RIDGEFIELD - Don Felder may not be the first member of The Eagles you think of as you're humming, or playing air guitar, to "Hotel California," one of the defining classic rock songs of all time.

According to an advance, Felder's influence is as much a part of the history of the Eagles, as it is in numerous other collaborations with iconic pop and rock stars from Kenny Loggins, Stevie Nicks and Sarah McLachlan, to historical musical figures like Barbra Streisand, The Bee Gees, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

The singer and guitar slinger, who is equally comfortable as a songwriter and producer, has also been a go-to resource for such diverse talents as Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Kenny Loggins, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Boz Scaggs, Warren Zevon, Joni Mitchell, Vince Gill, Stevie Wonder, Tommy Shaw of Styx, and Sir Elton John.

He's had additional success creating and arranging for film soundtracks including work on Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Neil Simon's The Slugger's Wife, and penning the title track to the eye-popping animated 1981 film Heavy Metal.

On March 18, local fans will be able to enjoy a huge dose of Felder's Eagles material, as well as a sampling of solo material as he rolls his "Evening at the Hotel California" tour into the intimate Ridgefield Playhouse.

According to his official bio, during 27 years with The Eagles, Felder's presence is best showcased on the band's record-setting compilation Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975), which sold over 29 million copies in the US alone, and was named by RIAA the top-selling album of the 20th Century. As one of the band's alumni, Felder was also indoctrinated into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

After his second and final departure from The Eagles in 2001, Felder also became a New York Times bestselling author following the 2008 release of his confessional memoir Heaven and Hell: My Life in The Eagles.

Growing up in the Gainesville, Fla., music scene, Felder began incongruously encountering a number of talents who would go on to change rock and roll history.

In high school, he said he formed a band with a young Stephen Stills. The Allman brothers were also local pals.

"Duane Allman was the first person I ever saw play electric-slide guitar," Felder recalled in his bio. "I said, 'You've got to show me how to do that,' so we sat on his mother's floor in Daytona Beach and Duane taught me how to play slide."

Florida is also where a young Felder first met Bernie Leadon.

That founding member of The Eagles was instrumental in bringing his childhood friend into the band. It was Leadon who encouraged Felder to get to Los Angeles, where he found himself working with The Eagles and playing sessions and live shows with numerous music legends.

In his exclusive interview with The Newtown Bee, Felder looked back on his early days in Gainesville where he also gave guitar lessons to a teenaged Tom Petty at the local music store, and helped the future Grammy winner navigate his way from unassuming bassist to front man rock star status.

Felder also talked about his solo work including his 2012 release, Road to Forever - and how at 67 - he is still constantly writing and recording lyrical or melodic snippets that will become elements for his next solo project.

Road to Forever represents the culmination of a personal journey of introspection that Felder began more than a dozen years ago. In 2001, he suffered a emotionally devastating double hit: separating acrimoniously from The Eagles for the last time while facing the end of his first marriage, which lasted 29 years and produced four children.

"Every identity I'd been attached to - musician, husband, and father - was being taken away," he said.

To heal, Felder began writing down as many memories as he could, putting his past in perspective. Finding these musings compelling, Felder was inspired to write a book, and connected with legendary Hollywood deal-maker Michael Ovitz to set it up.

"Two weeks later, I went to New York with a three-page synopsis, and received four offers from publishers," Felder says. "Now I was forced to reflect on my life."

He said Road to Forever inspired him to "write out the stories of my life as songs. After I collected myself, I found I needed to go out and play music again, and that's how I began recording the upcoming album." He told The Bee that his new solo project encompasses not only lots of introspective songwriting, but a diverse patchwork of his favorite musical styles - from songs that could have been part of a future Eagles album, to rootsy folk and light pop fare.

In his interview with The Bee, Felder talks about, Road to Forever, reveals what fans can expect when they come to his Connecticut show, some of his collaborations outside The Eagles, balancing personal and professional duties, and deconstructing the universally famous guitar solo at the end of "Hotel California" that he performs alongside Joe Walsh.

Newtown Bee: So you'll be in Connecticut in a few weeks at the Ridgefield Playhouse, and obviously the draw is your Eagles material. But do you find audiences are equally receptive to hearing other songs in your catalog?

Don Felder: Absolutely. My show is about 65 or 70 percent songs I either co-wrote, recorded or played live with the Eagles for the 27 years I was in the band. But I do have some new songs in my set from my latest CD. And last year when I was out with the Foreigner, Styx, Felder Tour we had three songs in the Top 10 on Classic Rock radio. I have a song called "You Don't Have Me," which was on Road to Forever - it wound up sitting at number one on Classic Rock radio for about 10 weeks.

Another single that did well was a song called "Wash Away." It wound up being number four right between Clapton and the Rolling Stones. I mean, can I take a picture of that chart? (laughing) You don't see your name very often these days surrounded by that kind of company. And then we did another version for that tour of "Hotel California" that had a couple of the guys from Styx on it, and a couple of the guys from Foreigner on it and myself singing different verses and trading different guitar parts. That made the top 10 on Classic Rock radio.

