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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxO6-FRJCeo
Joe Sherfy
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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This?
"A compilation of lead-singing performances by Randy Meisner":
randymeisnerretrospective.com/performances/#certain
Richard Pachter
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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.
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
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