You Couldn’t Get Much Higher
by Mike Gange

To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles
by Marc Eliot
Little, Brown $34, 370 pages

Think of the musical group the Eagles and the first things that comes to mind are beautiful harmonies, awesome guitar licks, and that mysterious Hotel California. But the California supergroup of the 70's was not originally FROM California and was anything but harmonious behind the scenes.

To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles by Marc Eliot is a fascinating account of how The Eagles came to be THE supergroup of California rock and how their creative collaborations behind the scenes and gentle harmonies on stage and record became a battle ground for their super-sized egos.

Marc Eliot knows Rock music. His previous work includes Down Thunder Road: the Story of Bruce Springsteen and Rockonomics: The Money Behind the Music. In this unflinching look at The Eagles, Eliot shows his attention to detail and his ability to research his subjects.

To the Limit is really the story of Don Henley and Glenn Fry. While all the members of the band’s various incarnations are mentioned, Henley and Frey, and to a much lesser extent Randy Meissner and Joe Walsh, are chronicled from the time they picked up their first musical instruments. Henley and Frey became the recognized voices of the Eagles, known both for their unique sound and for their ability to compose songs that enjoyed lengthy stays atop the music charts.

To the Limit is also the story of the Eagles downfall. The book tells of massive egoistical battles for control of the music, ownership of the songs and leadership of the band. Eliot does not shy away from showing the people behind the band, musicians and management alike, at their drug abusing worst. For example, Joe Walsh once had a drug crazed-penchant for taking a chainsaw to the hotel room furniture whenever the band was on the road, while the despicable manger Irving Azoff, loyal only to the boys in the band, would stand by with a suitcase full of one hundred dollar bills to give to hotel personnel to make the complaints go away. Although its about the Eagles, this book is really a look at that whole rock-n-roll lifestyle, where the musicians and everybody around them enjoys such unlimited access to drugs and sex that many poor choices and decisions get made.

The best parts of this book are the stories behind the band’s well known Rock Anthems. Eliot quotes Henley describing Hotel California: "A fire and brimstone, unholier than thou autobiographical piece. It is one of the most luxuriously haunting, personally ambivalent spiritual excursions in the history of Rock and Roll." The song opens and closes with one of the most immediately recognizable signatures in pop music, the clanging twin guitar riffs of Don Felder and Joe Walsh. All that music was written by Felder. Henley says "Felder created the music track and although we rerecorded it, basically all the parts were there. I put the melody on top while driving around in my car."

Eliot is a smooth writer who not only explores the idiosyncracies of the band but who nicely unravels some of their music too. He shows how he understands the band, their time and their music as he writes: "J.D. Souther’s ‘New Kid in Town’ returns the Eagles to the more specific and accessible turf of teenage boyland, capturing a precise and spectacular moment immediately familiar to any guy who ever felt the pain, jealousy insecurity rage and heartbreak of the moment he discovers his girl friend likes someone else better and has moved on. This is the kind of adolescent angst rock and roll does best and no one did better than the Eagles." Amen to that.