Photo Archive: Eagles, Desperado Cover, December 18th, 1972
Photographer: Henry Diltz
Location: Paramount Ranch, Agoura Hills, CA
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
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.
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