I will never forget Randy. Randy came into my life in 1986. Art Ford who came to LA, from Eugene Oregon with me, put us in touch. I wanted to move from jazz and R/B to rock. Randy was low key and willing to listen to an idea I had, for a young artist. Richard Marx had a song called Don’t Mean Nothing.

Randy loved his voice and lyrics. I had put featured musicians on the records of jazz artists I managed in Eugene. Chick Corea with Jeff Lorber, and Lee Ritenour with Dan Siegle.  Both albums went gold. However, as headliners they were theater artists.

I wanted a bigger house. So Randy meets with David Cole, the producer of the Richard Marx album. Introduces us to Timothy Schmit, and Joe Walsh. He really wanted to give both Richard and me our break. That he certainly did. He agreed to do press, and an MTV special introducing Richard, to the audience globally, with Timothy and Joe.

Don’t Mean Nothing, became the most added rock song at the time with 140 radio stations, the first week. Those were the days when rock radio could sell records and tickets. Richard became a global arena artist. On his debut record. I got my house upgrade and Richard agreed with me to return the favor. He wrote and produced a song for a reunited Poco, I put together, that became a hit.

Based on the success of Richard and Poco, I received calls from Meatloaf, The Bee Gees, Duran Duran, Luther, ….

RIP Randy, you were kind and generous. You gave two up and comers their break. I will forever be grateful.

Allen Kovac

____________________________________

Bob: Thanks for remembering Randy so well. He was a kind and gentle soul. When the Eagles first made money they were a little shocked after struggling for so long. Randy came by the office one day to show me his new car. I expected to see a Porsche or a Cadillac. Instead it was a car I had never heard of. He proceeded to explain to me the thrifty and practical aspects of owning a Subaru. Rest in peace music man.

Hartmann

____________________________________

I thought the 2 tracks from his solo record I produced were rather good. The co-write with Eric Kaz, “Hearts On Fire” and ” Deep Inside My Heart” w/Kim Carnes. And Wendy Waldman doing BG vocals.

Val Garay

____________________________________

Hi Bob, thank you for writing about Randy. His solo record was one of the first albums I ever worked on. And to this day probably one of the most memorable. Randy was truly kind. To me he cared about everybody, and seemed to have trust in everyone.

Thanks always. Neeks

Niko Bolas

____________________________________

Bob, thanks so much for singling out “Is It True,” one of the greatest deep album cuts of all-time. Never understood why that one didn’t get more love. It was pure Randy-that high lonesome perfection. RIP Randy Meisner. He wasn’t cut out for fame, but his immense talent was transcendent, and that voice will live on. Hell of a bass player too.

Joel Amsterdam

____________________________________

Lest we forget (all singing bass players) Randy, Timothy B Schmitt, and yes Chris Hillman were the schematic-blueprint for all of us experimenting with country, country rock, and bluegrass. I was 22 (1974) when I joined the Bluegrass Hall of Fame band The New Grass Revival. I had played in Rock & Roll and R & B bands in Kentucky, but my only frame of references for my new job were Randy, Tim, Chris, Chris Etheridge etc. Thank God I had listened to these guys. What I’m saying here is that Randy and Timothy are/were such phenomenal singers that most people missed how gifted and inventive they were/are as bassist.

Randy & Timothy both have inventive, melodic and funky bass tracks all over both the Eagles and Poco records.

Thank you gentlemen for not only busting down the doors but holding them open for us.

John Cowan

____________________________________

Randy’s vocal performance from the 1977 Capital Centre show is one of the most amazing vocal performances I have ever heard. It sends shivers up my spine, and now watching it, I want to cry. I don’t think anyone else will be able to equal this performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxO6-FRJCeo

Joe Sherfy

____________________________________

Great post, Bob. I was in an eagles tribute band for the last 12 or 13 years. We worked hard to make everything sound like it did on the records.
I just retired a couple months ago. I’m amazed at the popularity of their music. We have many many folks who have seen the show multiple times. Honestly I never got tired of the music. I think it’s because the songs are so well written and arranged.
We have 5 guitar players/singers besides bass drums and keys so we can cover all the bases.
I think my favorite, and most under appreciated, album
Is  On the Border.
It had room for all their styles–country, Folk, and The rock tunes.

