Photo Archive: Randy Meisner, c.1981
Photographer: Henry Diltz
Photo Archive: Eagles, late 1974
Photographer: Henry Diltz
The band is photographed with Don Henley’s 1936 Ford. Diltz dates these photos as 1974.
Photo Archive: Eagles, August 1974
Photographer: Henry Diltz
Probably taken around the same time as the August 25th set of photos since the same September 1974 issue of Playboy can be seen in both sets.
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Photo Archive: Eagles, August 25th, 1974
Photographer: Henry Diltz
Location: Airport, New Haven, CT
According to Henry Diltz, these photos were taken when the band was en route from Connecticut, where they had just played the previous night in Waterbury, to their next show in Norfolk, Virginia. Most likely taken around the same time as this series of photos by Diltz. The same September 1974 issue of Playboy appears in both sets.
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Photo Archive: Eagles, early 1974
Photographer: Henry Diltz
First band photos with new member, Don Felder. These were possibly taken during the recording of On The Border since producer Bill Sczymcyk appears in one of the photos. Randy is wearing a t-shirt for the Joe Walsh & Barnstorm album, The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (also produced by Bill 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).
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Photo Archive: Eagles, September 1973
Photographer: Henry Diltz
Location: Bernie Leadon’s home in Topanga Canyon.
Photos from this session were used in a rare insert which were only found in original first issues of On The Border (1974).
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Photo Archive: The Poor, c.1966
Photographer: Henry Diltz.
Read more about The Poor.
L-R: Pat Shanahan, Randy Naylor, Randy Meisner, John Day, Allen Kemp.
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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Photo Archive:
Eagles, Joshua Tree National Park, March 1972
Photographer: Henry Diltz (with assistance from art director, Gary Burden)
Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California
Photo shoot for Eagles debut album cover.
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
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Teen Magazine Interview, 1981
In this interview, published by Teen magazine in February 1981, Randy talks about taking piano lessons as a kid, his early struggles in California, and leaving the Eagles.
In Their Own Words: Impressions of Randy
A variation on my In His Own Words series. Here friends and colleagues tell us what they think of Randy.
