Why Don Felder Still Practices the ‘Hotel California’ Solo Before Each Show

Hearing Eagles songs any time Don Felder hits the stage is a guarantee. And fans can always count on hearing one -- "Hotel California" -- exactly as it was recorded.

Though he's steeped in jamming and improvising (he learned slide guitar from Duane Allman, after all), Felder tells UCR that he feels an obligation to remain faithful to "Hotel California," the chart-topping track he co-wrote for Eagles' 1976 album of the same name.

"I've played it so many times -- like, every show I've played as a solo artist I have played 'Hotel California'" -- not to mention hundreds of times with Eagles, Felder explains.

"The one thing I do at every show, before I go on stage, is work on 'Hotel California' because I don't want to disappoint anybody. Everybody knows every note in that solo, and I'm afraid if I started jamming on it people would go, 'What is he doing? That's wrong! That's not the solo! Is he having a moment? Or maybe he's just too old to remember it?

Read More: How Don Felder's Time in the Eagles Ended

"I think people want to hear it as they remember it from 50 years ago. So I do my best to play that, and it really takes the most amount of intense concentration to execute that solo over and over and over and over. You never want to just go on autopilot with it."

Felder brought the instrumental idea for "Hotel California" to bandmates Don Henley and Glenn Frey after recording it at a home he was renting in in Malibu while the group was writing in Calabasas, Calif., with Henley, who sang lead, and Frey adding allegorical lyrics about the mythology of California, particularly Hollywood.

With its extended guitar solos at the end the track weighed in at six-and-a-half minutes, but was only edited to 6.08 for the single version, which was released during February of 1977.

Despite the length it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received a Grammy Award for Recording of the Year.

To perform it live, then as now, Felder used a white Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck guitar that became one of his visual signatures -- and later a custom-edition made by the brand.

"The reason I wound up with a white guitar was I was trying to figure out how I was gonna play 'Hotel California' live, 'cause I'd played a bunch of different guitar tracks on the record -- including the introduction with a 12-string," Felder explains.

"Instead of switching back and forth I sent a roadie out to just go buy a double-neck, and he comes back and opens up the case and it's a white one. 'Why did you get a white one? That's so girly looking! Get me a red one or black one or something.' He said, 'That's the only one we had.' So we rewired it and I took it out on tour and I've been lugging that beast around for the last 50 years -- probably the main reason my back is in such bad shape."

Felder is currently touring as support for the Guess Who, through Aug. 22 in Seattle. He also has a few of his own shows afterwards, including a Styx's Rockin' in Paradise festival on Oct. 7 in Miramar Beach, Fla. His most recent solo album, The Vault -- Fifty Years of Music, came out last year, drawn from work tapes he'd held onto throughout his career. But he's planning a different approach to what he does next.

"I'm always coming up with ideas -- writing lyrics on the plane or singing into my phone while driving 75 miles an hour down the L.A. freeway, hoping I don't get arrested," Felder says.

"So I've got tons of bits and pieces and guitar licks and ideas that I've accumulated. I'll have some time at the end of the year when I can take a couple of months and sit down on my studio and work on some stuff. I don't want to do a Vault 2 or Vault 3 or Vault 4.

He's also entertaining a suggestion to do a blues album, perhaps with guests as he did on his 2019 album American Rock 'n' Roll, but has reservations.

"I'm not really a blues player but I learned from the right guys, cut my teeth on B.B. King and Albert (King) and that kind of stuff. There's not really a whole big market for a lot of blues tracks; I love it, but blues is really not the idiom that reaches the most amount of people. So maybe we do a blues-rock thing, or stuff that has blues flavors to it but is really more rock 'n' roll. That might work, so we'll see."