like the Beatles, but a dedication to writing songs in a pop-rock genre using the framework of improvisation that jazz players use—a free flow of creative energy, they called it.
We’d start off singing a couple of verses and a chorus and then have a free-form solo section in the middle that could be anywhere from a minute to five minutes long, depending on how well it was going. Winding down, we’d sing a verse and a chorus, and that would be that. It was perfect tripping music but with a more modern sound than a jazz band. It was really quite innovative for its time, and the best part was that every time you played, you were thrown naked out onto the floor, figuratively speaking.
Two of their friends were the road managers for a successful band called the Young Rascals, who had a big hit with a song called “Good Lovin’ ” and had appeared on the
Ed Sullivan Show.
They’d promised to come down from New York and listen to Flow play once we felt we were ready. I was brought in to help sharpen up their act. In return, I got to latch on to this incredible spark of creativity: Every night, every time I played, I was given a chance to improvise. Using all that Paul Hillis had been teaching me about melodic phrasing, I learned how to play spontaneously and think freely, without inhibitions or fear. At first it was very scary, but when I’d been thrown out there often enough, I began to become comfortable with the tools I had. Somebody would play a groove and I’d just start playing stuff, some of which would be OK and some of which would be great. There was a constant creative stream. The freer I became, the more confidence I gained. It helped me amazingly in my ability to write and come up with parts for songs later in life.
Ed Sullivan Show.
They’d promised to come down from New York and listen to Flow play once we felt we were ready. I was brought in to help sharpen up their act. In return, I got to latch on to this incredible spark of creativity: Every night, every time I played, I was given a chance to improvise. Using all that Paul Hillis had been teaching me about melodic phrasing, I learned how to play spontaneously and think freely, without inhibitions or fear. At first it was very scary, but when I’d been thrown out there often enough, I began to become comfortable with the tools I had. Somebody would play a groove and I’d just start playing stuff, some of which would be OK and some of which would be great. There was a constant creative stream. The freer I became, the more confidence I gained. It helped me amazingly in my ability to write and come up with parts for songs later in life.
With Susan and Bernie gone and nobody else to take their place, I could easily have gone off the rails, especially with the band smoking so much pot. Fortunately, for some reason I never fully understood, I didn’t have an addictive personality. I enjoyed the occasional joint, of course, but I’d always stop myself at the point where I felt like I was losing control. I’d had a couple of paranoid experiences, and I’d seen heroin addicts lying on the streets in New York. As far as I could see, pot smoking just made my fellow band members unmotivated and lethargic. I don’t think any of them ever held a steady job. Worse than that, the whole drug thing still scared the shit out of me. Some rock and roller I was cut out to be!
I spent a lot of time moping around, missing Susan and feeling sorry for myself. I dated a couple of girls, but nothing ever sparked like Susan and me. One girl, who went by the unusual name of Season Hubley, came from New York to Gainesville to visit friends on the campus. She was the first girl since Susan that I really liked, and I thought we might have had something going, but she didn’t seem very interested in me. She was just passing through. Then Susan’s brother Bill introduced me to Jan Booty, his girlfriend’s roommate. Jan, the daughter of a diplomat, was more permanent, studying art in Gainesville. She was very creative, and I liked that about her. We ended up living together for a while, sharing a house with a couple, Barry and Patti, and Jan’s two pet dogs, Rhythm and Blues.
It was while I was living with Jan that my brother, Jerry, came to call. I’d had little contact with him since he’d gotten married. He was working in a small law firm in Gainesville, and we didn’t have much in common. Now that I was living immorally, however, he felt obliged to come and tell me what he thought of me. I always suspected that Dad put him up to it.
“What the hell are you doing with your life, Don?” he asked me, his face pinched. In his suit and tie, he seemed far older than his twenty-five years. “Because it looks to me like you’re just wasting it.” Before I could respond, he let rip about how everything I was doing was wrong: My views on the Vietnam War were unpatriotic; my associations with protestors, musicians, and drug users were questionable; my morals and values were all screwed up; and I was headed for disaster. He thought I was a lost cause, and he let me know it.
We got into an intense argument, and I said many things I knew I was going to regret. “You’re worse than Dad,” I berated him. “You’ve been toeing the line for so long, you have no idea what real life’s all about. What are you gonna do next, Jerry, take your belt off and whip me?”
He eventually walked away in disgust, but not before we’d both said our piece. As I watched him go, I doubted if we’d ever speak again. Everyone I loved, it seemed, eventually walked away from me.
Music lifted me from the sadness
that was my life. With the dual influences of Flow and Barry, the husband of the couple Jan and I shared a house with, I became interested in jazz for the first time. Barry came from New York and was addicted to jazz, which he seemed to play endlessly. Because of him, I began listening to it more closely, studying jazz guitar, learning specific solos and acquiring a taste for people like Sonny Rollins and Django Reinhardt. I soon began to view the guitar differently. Country, rock and roll, and bluegrass sounded pretty archaic compared with something much more sophisticated and intellectual. Having been exposed to so much theory with Paul, jazz suddenly made sense.
that was my life. With the dual influences of Flow and Barry, the husband of the couple Jan and I shared a house with, I became interested in jazz for the first time. Barry came from New York and was addicted to jazz, which he seemed to play endlessly. Because of him, I began listening to it more closely, studying jazz guitar, learning specific solos and acquiring a taste for people like Sonny Rollins and Django Reinhardt. I soon began to view the guitar differently. Country, rock and roll, and bluegrass sounded pretty archaic compared with something much more sophisticated and intellectual. Having been exposed to so much theory with Paul, jazz suddenly made sense.
BOOK: Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles
12.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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