Randy Meisner: A Retrospective

Norman Seeff

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 (read more here) . 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: Randy Meisner, 1975

Photographer: Norman Seeff

The first image, in black-and-white, features Randy in true rock star fashion with his hair being blown by a fan, a Seeff trademark.

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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.”

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