Donald William Felder was born in Gainesville, Florida, on September 21, 1947, and was first attracted to music after watching Elvis Presley live on The Ed Sullivan Show. He acquired his first guitar when he was about ten years old, which he has stated he exchanged with a friend at the five-and-dime for a handful of cherry bombs. A self-taught musician, he was heavily influenced by rock and roll, and at the age of fifteen he started his first band, the Continentals. Around that time he met Bernie Leadon, who later became one of the founding members of the Eagles, and Leadon replaced Stephen Stills in the Continentals, which eventually changed its name to The Maundy Quintet. Felder gave guitar lessons at a local music shop for about 18 months, where one of his students was a young Tom Petty, and he also learned how to play slide guitar from Duane Allman. The Maundy Quintet recorded and released a single on the Tampa-based Paris Tower label in 1967, which received airplay in north-central Florida, and after the band broke up Felder moved to Manhattan with a band called Flow, which released a self-titled improvisational rock fusion album in 1970. After Flow split, he moved to Boston where he got a job in a recording studio, and in 1973 he relocated to Los Angeles where he was hired as guitar player for a tour by David Blue, replacing David Lindley who was touring with Crosby & Nash.
In early January 1974 Felder was called by the Eagles to add slide guitar to their song 'Good Day In Hell' and some guitar solos to 'Already Gone', and shortly afterwards he was invited to join the band. After founding member Bernie Leadon departed in 1975 Joe Walsh joined, and his and Felder's dual guitar leads would eventually become one of rock music's most memorable onstage partnerships. The first album that the Eagles released after the lineup change was 'Hotel California', which became a major international bestseller and cemented their reputation as one of America's best bands. Once Felder's skill as a guitarist was recognised by the music industry he started to be asked to provide guitar on albums by a variety of artists, including Bob Seger, Andy Gibb, J. D. Souther, Warren Zevon, Stevie Nicks, and also on Joe Walsh's solo recordings. These guest appearances showed what a versatile musician he was, as he could add a country twang to Fools Gold's 'Rain, Oh, Rain', a fiery rock guitar to David Blue's 'Com'n Back For More', or a refined solo to Terence Boylan's 'Going Home'. In 1983, Felder released his first solo album entitled 'Airborne', and the album's single 'Never Surrender' was a minor hit, having also appeared on the soundtrack to the teen comedy 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High', and although he'll always be primarily remembered for his work with The Eagles, this album shows what an under-rated guitarist he was.
Track listing
01 Tattooed Man From Chelsea (from 'The Great Pretender' by Michael Dinner 1974)
02 Com'n Back For More (from 'Com'n Back For More' by David Blue 1975)
03 My Old Lady And Your Old Man (from 'A Rumor In His Own Time' by Jeffrey Comanor 1976)
04 Rain, Oh, Rain (from 'Fools Gold' by Fools Gold 1976)
05 I Can't Dance (from 'Glenda Griffith' by Glenda Griffith 1977)
06 I Go For You (from 'Shadow Dancing' by Andy Gibb 1978)
07 Ain't Got No Money (from 'Stranger In Town' by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band 1978)
08 At The Station (from "But Seriously, Folks..." by Joe Walsh 1978)
09 If You Don't Want My Love (from 'You're Only Lonely' by J.D. Souther 1979)
10 Going Home (from 'Suzy' by Terence Boylan 1980)
11 A Certain Girl (from 'Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School' by Warren Zevon 1980)
12 I Don't Want To Talk About It (from 'Alive Alone' by Mickey Thomas 1981)
13 Man Gonna Love You (from 'Plantation Harbor' by Joe Vitale 1981)
14 The Highwayman (from 'Bella Donna' by Stevie Nicks 1981)
For MAC users
Press command+shift+period (to show hidden files) and a grayed out folder '...and on guitar" will appear and the mp3s will be inside. Either drag those to another folder OR rename the folder without any periods at the beginning. Press command+shift+period to once again hide the hidden files.
As the series is now back for a short run, I've gone back to some of the previous posts and improved the covers where the colours were a bit off. You can download them from here.
and I'd never been happy with the one for Gary Boyle, as there are so few pictures of him online that I had to use a screenshot from a Youtube video, and it wasn't that great quality. I think this one from the same video is a bit sharper, and captures him better.
