Celebration of "Hotel California" Album!

[Delilah]

So I'm trying to look up info on other stuff, and I keep finding interesting tidbits about HC that are new to me. Perhaps they are new to others as well. This is from a 2012 GuitarWorld article about Joe and his then-new album, Analog Man.

About "Life in the Fast Lane":

Among his songwriting contributions was the signature guitar riff for the hit “Life in the Fast Lane.”

“That was actually a coordination drill that I’d come up with on guitar to warm up to play live,” he says. “I was just playing it one time and Don Henley goes, ‘What the hell is that!’ Well, it was just an idea floating around. With the Eagles, we would all bring in bits and pieces of music, throw them in a big pile and sort through them.

“Don and Glenn got a hold of that ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ riff. Glenn kinda arranged it, and we did a demo of it. Then Don had the idea of ‘life in the fast lane.’ He put the words together, and we recorded it for real. And then Don Felder and I figured out the guitar work. Once we knew it was an Eagles song, they turned me loose a little bit.”

Walsh and Eagles co-guitarist Don Felder coalesced into a formidable team. “We worked really well together,” Walsh says. “It was competitive. We brought out the best in each other. He would play something, and I’d get an attitude like, ‘Oh yeah? Listen to this.’ And he’d go, ‘Wow, listen to this!’ We would work that way. You can kind of hear that.”

About "Hotel California":

The Eagles began to craft an arrangement, using the working title “Mexican Reggae.” After Henley came up with the song’s masterful lyric, Felder and Walsh were once again let loose.

“Don had his distinct part and I had my distinct part in the body of the song,” Walsh recounts. “And we thought, What if we merged those together? And that was the dual guitar work that develops during the course of the song. Felder had a lot of ways to go with it, and I tried to focus on that.”

The track’s unforgettable dual-guitar harmonies were played live in the studio by Walsh and Felder. “We took a couple of hours to work all those harmonies out and put them on,” Walsh says. “But over that we did individual solos. Like I said, Felder and I were competitive, but in a good way.”

To the best of Walsh’s recollection, he played a Telecaster on “Hotel California,” while Felder played a Les Paul, and of course the 12-string acoustic part. “We always tried to have a single-coil and a humbucker as the personalities of the guitars,” Walsh explains.

“We found that with two Les Pauls, you couldn’t really hear either of them, and two single-coils was too thin. So I ended up being the single-coil guy on ‘Hotel California.’”

I love reading Joe's perspective about how the Eagles came up with song ideas. http://www.guitarworld.com/interview...bum-analog-man

[sodascouts]

I had to look up what "single-coil" and "humbucker" meant, lol. Learn something new every day! I enjoy reading about these kind of things, too. Thanks for posting them.

[chaim]

Does anyone besides me notice that when Timmothy plays Hotel california he plays the harmonies diffrent then Randy does on the studio? Also Randy plays the Bass harmony diffrently in the Capital Center DVD then on the record?


I wonder if the song has ever been played with Bassline as it was on the record

Fast forward to 5:40 this is the isolated bass track from the original master track.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i-YXCN...T8J3YCgVz2fX1Z


Here is the Capital Center one. Skip to 5:41

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJKABBDr6w


Now Farwell 1 with Timmothy Skip to 6:51

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S9MeTn1i72g

I have never liked Timothy's version of that one. He has always played certain notes very low. It still doesn't work to (for?) my years.

[Funk 50]

I've recently read an interview with Randy, in which he says the bass part on Hotel California was Felder's. Randy played it on the album but it was very difficult bass part to play and sing at the same time, which would explain why the live versions from both Randy and Tim don't match the album version.

[thelastresort]

I've recently read an interview with Randy, in which he says the bass part on Hotel California was Felder's. Randy played it on the album but it was very difficult bass part to play and sing at the same time, which would explain why the live versions from both Randy and Tim don't match the album version.

That is interesting. I have always wondered if in the Eagles there were ever any parts where the complexity of the music negated someone singing, it never occurred to me that if there was you' just change the music

I suppose the obvious example of having to chop and change vocals and music would be Felder being drafted in to play slide on GDIH: Glenn could both sing and play slide rather well, but I doubt it would have been easy to do both simultaneously on that song! Similarly, I never managed to work out why Don H. could still sing the falsetto and play the awkward rhythm to OOTN well into his sixties, but gave up the likes of LITFL. His choice I know, but if he can survive OOTN he can survive anything!

[chaim]

I've recently read an interview with Randy, in which he says the bass part on Hotel California was Felder's. Randy played it on the album but it was very difficult bass part to play and sing at the same time, which would explain why the live versions from both Randy and Tim don't match the album version.

I believe we are talking about the bit beneath the guitar solo (no vocals), where the "reggae" bassline disappears and the bass player plays just the root notes. For some reason Timothy prefers to play certain notes really low on the neck - especially the last two notes of the chord progression (e and f sharp). A matter of taste I guess, but sometimes I don't like it when the bass goes real low. You don't have to play the lowest possible E only because you can.

[chaim]

I've been thinking about this lately...In the 70's Don F started to use a double neck on HC, so that he would be able to play the "chord arpeggio" as well as certain electric parts. On the record, as we know, it's a 12 string acoustic, so the electric 12 string was a compromise.

These days technology enables you to do stuff you couldn't do convincingly in the 70's. You can mike instruments better on stage etc. So why doesn't he have a 12 string acoustic on a stand, like guitarists occasionally do when they have parts for different instruments? (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...7a5c1bfd0e.jpg) Steve Howe does that a lot. Has Don tried it, but couldn't get a good sound? Has the doubleneck become such an "icon" visually, and associated with his masterpiece (no sarcasm intended!), that he sticks to it for that reason?

[Funk 50]

After playing Hotel California a certain way for 40 years, I suppose that becomes the definitive version. As well as going electric, the Eagles used to use guitar tech Jage Jackson as an extra guitarist to boost the sound during the intro to Hotel California. Big venues needed a big sound.

A couple of years ago, Ed Sheeran played a 2 hour, solo (ie. all by himself) acoustic, stadium show (helped by a lot of tech wizardry) so the technology is definitely available, although the difficulty is probably feedback, when there is more than one instrument in the mix.
When I first heard the Eagles Live album, I was disappointed to hear Joe play Life's Been Good's iconic acoustic guitar riff on electric guitar. With three top guitarists on stage, I was expecting Glenn or Don to play it.

After a couple of thousand live performances, the acoustic doesn't seem so essential.

[sodascouts]

Has the doubleneck become such an "icon" visually, and associated with his masterpiece (no sarcasm intended!), that he sticks to it for that reason?

I think this is the main reason. The doubleneck looks cool, and people expect to see it. It's become associated with HC and I think people would miss it if he stopped using it.

[Freypower]

After playing Hotel California a certain way for 40 years, I suppose that becomes the definitive version. As well as going electric, the Eagles used to use guitar tech Jage Jackson as an extra guitarist to boost the sound during the intro to Hotel California. Big venues needed a big sound.

A couple of years ago, Ed Sheeran played a 2 hour, solo (ie. all by himself) acoustic, stadium show (helped by a lot of tech wizardry) so the technology is definitely available, although the difficulty is probably feedback, when there is more than one instrument in the mix.
When I first heard the Eagles Live album, I was disappointed to hear Joe play Life's Been Good's iconic acoustic guitar riff on electric guitar. With three top guitarists on stage, I was expecting Glenn or Don to play it.

After a couple of thousand live performances, the acoustic doesn't seem so essential.

Without getting off topic I would have liked that riff to be played on acoustic too, but it's Joe's song, so he was expected to play it, not somebody else, hence he had to play it electric.