Randy Meisner, the original bassist of both Poco and the Eagles, passed away yesterday of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Los Angeles at age 77. He had previously suffered from minor heart attacks in 2004.
Randall Herman Meisner was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska to farmers Herman and Emilie (née Haun) Meisner. All of his grandparents were ethnic Germans who emigrated from the area along the Volga River in the Russian Empire. At age 10, he started learning the guitar, but switched to bass at the suggestion of a high school teacher. He played bass and sang with a local band called The Drivin' Dynamics and later moved to California to join a band called The Soul Survivors, who later renamed themselves The Poor (which according to eventual Eagles bandmate Don Felder, was literally true).
In May 1968, Meisner joined the band Poco, which was being put together by guitarists Richie Furay and Jim Messina, both alumni of the Buffalo Springfield, in which Messina had played bass. In Poco, Messina switched back to guitar, with Meisner becoming their bassist. The other original members were steel guitarist/banjoist/guitarist Rusty Young and drummer George Grantham. Meisner quit the band after being excluded from participating in the final mixing session for their debut album. As a result, his bass and backing vocal tracks were kept in the final mix, but his lead vocals were replaced with new versions sung by Grantham.
In April 1969, Meisner joined Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band, along with fellow The Poor alumni Alan Kemp (guitar) and Pat Shanahan (drums). About a year later, he returned to Nebraska and took a job at a tractor dealership. In 1971, he was recruited into Linda Ronstadt's backing band, where he joined Don Henley (drums), Glenn Frey (guitars, keyboards) and Bernie Leadon (guitars, steel guitar, banjo). The four of them soon afterwards founded their own band, the Eagles, in which all of them would contribute both lead and backing vocals. The Eagles added guitarist Don Felder in 1974 as a fifth member. During the next year, Leadon left and was replaced by guitarist/keyboardist Joe Walsh. Meisner left the band in 1977 and was replaced by bassist Tim Schmit, who ironically had replaced him in Poco years earlier.
After leaving the Eagles, Meisner recorded several solo albums and formed various bands with Bread alumnus Jimmy Griffin, Billy Swan, Charlie Rich Jr. and Firefall alumnus Rick Roberts. In 1989, he reunited with his original Poco bandmates to record their Legacy album. He was invited to join the History of the Eagles tour in 2013, but declined for health reasons.
Meisner was married twice, first to his high school girlfriend Jennifer Barton in 1963, which whom he had three children before they divorced in 1981, and later to Lana Rae in 1996, who died from an accidental gunshot in 2016.
As a singer, Meisner was known for his high vocal range. Besides his high harmonies, he contributed one or two lead vocals to the Eagles albums on which he appeared. On their second album Desperado, a concept album about Old West outlaws and the analogy between them and rock and roll musicians, Meisner sings Certain Kind of Fool, written with Henley and Frey. The song is about how someone becomes an outlaw.
Randy Meisner's signature song would have to be Take It to the Limit, again written with Henley and Frey, from the fourth Eagles album One of These Nights. It was the first single from the group on which the lead vocal was not sung by Henley or Frey, and the last single to include any contributions from original member Bernie Leadon. I couldn't find any video of the studio version, so I will conclude with this one of a live version from 1976, on which Walsh probably appears.
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