A lot of people tell me the new record sounds very much like what an Eagles album should sound like. I honestly didn't go out to make an Eagles clone or a sound-alike record. It's just the way I write and record - my guitar sounds, my arrangements, that's how it is. The writing on that CD is very diverse. There's a lullaby with a string quartet. There's a few hard rock numbers. There's a Southern Rock song that Crosby, Stills and Nash sang on called "Fall From the Grace of Love." There's a slide guitar track called "Southern Bound." The response to that new material has been really strong. It's got a very diverse musical layout, where a lot of the Eagles have this one approach to making records, and I wanted to do a lot of different things. The only thing we didn't put on it was Jazz, to tell you the truth.

The Bee: I guess we'll leave that to J.D. Souther, right?

Felder: Yes, (laughing). J.D. What a great soul he is.

The Bee: What's the difference between the original Road to Forever, and the more recent extended edition?

Felder: For the original release, I went in the studio and wrote and recorded and finished producing 16 songs. So when we got ready to release it, I had already ordered the sequence for the CD with those 16 songs. Then I got a call from the distributor and my manager saying, 'You know, Amazon needs to have an exclusive track.' And then, 'Oh wait, Japan needs to have an exclusive track.' And then, 'iTunes wants and exclusive song, and the European distributor wants to have an exclusive track.' So we had to pull four songs off the original release to give to those exclusive outlets. The extended edition is the album I should have released. I guess I should have said take it or leave it, but next time I know for the new record, I'll record 20 songs and have four extras knowing that's the way things work as opposed to cutting down the next CD.

The Bee: Then how close are we to that next project?

Felder: I'm constantly writing. Literally, I drive around here in L.A. with my iPhone singing into it, writing lyrics on the plane, sitting watching television playing guitar when I'll say, 'oops, there's a line I like, let me get my phone and record it. And I assimilate these tidbits or concepts or ideas. Then when I have a large block of time, like I will in early March, I'll go into the studio and pick through those things and say, 'I'm gonna develop this into a track, and that one into a track.' And I'll pick three or four and actually breathe life into them, make a full arrangement of it and start finishing lyrics and putting them together like that. I think I had 100 song ideas for that last record, and I went and picked out what I thought were the best 16 of them. I'm constantly doing that - I can't stop, to tell you the truth.

The Bee: It's been 29 years between your first solo album Airborn, and Road to Forever. Was it that you just weren't ready to stamp out another album, or were you just too busy with other stuff?

Felder: When the Eagles hit the hold button in 1981, everybody wanted to run out and make a solo record. Timothy made one, Joe made one, Henley made one, and Glenn made one - I mean, we just scattered for the hills to make our solo records. I refused to go on the road. I was the only one who was married and had children at home, and we had been gone about ten-and-a-half to 11 months a year either on the road or out of town in the studio working with the Eagles. So my kids grew up for the first eight to ten years of their lives without me around. I mean, I would be here for a week or ten days, and then gone again. I decided I was actually going to stay home. I would do session work, I'd do movie soundtracks, film scores, wrote songs for television, play on friends' records - a bunch of stuff so I could stay home, drive carpool, coach soccer, be commissioner of the Malibu little league - just have time with my family. Then in '94 when we resumed, there wasn't time to do anything until I left the band in 2001.

I was carrying a portable studio on the road in my hotel room, constantly writing, trying to create songs for a new Eagles album, which never came to fruition. Since I've had a studio in my home, since '81, I spend a lot of time off the road in the studio writing or working - but I'm home. One of the things I've learned in this business is the delicate balance between professional and personal life. If I spend too much time doing music business, my personal life really suffers. I lose friends, my relationships with my children get a little distant, my golf game goes away. And if I spend too much time in my personal life, my business suffers. So there's a delicate balance between being the happiest I can possibly be, and doing enough music, writing, production and touring, while still having enough time to have a life with the people I love and my friends.

The Bee: You're regarded as contributing to one of the greatest guitar solos of all time at the end of "Hotel California," and worked writing or recording material for others. What'sthe difference between writing instrumental segments, as opposed to writing full lyrics and melody arrangements for other people?

Felder: I think you have to write from what you hear and feel - not for another artist. Sarah McLachlan was in my studio a couple of months ago writing material for her new record. She's got a very unique melodic and harmonic style. So instead of me writing what I though she should sing, I tried to get out of her what she thought she should be singing, then just kind of help her edit it - if you know what I mean?

We worked together because she thought she was stuck. The same thing happened to me with a couple of songs on Road to Forever - and I had to call up Tommy Shaw from Styx to help me out. I was just stuck, but in a matter of a couple of days, we had it. It took bringing in someone from the outside to help, an outside input to sort through what works and what doesn't. You get isolated when you just try and do it yourself.