Bill Live from MN.

____________________________________

When Randy left the Eagles he used to stop by this club in Toluca Lake called “Jasons” and sit in with the band. He would sing and take the house down. A bunch of us would hang after the club closed and Randy was there hanging out, super personable and the nicest unaffected rock star you could ever meet. What a talent he was.

RIP Randy

Marty Wals

____________________________________

About ten years ago, I was searching YouTube for songs from 1982. I was 13 that year and as I’ve grown older, 1982 became my favorite year in music. I came across Randy’s “Never Been in Love”. When I heard it on YouTube, I hadn’t heard it in 30 years but I remembered it. Even though he didn’t write it, Craig Bickhardt did, it’s the best song he did and my favorite. Perfect 1982 pop. Driving rock verse leading up to the soaring chorus. And that sound. That warm pop sound.

RIP Randy. Without you, the Eagles would never be as big.

Ryan Taylor

____________________________________

Great piece about my favorite Eagle… thank you!

You didn’t mention his best song, though:  Try and Love Again off of Hotel California. So damn good!

RIP Randy

sean michael dargan

____________________________________

Thanks Bob.

Randy was the high harmony voice in the Eagles vocal mix and nobody ever did it better! His vocal on “Try And Love Again” is classic and one of my favorites among the Eagles catalog. RIP to the humble legend.

Pat Whitaker

____________________________________

This?

“A compilation of lead-singing performances by Randy Meisner”: 

Performances

Richard Pachter

____________________________________

I was so heartened that you cited “A Certain Kind of Fool” in your letter. That was a serious high point of Randy’s work for me, my personal favorite, even more than the irrefutable “Take It to the Limit”.

I’m guessing the video you cited was the live BBC broadcast from 1973, where they open with “Train Leaves Here This Morning”. Eagles at their early best, tight, clean, and fresh, and the broadcast direct and unadorned. US TV could never get it right back then, but the Beeb did. “Certain Kind of Fool” appears at 12:30 into the video. Utterly live.

https://youtu.be/Tq7XxwIsgbU

The lines to “Certain Kind of Fool”  that actually got under my skin were the few you did not quote…

“He saw it in window
The mark of a new kind of man
He kind of like the feeling
So shiny and smooth in his hand
He took it to the country
And practiced for days without rest
And then one day he found it
He knew he could stand with the best”

Of course, back then I hung on every note. To me Desperado was a triumph, not a disappointment, a perfect album I simply wore out. “Outlaw Man”, “Out of Control”, “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night”, “Bitter Creek”, never mind “Doolin-Dalton”, the title track. and of course “Certain Kind of Fool”. My coming of age album.

In 1973, I was in my third year at UCLA, and had been playing guitar two years and writing for one year. I got turned on to my roommate Wilkie Cheong’s killer record collection two years earlier, and mainlined Matthews’ Southern Comfort, Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Flying Burrito Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, Neil Young solo stuff I had missed, Fred Neil, stuff that never made it down to my AM radio driven hometown of Calexico, CA.

I been a Ronstadt fan since 1967, got turned on to Jackson Browne in 1971, Bonnie Raitt the same year, my pal Dan Carlson snuck a reel-to-reel into Royce hall for Neil Young solo in 1971 (with all the Harvest songs long before the album came out , which we learned and became the coolest guys in the dorms for a while there).

I was hipped to the coming Eagles in 1972 by my college friend Sara Rutenberg, who had been a “band aid” to Randy’s pre-Rick Nelson band, The Poor, which also featured Pat Shanahan and Alan Kemp, also in the Stone Canyon Band. With no reference enough to be cynical to the Eagles’ slickness compared to Gram Parsons and the Burritos, or even Poco, and feeling the California sound congealing around me in real time, I ate it up whole. To me it was the coolest.

