This photo session was the first with new member, Don Felder. It took place at Record Plant studios during the recording of On The Border. One photo includes producer Bill Sczymcyk.
The purpose of the session was most likely to get a photo with Felder to use for ads and publicity for the Eagles’ upcoming 1974 tour in support of On The Border (below).
Ft Lewis Independent, March 29, 1974Triton Times, June 4, 1974
The photos show Randy wearing a t-shirt for the Joe Walsh & Barnstorm album, The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (also produced by Sczymcyk.) He is also wearing the same yellow chamois shirt worn in the photos from London in March 1973 & the Topanga Canyon session in September 1973.
This series of photos were taken at Bernie Leadon’s home in Topanga Canyon, CA. Another set of photos were taken at Bernie’s home by Ethan Russell circa 1971.
Photos from this session were used in a rare two-sided poster insert, found only in original first issues of On The Border in 1974.
Front and back of poster insert:
Present at the photo session were Randy’s wife, Jennifer, and their three-year-old daughter, Heather. Jennifer took these rare snapshots of the session as it was happening, including a photo of Heather with the band in the background. Photos courtesy of Jennifer Meisner. Shared with permission.
There were a couple of wardrobe changes during the session. Don Henley changed into the tan shirt Randy was wearing and Randy changed into a yellow chamois shirt. Glenn Frey switches from a denim shirt into a denim jacket. Bernie Leadon switched to a white shirt (see photo here). Randy wore the yellow shammy shirt in two other photo sessions: London, March 1973 and another Diltz session in early 1974.
These photos were taken prior to the Eagles’ concert at the De Doelen in Rotterdam either backstage or at Mazel’s studio in The Hague.
Randy’s shirt is a nod to his hometown of Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The Frank Implement Company was owned by the father of one of his friends. Randy worked there for several months in 1970 between stints touring with Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band.
Randy and Glenn Frey are wearing gold medallions that were a gift from producer Glyn Johns.
“As a gesture of friendship, Glyn had these solid-gold medallions made for each of us, after which they threw away the mold. It had an Eagle on the front, and our names on the back. Proof that I was an original Eagle.” (Randy Meisner, To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles by Marc Eliot, 1997)
Closeup of Glenn Frey’s medallion. The word “EAGLES” can be seen along the bottom.
The Eagles played Tampa Stadium on July 4th, 1976. The concert was called “4th Of July Jubilation.” Fleetwood Mac and Loggins & Messina also performed.
Photos from this session were used on the front and back cover of Desperado, released in 1973. Additional photos were published in the Desperado Songbook the same year.
“The original concept was to depict The Eagles ‘gang’ alive on the front cover and dead at the hands of the posse on the back –with pictures of the bank robbery and ensuing shoot-out in which they met their grisly fate displayed across a double spread in the middle. ‘Then, at the last minute, without telling anybody, David Geffen scrapped the centerfold,’ Diltz says. ‘He was always doing stuff like that to save three cents on the production costs.'”
Uncut, May 2007
via Henry Diltz Photography – Facebook
Diltz also filmed the session and a short film showing the band members in a staged gunfight was later shown during the Eagles’ performance of “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (reprise)” on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert in 1974.
In 1989, Randy told radio personality, Redbeard, some funny stories about the making of the short film and the horses here:
Photo shoot for the cover of the Eagles’ debut album. Photography by Henry Diltz. Art direction by Gary Burden.
The Eagles wanted the cover of their first album to have a “California” vibe, so Diltz suggested a “secret mountain top” in Joshua Tree National Park “where certain Hollywood actors would take psychedelics.” (Uncut, February 2022)
Bernie Leadon sets the scene:
“We met at the Troubadour at one in the morning and just drank our faces off, smoked all the pot and dope we could find and went out in my Toyota jeep and somebody else’s car and drove off to Joshua Tree. We arrived at four in the morning, before dawn, to the secret spot of all the old time dopers, way out in the back overlooking Palm Springs. They had this old barber’s chair way at the top of the mountain… you could sit there and it was great. We carried some guitars and all the camera equipment in the middle of the night, stumbled up this fucking mountain… made a fire and a camp and began making peyote tea and trying to eat peyote without throwing up… and the peyote was starting to come on and keep us awake… gave you that acid-like speed effect… those pictured are well stoned.”
The Story Of The Eagles: The Long Run by Marc Shapiro, 1995
The Eagles played Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, Florida on June 7th, 1973. REO Speedwagon opened. See photos, reviews, and listen to an audience recording.
On May 3rd, 1975, the Eagles played Kent State University on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Kent State Shootings. But it was not without controversy.
Playing seventeen gigs in five countries, this was the band’s first major tour of the continent as headliners. Read more about each of the shows below:
On November 30th, 1973, the Eagles played the College Of The Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. During the show, they performed a rare 10-minute epic, written and sung by Randy, called “Wait & See,” which was originally intended for ON THE BORDER.
The inside story of the Eagles’ third album ON THE BORDER, released in 1974. It was their first album with producer Bill Szymczyk & guitarist Don Felder. The reviews called Randy’s “Is It True” the “most beautiful song on the album.”
