To The Limit The Untold Story of the Eagles [Hardcover]

I am filing this "review" in the hopes of bringing down the average number of stars for this truly awful book. I love juicy rock bios, so I thought this would be just the book for me. Look how wrong you can be! The two main problems with this book are as follows:

1) It is unspeakably boring. I honestly couldn't even finish it; the grind just wore me down.

2) Factual errors. Others have already pointed this out, but it is especially galling to see George Grantham (the superb musician and singer from Poco) referred to as George Lantham. And how 'bout that gig in Hawthorne Beach? Where the heck is that? Somewhere between the City of Hawthorne and Hermosa Beach, perhaps. You get the idea . . . . It would drive you out of your mind if you weren't already bored out of your mind.

Perhaps the fact that Amazon has 62 used copies ("from $2.95") gives you the best indication of this book's overall merit. Proceed at your own risk.

Having long been a fan of the Eagles, I was quite ready to read a biography of this splendid, though somewhat lacking Southern California band. Eliot does a fair job of presenting their history, but he lacks in descriptions about the making of the music, and he focuses too much on Don Henley. On one hand Eliot seemed to be fixated with Henley, and on the other hand he seemed to have an axe to grind with him. To The Limit really came off more as a Don Henley book, than an Eagles book.
For one thing there are too few quotes from Glenn Frey, who in my opinion really gave the band its heart. Just because Henley began singing almost half of the songs on the last two albums, doesn't mean he should have. I can think of several songs, that Glenn Frey could have sung just as well. I'd also like to have learned more about why Leadon and Meisner quit. Though Eliot did explain it in some detail, there was much missing. It would have been interesting to have heard from Glenn Frey on those issues, as well as from Leadon and Meisner.
The book is heavy in quotes from Henley, but short on quotes from any other band members. Much of the material seems to come from other previously published material, i.e. Rolling Stone reviews, interviews, articles, and much of it comes from Mansion On the Hill, a detracting book written in the early 90s which includes a section on Geffen and Azoff.
While is was interesting reading about Henley's take on Joe Walsh joining the band, I would have really liked reading about Joe's take on joining the band. In my opinion, Walsh's guitar playing saved the Eagles from fading into country-rock mediocraty.
I would have also liked to have learned more about Felder's role in the band. Learing about Felder's role in the song, Hotel California was really interesting, but it made me want to know more about Felder's and Walsh's guitar work. How did they work out strategies? How did they bounce ideas around? Did they feel left out of the inner-cirlce?
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading about the Eagles, and I'd like to read another book about them, though I'd really like for it to be less about Don Henley, and more about the Eagles.

It wasn't a bad book; neither was it a great book. I also noticed some of the odd errors and omissions that other reviewers have pointed out. An obvious mistake that the author makes is describing the song "Get Over It" as "...a comical, good-natured nod at the feud between Henley and Frey." Did Eliot even listen to the song? I always thought it was about low-brow, opportunist morons on afternoon talk shows like Oprah and Montel. This is confirmed by the Eagles themselves in the liner notes of the recent release of "The Eagles: The Very Best Of." When the author makes overt goofs like this, the reader has to wonder about other 'facts'.