I saw them repeatedly — a free taping of ABC’s “In Concert” at UCLA’s Royce Hall in 1973 (where Tequila Sunrise had an extra bridge that never appeared on the album, “Guess I’ll go to Mexico / Down to where the pace of life is slow / There’s no one there I know”), and in 1974, Golden Hall in San Diego (where Joe Walsh made an unannounced guest appearance on Chuck Berry’s “Carol”), and notably, Robertson Gym at UC Santa Barbara with Poco and Jesse Colin Young, $6, with my new music-savvy girlfriend (who turned me on to Iain Matthews’s version of “Seven Bridges Road” that the Eagles copped note for note) and we were tripping. Good times.

And one night, 1973 or 1974, after they played the Santa Monica Civic, Sara and I hung out at stage door so she could introduce me to Randy. He emerged from the hall, saw Sara, smiled and called her name, and we were introduced. My first rock star meeting.

It’s 50 years later now, the mystique as hardened as my guitar calluses and long replaced by the realities of the gig and the vagaries of career. But that feeling embodied in Randy’s song, well, that never quite wore off, did it? That, and Take it to the Limit sort of became the source material of my fully formed adult mantra — put me on a highway, show me a sign, and it’s a certain kind of fool that likes to hear the sound of his own name. Hell yeah.

RIP Randy Meisner. Thanks for everything.

dn

Dan Navarro

How come this worked?

Well, more interesting is how come this sustained. Modelo is now the number one beer in America, and Bud Light’s sales have not returned to anywhere near their previous level. Meanwhile, every boycott on the left, proposed or actualized, never sustains.

Like Facebook. Remember when you were supposed to delete that? And Amazon?

Now in truth, there are no alternatives to those, not viable ones. So it’s not exactly apples to apples. Then again it’s very difficult to get beer drinkers to switch brands. Their preferred brand is part of their identity.

But not as strong as their allegiance to the Republican party.

I read a tweet yesterday that people have already forgotten the sexual assault verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial, and that just happened in May. That’s testimony to how fast the world moves these days. If the bad behavior of an ex-President is forgotten, what else is forgotten? Nearly everything. So, if you’re resting on your laurels, on what you’ve done, you may remember, but most others do not, there’s just too much in the channel. Which is why…

You should never fight back. You just amplify the situation. If someone attacks you on social media, stay silent. Unless it’s truly heinous behavior and you are innocent. If you don’t respond chances are the story will fade away. And you must know, there’s a plethora of people out there whose only goal is to get you to react, unlike you they’ve got nothing to lose. Beware of these trolls, they exist in every vertical and if you’ve got any status at all, they play. Also, before you pull your hair trigger, look at their follower count. Especially on Twitter, er, X. The people attacking you most viciously frequently have no followers at all! The accounts were just set up to hassle you. Or they have very few. What they write has no traction until you respond.

However, that’s different from the Bud Light situation.

It turns out the right, the Republicans, the Trumpers, are just more dedicated than the Democrats, much more passionate. And this pays dividends. The right plays offense and the left plays defense. The right is cooking up grievances and causes of action 24/7, the left is somnambulant and surprised when the right attacks it. Who knows how good Kamala Harris actually is, but one thing is for sure, she’s been defined negatively by the right, and she should not be on the 2024 ticket. These are the same people who negatively defined Hillary Clinton. How many times do you have to see this movie to get it? Well, the DNC almost never gets it.

But there’s so much we could boycott on the left that we never do. We can start with MyPillow. But even when states enact heinous legislation… Tours reroute once, movie companies pull production once, and then they go right back to the usual behavior. They feel that they’re out there alone, that no one is supporting them. On the right there’s constant cheerleading, on the left there’s crickets.

And the media is complicit, on the left as well as the right. It’s a story, that everyone can react to. No different from all the ink about Taylor Swift and the Korean boy/girl groups. You’d think there is no other act on the road. When in truth there are multiple acts selling out stadiums, never mind arenas, but it’s not quite as sexy or controversial, so it goes unreported.

