So goes the lyrics to the title tune of Hotel California the lead in to perhaps the best dueling guitar back-and-forth of any rock song ever, featuring Don Felder and Joe Walsh of The Eagles. Hotel California is the band's magnum opus.
Hotel California was released in December 1976, just months before Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Cuts from those two albums would saturate the AM-FM radio airwaves for 1977 and beyond, setting the stage for the back-and-forth commercial competition in the late '70s between these two groups.
I saw The Eagles at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO in November 1976 when they were touring to promote the upcoming release of the album. I then saw them in summer of 1978--the tour where they played stadiums and headlined a show with Dan Fogelberg and Linda Ronstadt. That shift in concert venue and size indicated the impact of the album on the band's success.
Hotel California is, undoubtedly, The Eagles' best work. It was the first album to feature Walsh and soared to number on on the Billboard album charts. It lost the Grammy for Best Album to Rumours but won for Best Record with "New Kid In Town." Two other singles from the album, "Life In the Fast Lane" and "Hotel California," made the Billboard top 100.
The album is associated with southern California but Don Henley stated, in an interview about Hotel California, that the LP is a "concept album...but it's not set in the old West. It's more urban this time..." and used California as the the microcosm for the United States, opining in the lyrics about themes of innocence, the perils of fame, of excess, idealism and the American Dream.
Randy Meisner, bassist, left the group during the making of Hotel California and was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit. This iteration of the group--Henley, Glenn Frey, Walsh, Felder and Schmit--would be the band's most successful fivesome and would release The Long Run in 1979. In 1980, the group disbanded before reuniting for Hell Freezes Over - the album and tour - in 1994.
Hotel California--truly an amazing piece of musical work.
No comments:
Post a Comment