I enjoy collaboration - doing records with Diana Ross, Barbara Streisand, and the Gibbs - it wasn't my forte or genre going in with electric rock and roll guitar - but to chameleon myself into that music and find my way through to something that made a great record.

The Bee: Well, you worked with Michael Jackson, who was responsible for revealing Eddie Van Halen to a much greater audience than he might have had if he didn't play that unforgettable solo on "Beat It." So it's interesting that you were one of those other torch bearers bringing your classic electric guitar sound into the arena of pop music.

Felder: I just happened to be involved with a lot of people who were reaching out in new directions. To me, with a Jazz background, I love to improvise, jump into areas I don't know and challenge myself to step up and create something. That's the process. If you don't expose yourself to some vulnerability like that, you'll never be able to develop those skills.

The Bee: Can you talk me through the construction of that epic final solo segment in "Hotel California" and how the dynamics of that came together?

Felder: When I wrote the idea for that, Joe Walsh and I had played together a lot just hanging out and jamming. But this was going to be his first record with The Eagles, so I wanted to write something Joe and I could play together toe-to-toe, doing what we had been doing together in some of his shows. So when I got to the end of the track, I had two guitars in my little bedroom studio and I picked up one and played something. Then I set it down and picked up the other one and played something I thought Joe would play - kind of simulating the end that you hear on "Hotel California" now. And I made copies and Henley really liked it and wanted to do it. So we get into the studio, and I thought Joe and I were so great working together and pushing each other to reach newer highs.

I thought when we got into the studio, we'd set up face to face and he'd play a line, and then I'd play a line. [But] Henley gets into the control room and says, 'Stop. What are you doing? That's not right. That's not like the demo.' And I said, 'I just made that stuff up for the demo, it's not the final solo.' And he says, 'No, you've got to play what's on the demo.' So we're in Miami, and I have to call my housekeeper in L.A. to rummage through all my cassettes to find the demo, put it into a boom box and play it through the phone for Joe and me to listen to so we could learn it in Miami.

We had to learn how to re-play, verbatim, what I played more than a year before when I made the demo. So we get to the end and Joe says, 'Now we've got to play something that goes deedily-deedily-deedily-deedily.' And I say, 'What is deedily-deedily-deedily-deedily'…? And so he and I sat down and figured out the line we would play, with that guitar harmony on each chord. We literally went chord by chord, slow motion, learning that harmony solo on the ending. Then when we started recording, we would record one chord and stop, then we'd punch in for the next chord, piecing each section note by note, and chord by chord until we were done.

The Bee: And how about that bass counterpart. That was mission critical to the overall design of that ending sequence as well.

Felder: I wrote that bass part on the original demo - it got nicknamed 'Mexican Reggae' because it's kind of a Reggae bass part. I had a little drum machine and set it to a Samba tempo to work that part out.

The Bee: You were a few years older than Tom Petty growing up in Gainesville, Florida. Did you ever know him or see him around as you were both beginning your careers in those garage band days?

Felder: I gave him guitar lessons down at Litho Music. He had a little band called the Rucker Brothers, and Tommy was playing bass because he wasn't really a great guitar player. And they had two guitar players, Rodney and Ricky Rucker, who would just flail artlessly on the electric guitars. So I would go to rehearsals and some of their shows, trying to help them sort out who would play rhythm and who would play lead. And I went to some of their shows - and you know, Tom was such a powerful personality on stage. He was so confident and self-assured even though he was such a beginner. He really sold himself from the front of the stage. One show, there were a bunch of girls standing around saying he was so good. He had some of that Dylanesque style to his voice, flipping his hair, delivering his performance with such conviction, people were sold. He was very impressive.

The Bee: I've had a few interviews that have afforded me a glimpse into what it was like to work with Michael Jackson, and I'm curious to add yours to the mix.

Felder: The Prince of Bahrain called me and flew me to London because Michael was in a studio there doing a benefit record to raise money for a world salvation project. I'd worked with Michael a lot on Diana Ross' record, and while he was working with Van Halen on "Beat It," I was working on "Heavy Metal" in the next studio, so we used to bounce back and forth checking out each other's sessions. We were there in London, and it was four days in the studio to record a three-minute acoustic guitar part. Then he was supposed to lay down vocals, and we'd be waiting for Michael, and he'd call and say he was playing with his kids and he'd be in soon. Then he'd show up a few hours later and the kids would be hungry, so we'd have to order food. It was a perpetual delay, and after four days it became frustrating, so I said I had to get back to the states. Then it turned out something happened between Michael and the Prince, and it never got put out.

Felder performs the title track to the film Heavy Metal in South Carolina in May, 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxTt5W7Z3-s

Felder performs a medley live at The Greek in Los Angeles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-oCBsfrFM

For tickets and additional Ridgefield Playhouse show information, call 203-438-5795 or visit Ridgefieldplayhouse.org.