There are more people on the left than the right. If they came together for the cause… But they don’t. They’re always told to hold back, to settle it at the ballot box. This is a piss-poor way of motivating your constituents. People want to do something, give them ammunition.

Maybe start with one right wing product a month. Or just one product. Get everybody to stop using it and put out constant press releases, have MSNBC continue to hammer the story. It’s not a difficult path, the right has already established it. But instead we get wimps, our supposed leaders, like Schumer, who is afraid to raise his voice and keeps telling us his hands are tied, that he doesn’t have the votes. Well, this does not stop the right. Look at the Freedom Caucus in the House, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s been excised. They don’t care about the vote, they don’t lay down their arms, they agitate, and even spew falsehoods, to bond their constituents to them. They’re doing something, even though in truth their agenda is to do nothing. But if we want someone to root for on the left? The only person I can think of is Newsom. Maybe Whitmer. Everybody else seems to be a professional, part of the problem, or has been neutered, like AOC.

How come the left can’t be organized?

Oh, don’t tell me about phone banks and canvassing. That doesn’t excite people. They want to be part of something. Give them something to do. They’ll do it, but the left just rests on its laurels, which aren’t looking so good.

And I don’t need another musician to come out against the right wing, I need another musician to do something, to lead as opposed to react. Motivate their fans.

I was out last night and an agent asked me what we can do, someone who put together a tour last time around to get out the vote. But the vote is a year and a half away. We’re not going to do anything until then? Just let Joe and Kamala sit at home, waiting for the election? Hell, there aren’t even debates on the left, there’s no theater. It’d be like asking people to believe in the movie business with no flicks at the multiplex. Baseball went on strike and canceled games and it took years for attendance to recover. But the Democrats are sitting on the sidelines. And baseball realized it was losing its fans and this year modernized, to make the game faster and more palatable.

We need an equal shake-up on the left.

Go on TikTok. The Trumpers are radicalized, they’re emotionally invested. Talk to someone about Biden… At best you’ll get grudging support. And I’m gonna scare you here. If the Republicans run anyone but Trump or DeSantis against Biden they’re going to win, hands-down. Biden has a record as president, he’s been excoriated by the right for four years, whereas someone without a track record, anybody without a track record, has an advantage.

Don’t tell us to trust you, you and Biden. Don’t tell us you’ve got this. Don’t tell us about the women who are going to come out as a reaction to the reduction of the availability of abortion. Motivate us. Get us involved.

But no.

Spotify playlist: https://tinyurl.com/2mnuj67y

He deserves to be remembered as more than that guy in the Eagles documentary, the one who incurred Glenn Frey’s wrath. Hell, he deserves to be remembered for more than “Take It to the Limit.”

It was fifty one years ago today, not that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play, but that “Take It Easy” dominated the airwaves. It was an instant hit single. On AM. When that still mattered, because of the car.

But this was different. Because usually records started on FM and then crossed over to AM. They got a start on the quieter band, the act gained fans, and after they’d embraced them then the group was ready for mainstream consumption. The Eagles did it backward. And as a result were not warmly embraced by the cognoscenti. Sure, it was an amazing hit single, but really was this act any better than the Starland Vocal Band, which had its one monster smash?

Well, if you bought the album you found out. The group emerged fully-formed. But if you didn’t buy the album, you didn’t know this. FM itself was becoming codified, less deep, less the bastion of album tracks. And since the Eagles hadn’t paid their dues they were not all over the radio.

But if you bought the album…

The big surprise was “Witchy Woman,” which followed the first side opener “Take It Easy.” “Witchy Woman” was as dark and brooding as “Take It Easy” was breezy and uplifting. This was our introduction to Don Henley. The drummer. He only sang two songs on the LP.

So, the Eagles were Linda Ronstadt’s backup band, experienced musicians, who’d been in groups previously, who were not wet behind the ears, they all had history, it was a minor league supergroup.

And not the group most people talk about today.

