One of the remarkable synchronicities of 1970s rock music is how so many big acts of the day emerged from Northern Central Florida and its surrounding environs. The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Tom Petty all grew up or spent time in the area, as did several guitarists who would go on to shape the California sound in that decade: Stephen Stills and Eagles members Bernie Leadson and Don Felder.
Felder, now a former Eagle, was very much at the center of it all. Growing up in Gainesville, Florida, he developed his guitar skills early on and by his late teens was giving guitar lessons at a music store to help support his career.
He recalled the day a young bass guitarist came in looking for guitar lessons. It was Tom Petty.
“I started playing at 10. By the time I got to be 16, I got a job working in a music store,” Felder recalled to People Now. “They didn't pay me, but for every student that I taught, I got five dollars credit on the store, so I could get guitar strings, or I could get a cord, or if I saved up enough I could get an amplifier or trade in for a better guitar.”
Many of his students were newcomers to the instrument who were struggling with the basics.
They didn't pay me, but for every student that I taught, I got five dollars credit on the store, so I could get guitar strings, or I could get a cord.”
— Don Felder
“And so I used to teach all these kids who had gotten guitars for Christmas. Their fingers were hurting — ‘Oh, it hurts to play’ — and I'd make it fun.”
“So one day this kid came in — kind of a scrawny bucktooth, kind of brawly-looking kid — and it's Tom Petty. He wants to learn to play guitar.”
At the time, Petty was playing bass in a Gainesville band called the Epics. As Felder recalled more recently to WMMR-FM, Petty was unhappy playing bass and wanted to learn how to play guitar. For that matter, the Epics were in desperate need of help.
“They had two guitar players that both just flailed artlessly on the electric guitar,” Felder says. “And Tommy was playing bass and singing and fronting the band, and he really didn’t want to be the singing bass player; he wanted to play guitar.
“So I started teaching him guitar in this music store, and going out to see him and teaching him at his house.”
Felder also went to the Epics’ shows and gave their two guitarists some tips. “I said, ‘Wait a minute. You got to turn down a little bit. You play rhythm, and then, when Tom's not singing, you play a little lead guitar line, right?’ ”
Tommy was playing bass and singing and fronting the band, and he really didn’t want to be the singing bass player; he wanted to play guitar.”
— Don Felder
“It was funny because, the Allman Brothers were in that area, too. Duane Allman taught me how to play slide guitar. Stephen Stills and I had a band together when we were 14, 15. When Stephen left to go back to California” — where he joined first Buffalo Springfield and then formed Crosby, Stills & Nash — “Bernie Leadon moved to Gainesville to replace Stephen in the band.
“Lynyrd Skynyrd was, like, about 60 minutes away in Jacksonville,” he adds. “So in one little area in North Central Florida, so many musicians went on to become Platinum-selling artists, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, legendary southern rock musicians who just happened to be caught up in that same place.
“I can’t tell it was something that was in the water or something in what we were smoking.”
The connections Felder describes stretch even farther when you consider that the late Rick Derringer inspired Allman to take up slide guitar, or that Neil Young — who would join Crosby, Stills and Nash — was childhood friends with Randy Bachman, who recently related a tale of how Young introduced him to Stills, with hilarious results.
Felder’s career led him from Florida to New York City, Boston and, by the early 1970s, Los Angeles, where he replaced David Lindley in a band supporting folk singer David Blue when Lindley went on tour with David Crosby and Graham Nash. When Lindley fell ill, he replaced him in performances with Crosby and Nash.
By late 1973, Felder got a session gig with help from his old friend Bernie Leadon, who was now a guitarist in the Eagles. The group needed a slide guitarist to play on their song “Good Day in Hell,” on their 1974 album On the Border. Leadon suggested Felder. The Eagles were so pleased with his work that they asked him to join.
Felder’s time with the band lasted through the 1970s, during which he put his signature lines on many songs, including the solo to “One of These Nights,” and co-wrote their hit “Hotel California.” But a spat with Eagles founder Glenn Frey marked the end of the road for the group in 1980. They regrouped in 1994, but in 2001 Felder was fired by the group. He sued and in 2007 the case was settled out of court.
He’s continued to perform solo and has just released The Vault — Fifty Years of Music, a career-spanning set that features new songs from old ideas dating back as far as 1974.
The Vault will take Felder on the road this summer as part of the Brotherhood of Rock tour with Styx and Kevin Cronin, which kicked off May 28 and runs through August 24. (He’s certain to be drinking plenty of water, following his near mishap onstage this past February.) Meanwhile he’s sitting on a load of other ideas from that cardboard box. Which means it might not be long before he dips back into The Vault for another album.
