Randy Meisner: A Retrospective

1973

Eagles
Berkeley Community Center, Berkeley, CA
June 16, 1973

The Eagles played Berkeley Community Center on June 16th, 1973. King Crimson opened. Listen to an audience recording of the Eagles’ set below.

San Francisco Examiner, June 10, 1973

Audience Recording

Randy sang lead on “Certain Kind Of Fool,” Tryin'” and co-lead on “How Long.” The full concert is also provided below.

“Certain Kind Of Fool”

“Tryin'”

“How Long” (co-lead with Glenn Frey & Don Henley)

Full Concert Recording

The recording includes a rare live version of “Bitter Creek.” On the album version, Randy played a guitarrón (acoustic bass). I believe he is playing it on this live recording because he can be heard tuning it before the song begins (@14:05). The guitarrón has a very deep sound, different from an electric bass.

Recording Setlist
Take It Easy (with Silver Dagger intro)
How Long
Doolin-Dalton
Bitter Creek
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Desperado
Twenty-One
Early Bird
Certain Kind Of Fool
Outlaw Man
Witchy Woman
Lazy Days (Gram Parsons’ song)
Tryin’
Tequila Sunrise

Review

The concert started with Glenn Frey parading around onstage with an eagle mask on his head and a Budweiser in his hand.

California Aggie, July 5th, 1973

Author

Jessica Buxton

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“Coming Into Los Angeles: The Story Of The Eagles” by Pete Frame

This article from the British music magazine, Zigzag, includes a lengthy interview with Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner (mostly Bernie) by Zigzag‘s founder and editor Pete Frame. The piece also includes one of Frame’s famous “family trees,” charting the origin of the Eagles. Randy is referenced in another of Frame’s family trees charting the history of Poco (Zigzag, December 1971). See it here.

The article is not without a few discrepancies and some liberty-taking with quotes. But it is a nice, early introduction to the band from its original stars, Bernie and Randy.

Author

Jessica Buxton

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The Eagles on The Helen Reddy Show,
July 12th, 1973

The Eagles appeared on the third episode of The Helen Reddy Show on July 12th, 1973. Also featured were Mac Davis, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Cheech and Chong. The Eagles played two songs: “Witchy Woman” and “Tequila Sunrise.” It was their U.S. television debut.1

On the heels of Reddy’s hit, “I Am Woman,” her friend Flip Wilson offered her his primetime NBC time slot while the Flip Wilson Show was on summer hiatus. The eight episodes were billed as Flip Wilson Presents The Helen Reddy Show.

In addition to appearing on her show, Mac Davis also appeared in concert with Reddy numerous times in 1973. She had also recorded one of his songs, “I Believe In You,” for her 1971 debut album I Didn’t Know How To Love Him. Ironically, Reddy and Davis died on the same day (September 29th, 2020) at the same age (78).

Deseret News, July 12, 1973

Short clips of the Eagles’ performances of “Witchy Woman” and “Tequila Sunrise”:

(Sources: 2018 promo video for Eagles Legacy Box Set. History Of The Eagles documentary, 2013)

Randy’s wife Jennifer, their 9-year-old son, Dana, and Jennifer’s 13-year-old niece, Bobbi, were present at the taping, which took place a month or two earlier at NBC Studios in Burbank. Jennifer remembered that the filming was a long process, with the groups stopping and starting to make sure their performances were perfect. Gladys Knight & The Pips took the longest, she remembered. “They made me insane.”

Below is an article from the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, Randy’s hometown paper, announcing The Helen Reddy Show appearance. Included with the article was a photo of Jennifer posing with a poster from the Eagles’ concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall in March 1973 (the poster would later end up on the wall of their apartment in Studio City). Unfortunately, the article is riddled with misspellings, the most glaring is Randy’s last name. Near the bottom, the paper quotes Jennifer as saying the Eagles had finished taping a show with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. This would have been the 90-minute In Concert special on ABC, which aired August 3rd, 1973. When the Helen Reddy Show aired in Scottsbluff, Randy was home and able to watch it with his family.

Images

  1. In March 1973, the Eagles made two European television appearances on Popgala ’73 and BBC’s In Concert. Although the Reddy show marked the Eagles’ U.S. television debut, it was not Randy’s first stint before television audiences. His group, The Poor, appeared on episodes of Ironside and The Name Of The Game in 1968. Poco (then Pogo) appeared on local L.A. television also in 1968. He also made a number of TV appearances with Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band between 1969 and 1971.  ↩︎

Author

Jessica Buxton

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The Eagles on ABC’s IN CONCERT, 1973

The Eagles appeared on ABC’s In Concert series on August 3rd, 1973. The 90-minute show also included Ike & Tina Turner and Jim Croce, among others. It was taped on June 20th, 1973 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

UCLA Daily Bruin, June 21, 1973

Soundcheck

At the soundcheck, Randy wore an unusual knit shirt covered with faces. His ex-wife, Jennifer, recalled that he purchased the shirt at L.B. Murphy’s, a department store in his hometown of Scottsbluff, NE.

Eagles during their soundcheck:

IN CONCERT

The Eagles performed “Tequila Sunrise,” Early Bird,” and “Witchy Woman.” Randy wore another shirt with a Scottsbluff connection for the taping: a yellow Frank Implement Company shirt. Frank Implement was a John Deere dealership in Scottsbluff, which was owned by the father of a friend. Randy worked there for a brief time in 1970. His only real job.

Footage

In 1974, The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, hosted an In Concert second anniversary special, which revisited performances from the past two seasons. Below is his introduction to the Eagles segment.

Below are the three songs the Eagles performed on In Concert in 1973. Apologies for the low quality.

“Tequila Sunrise”

“Early Bird” (co-written by Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner)

“Witchy Woman”

Author

Jessica Buxton

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The Eagles
Spring Fest, Edwardsville, IL
May 25, 1973

The Eagles appeared at Spring Fest on the campus of Southern Illinois University/Edwardsville (SIUE).
Livingston Taylor (James’ brother) opened.

The previous night, Glenn Frey had been arrested following the Eagles’ concert at Mershon Auditorium in Columbus. He was charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana and public intoxication.

OSU Lantern, May 25, 1973

Mugshot

Glenn made no mention of the arrest in a backstage interview in Edwardsville. He talked about the difference between “superfans,” who want to get as close to the stage a possible, and music fans, who stay a few rows back because they want to hear the music.

Randy Meisner, Bernie Leadon, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey were photographed in the afternoon prior to their appearance at Spring Fest.
Photo by John Milazzo (Focus magazine, October 1974)

The Eagles onstage.

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EAGLES
University of Akron, Akron, OH
May 13, 1973

Spooky Tooth opened.

Akron Buchtelite, May 13, 1973

“Ex-Poco member, Randy Meisner, made his subtle and important mark on the evening by doing his “Certain Kind Of Fool” and “Tryin'”–both numbers of high energy and Poco-like vocals. Meisner’s bass playing is simple, but steady.” -Jim Gerard, Cleveland Scene, May 17, 1973

Cleveland Scene, May 17, 1973
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