There are two Eagles periods, and they are quite different. Don Felder joined the band for the fourth album, “On the Border,” and the band rocked harder. Then Joe Walsh joined for “Hotel California” and there was no confusing what was happening then with what happened before. When the Dude criticized the Eagles, he was talking about the earlier period.

Not that it matters, not with fifty years of hindsight.

Randy Meisner was the bassist in the earlier period of the band.

And unlike Bernie Leadon, he never came back. Then again, Meisner was sick, had been for eons. At Glenn Frey’s memorial service he was using oxygen and…it’s not a complete surprise Randy passed.

And Randy did make a solo album after he left the band, 1978’s eponymous effort. I bought it, it was not memorable. And then…

He was akin to Jason Newsted. Then again, Jason was not an original member of Metallica.

So back to the narrative.

Well, let’s start before that. With Poco. A previous supergroup that was supposed to rival Crosby, Stills & Nash on the chart, but didn’t. Randy Meisner was the bass player, but he quit before the album came out.

Then Randy played with Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band, an outfit that was gaining credibility, rejecting Ricky’s early hits for something deeper, meatier and more soulful.

And then Randy was in the Eagles.

Oh, he went back to Nebraska and went straight for a moment in between, but that brings us back to 1972, and the Eagles debut.

The songs left off the greatest hits albums have faded away. But when there was only one album, I was deeply enamored of the closing track, Randy Meisner’s “Tryin’.”

“I’m just arriving in the city

And there’s music on my mind

Lookin’ for my destination and

My home is far behind”

That’s what they all did. Came from disparate burgs across this great nation of ours to Los Angeles, to make it. They’d outgrown the local scene, they wanted more, they believed they deserved more.

“‘Cause it’s a long road ahead

And you can make it in the end

I’m gonna make it with my friends

And I’m tryin'”

Was it Glenn Frey who called a band a gang? They’re in the trenches together, slugging it out, friends until…the band doesn’t make it and breaks up or it does and friendships fracture.

And the funny thing about Meisner’s voice is it’s somewhere between Henley and Frey’s, it fits right in, and did as part of the harmonies. He too sounded like an Eagle. To hear Randy sing was not jarring.

So “Tryin'” is a tear. And optimistic.

“And it’s a lonely way to live

You gotta take it, you gotta give

If you mistake it just try again

And I’m trying”

Everybody in L.A. was tryin’, but very few were makin’ it.

And the sound is a road trip with the top down, the band locked in with Randy’s vocal on top and then, AND THEN!

“Ah-ha-ha, we’ve got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Ah-ha-ha, we got to keep on tryin’

Whoa I’m tryin'”

Talk about magical…

It’s nearly a-cappella. The Eagles singing together. The smooth, developed sound that pushed the band to the top. Crosby, Stills & Nash could never get the harmonies right live, either in their heyday or the latter day, but the Eagles? They nailed it every time.

And Randy didn’t sing “Earlybird,” but he did write it with Bernie Leadon. This more country-influenced sound was ultimately dropped by the latter day band, but it was a feature of the first edition.

These two unheralded cuts from the first LP are two of my favorites, once you could pick and choose with the advent of the CD I played them plenty, I know them by heart.

Randy had even fewer writing credits on “Desperado,” but it is his song that opens the second side of this legendary concept album that was a stiff upon release. But you can’t keep greatness down, “Desperado” is now the absolute highlight of the live show.

“He was a poor boy, raised in a small family

He kinda had a cravin’ for somethin’ no one else could see”

That’s it, the essence. You know. You need to leave town, be more, or you’re satisfied where you are. Some of us are incomplete and want more. That’s the story of rock and roll.

“They say that he was crazy

The kind that no lady should meet”

The rock and roll outlaw. That was the theme of the LP, the melding, the comparing and contrasting of yesterday’s cowboys and today’s.

“He ran out to the city and wandered around in the street

He wants to dance, oh yeah

He wants to sing, oh yeah

He wants to see the lights a-flashin’

And listen to the thundering”

You’ve got to be able to cut loose to rock and roll. Let go. Cross the lines, throw away the rule book. Most people don’t have the guts, the chutzpah.

