Download Heaven and Hell: My Life as an Eagle (1974-2001) eBook

This is an "open book", so to speak, of all the inner-workings and the dynamics of the Eagles group in their heydey. It brought me back to the best decade ever, the '70's. I thought it was so interesting how they all started as equal members, but the more successful the band became, the more egomaniacal Glenn Frey and Don Henley became. It wa actually disgusting the way they treated the other members: Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner & Don Felder. Especially Meisner, being that he was so quiet and non-confrontational. Even when they ran into him many years later, they still treated him horribley. An example is, years later, when Meisner & his wife run into Henley at a party and the wife asks for a picture of Meisner & Henley and Henley turns and walks away without a word. Ugh! I can't even stand to look at him anymore. I highly recommend this book if you were around in the '70's & remember how their music stole the airwaves.

Entertaining book best enjoyed with "The Very Best of the Eagles" playing at low volume in the background, punctuated by the occasional Youtube interview or concert video between chapters (check out Randy Meisner on "Take It to the Limit", Capital Centre 1977). No doubt that for many of us, the Eagles provided life's soundtrack for the '70s. After reading "Heaven and Hell" I'm left with three sentiments: 1) Henley and Frey were controlling perfectionists who nonetheless gave us some of the most enduring and uniquely American music ever recorded, one could easily argue that the quality of these songs justified the means used to create them; 2) "H&H" deepened my appreciation and respect for the talent and individual contributions to the Eagles legacy made by Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Timothy B. Schmidt, Don Felder, and of course, Joe Walsh, who truly is in a class all by himself; and finally 3) hats off to Don Felder for letting us hitch a ride with him down that dark desert highway, illuminating our trip with flames from the bridges he burned along the way.

I almost gave this book a 3-star review, but decided on four, since in the end, I did enjoy the book. It's very well written, and I found the story of early career very interesting.

The reason I almost gave it only three stars was for the section of the book dealing with his firing from the Eagles (which in my humble opinion, was the stupidest thing they did, with the possible exception of their collective drug abuse). The reason I upped my rating, besides what I said above, is that I think this was more due to the Publisher more or less "chickening out" that it was that Don himself deliberating left something out of the book. Let me explain. When I read this book, I found this section to be sadly lacking in details of what went on with his firing from Eagles, as far as who, what, where and why. I had heard several times, that the UK edition, for example, was far more detailed in this area, and that the US Publisher was apparently leiry of being sued, so they severely edited this portion of the book, apparently against Don's wishes. I haven't been able to completely verify this, but that's what I heard and read in many places, including a few professional reviews of this book.
At any rate, this part of the book was very "thin" if you will. I keep expecting to get to more details, but then the book was over, and I was left wondering about this part of his story. It just seemed to me that it left out a lot of the story and many details where either sketchy or completely absent. This left me, as a reader, dangling, and wondering exactly went on here, but it never got resolved for me. If, in fact, the Publisher did get cold feet, and deliberately edited this out, they did us readers a great disservice by doing so. That was really the whole reason we bought this book in the first place, was it not?

Other than that, the rest of the book is fabulous and was good read. One way I can tell how much I like or dislike a book, is by how fast I read it. I finished this book in only about 5 or 6 days, and that is reading only in the car while driving to and from work (while my wife drove!), and about 1/2 hour each day over lunch.

If you didn't buy this book when it first came out, and you are any kind of Eagles fan, I do highly recommend it. I would suggest though, that if you can, you give a shot at finding the UK version if you can.