Randy Meisner: A Retrospective

Randy Meisner (1946-2023)

Don Felder

Photo Archive: Eagles, Miami, June 24th, 1976

Photographer: David Alexander

These images were taken in Miami while the Eagles were recording Hotel California at Criteria Studios. They are dated by the June 24th, 1976 issue of the Miami Herald Don Henley is reading in the third photo. The photos were meant to show what life was like on the road for the band: arriving at the airport, hanging out at the hotel, sitting in a restaurant having breakfast (with several glasses of milk, perhaps a hangover cure), driving to the venue. Several of the photos include their road manager, Richie Fernandez. However, these are not real photos of the band on tour (they were not touring in June 1976), but were staged by Alexander and eventually used in the 1977 Hotel California Tour Book and the Hotel California Songbook.

NOTES

The page Henley is reading from in the Miami Herald is dated June 24th, 1976

Randy is wearing Fred Perry Etonic tennis shoes, named for the famous tennis player.

The car mirror photo shows the faces going the wrong direction. Here is the flipped version.

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Photo Archive: Eagles, HOTEL CALIFORNIA Cover, 1976

Photographers: David Alexander/Norman Seeff

The cover photos of the Beverly Hills Hotel at sunset, taken at Will Rodgers Memorial Park, and the back cover and gatefold, taken in the lobby of the Lido Apartments in Los Angeles, were taken by David Alexander. The cover was designed by Kosh and Don Henley.

A poster insert was included with first issues of the album. It showed the band posed on a bed. According to photographer, Norman Seeff, this photo was a composite (multiple photos combined to create one image).

“Soon after commencing this session, the band walked out. I had no idea why at the time. A week later, I showed them a poster design I had created by combining a number of individual shots. They loved it and all was forgiven. It became a poster insert for the HOTEL CALIFORNIA album.”

Norman Seeff

Below are outtakes from this session.

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Photo Archive:
Eagles – Sebel Townhouse, Sydney
January 21, 1976

Photographer: Trevor Dallen
Location: Sebel Townhouse, Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales, Australia

These photos were taken at the infamous Sebel Townhouse, nicknamed the “Rock and Roll Hotel,” due to its reputation for turning a blind eye, and even catering to, the bad behavior of traveling rock stars. The Eagles gave a press conference at the hotel and posed for photographs. The band was on a 10-day tour of Australia with their new member Joe Walsh. Ticket demand for their show in Sydney, on January 22nd, was so large that a second show had to be added on the same night.

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Photo Archive: Eagles, c.December 1975

Photographer: David Alexander
Location: Calabasas, CA

First photos featuring new member, Joe Walsh, who had joined the band in late 1975 following the departure of original member, Bernie Leadon. One photo from this shoot was used to advertise the first American show, with their new lineup, in the Honolulu Advertiser, January 24, 1976. This early advertisement helped date the photos to at least December 1975 because Randy still had long hair. When the band appeared in Australia in January 1976, Randy had cut his hair.


Don Felder recalled in his autobiography that this photo session took place at a ranch in Calabasas, “with old wagon wheels in the yard,” while the band was in the early stages of working on their forthcoming album, Hotel California.

Photos

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Photo Archive: Eagles, ONE OF THESE NIGHTS Cover, 1975

Photographer: Norman Seeff
Location: Los Angeles, CA

This was the band’s first session with photographer Norman Seeff, a former medical doctor who emigrated to the United States from South Africa in the late 1960s to pursue a career as a rock photographer. One of his first assignments was the cover of the The Band’s Stage Fright.

An image from this 1975 session with Seeff appears on the back cover of the Eagles fourth studio album, One Of These Nights. Seeff described the session in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2013:

“This session for their ONE OF THESE NIGHTS album resulted in some striking images where each member of the band was being themselves in a confident way. Creating a moment with several artists at once can be challenging. When you work with 5 artists, if you don’t create a simultaneous relationship with every single person and someone loses eye contact, then they’re not all present.”

Photos

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