“He knew he could stand with the best

They got respect, oh yeah

He wants the same, oh yeah

And it’s a certain kind of fool

That likes to hear the sound of his own name”

You’ve got to be a certain kind of fool to play this game, the odds are just too long.

“A poster on a storefront, the picture of a wanted man

He had a reputation spreading like fire through the land

It wasn’t for the money, at least it didn’t start that way

It wasn’t for the runnin’, but now he’s runnin’ every day”

That’s the story of the bank robbers of the west, but it’s also the story of seventies rockers. You were lucky if you got a poster in the storefront. And it doesn’t start out about the money, but when you gain a certain amount of success… And you keep runnin’ every day, you’re on tour, keeping the starmaking machinery alive.

There used to be an amazing video on YouTube of the Eagles performing “Certain Kind of Fool” on TV. Only four members, but they got it exactly right, including Randy Meisner’s vocal. They weren’t jumping around the stage, there were no antics, they were letting the music speak for itself.

1974’s “On the Border” was the commercial breakthrough, suddenly the Eagles were everywhere.

My favorite cut is the title song, a Henley/Leadon/Frey number. And Henley’s vocal stands out, but Randy Meisner is there singing too.

And Randy also sings “Midnight Flyer,” which Paul Craft wrote. And he wrote and sang “Is It True?,” and I like his vocal, and it fits in the album perfectly, but it’s a minor cut.

And then came “One of These Nights.” It’s this album that made the Eagles superstars. “Hotel California” was the cherry on top, an unexpected great leap forward, but in a summer competing with James Taylor’s “Gorilla” and Paul McCartney and Wings’s “Venus and Mars” and Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks,” it was “One of These Nights” which was dominant. Everywhere in a way no album is today, none. Pouring out of every window. Talk about the soundtrack of the summer.

And of course “One of These Nights” contains “Take It to the Limit,” which actually is not one of my favorites, I prefer “Too Many Hands,” from the first side, a number Randy cowrote with Don Felder, which Randy sings himself.

“Too Many Hands” has the intensity of “Certain Kind of Fool.” A stinging guitar. And Randy singing like someone’s squeezing his balls, like every word is important and counts, imploring you to listen.

But it was a different era. The album era. When it was a rare record that exceeded forty minutes and you knew what you bought by heart. These Randy Meisner cuts may not have been radio hits, but they were personal hits, I know them just as well as the songs that floated over the airwaves. You see our albums were religious texts, we studied them, they were more important than television or movies, they were more important than us, we couldn’t compete with the musicians, they were gods, we bowed at their feet, and Randy Meisner was one of them, and once you reach this level, once you’re in the pantheon, you’re never forgotten.

So it wasn’t a complete shock that Randy Meisner passed today. He’d been ill and off the radar screen for so long. But still, it affects us. He was talented, a member of a group that won the World Series, ultimately the Eagles are the Yankees, in that they triumphed again and again, more than anybody else, they sit above the rest, you don’t own the best-selling album of all time by accident, that’s not something you can fake.

And you might say that the Eagles haven’t had a hit in decades, but I’ll say the Yankees haven’t been the Yankees for decades, maybe since George Steinbrenner came along and laid down all that cash.

Randy Meisner was there, he was part of it.

Some may not know, but I will never forget.

Tim Leiweke is Chairman and CEO of the Oak View Group, which builds and owns arenas and manages venues for others. We discuss the status of buildings and shows around the world, as well as Tim’s history, from sports to concerts, hockey to basketball to Springsteen and Henley, from St. Louis to Los Angeles and AEG and then Toronto and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to OVG. No one is building more arenas than OVG. Which also has its hands in food, security, diversity and more. Tim and OVG represent the cutting edge of live entertainment, this is the guy.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tim-leiweke/id1316200737?i=1000622504656

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/c11740ed-fa16-483c-a0d8-088d52f62d97/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-tim-leiweke

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/tim-leiweke-305620952