How to play Hotel California on guitar – with the Eagles’ Don Felder

The Eagles’ 1976 song Hotel California makes just about every list of best guitar solos, including ours.

Credit for the guitar majesty of Hotel California is often given to Joe Walsh, who toughened up the Eagles’ laid-back California sound when he joined the band just prior to the Hotel California album’s recording.

Actually, the primary guitar heard throughout the solo belongs to Don Felder, who wrote the music for the track and actually conceived and played the solo’s intricate harmonies on his initial, instrumental demo.

“Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap,” Felder has said.

In the video below, Felder explains the inspiration behind the song, which he cowrote with Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

More importantly, he also shows you how to play it, with an in-depth, unaccompanied playthrough of the iconic chord progression, followed by its epic solo section.

The original studio version of the song was recorded in B minor with a capo at the 7th fret, but Felder would play the track live in A minor, and uses a capo at the 5th fret for his lesson. He removes the capo for the solo.

In his book Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles, Felder described how he wrote the track.

“I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu – I guess it was around 1974 or ‘75,” he recalled.

“I remember sitting in the living room on a spectacular July day with the doors wide open. I had a bathing suit on and was sitting on this couch, soaking wet, thinking the world is a wonderful place to be.

“I had this acoustic 12-string and started tinkling around with it, and those Hotel California chords just kind of oozed out. I had a TEAC four-track set up in one of the back bedrooms and I ran back there to put this idea down before I forgot it.”