Sunday August 25th, 2024, Don Folder will be playing a free concert at Eisenhower Park. We recently talked to Don via Zoom about the show, guitars new music and more. I mentioned out of the gate that Don is a member of three halls of fame. He is in the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame, and the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Don jumped into joking about it right away suggesting that the halls were inducting him because he is getting older and “They wanna get me in before I pass away.”
From there we jumped into conversation about the show coming up at Eisenhower Park. Don was quick to say, “I have an amazing band that plays with me all the time.” Don ran through a quick rundown of his band members resume’s. He talked about how it’s important that they get along both on and off stage.
We spoke about some of Don’s solo material as well as tunes from when he was in The Eagles. The title track to the movie “Heavy Metal” came up as did his album “American Rock N’ Roll.” In here Don rattled off a list of great Eagles songs that are part of the show and spoke about what happens with the audience during those songs. It was absolutely clear from watching Don how much fun he has doing these shows.
One of the songs mentioned from The Eagles catalogue was “Hotel California.” That song began with an instrumental demo that Don had written and recorded at home. That song went through a lot before it became the song that we all know and love today. One thing I had always heard was that it was originally a Reggae song. I asked Don about that. Don does admit to playing a Reggae part on guitar, but he also says, “The rest of it has nothing to do with Reggae, to tell you the truth.”
From there we delved into Don’s influences, including Elvis and BB King. We even spoke about Don seeing BB King play in a barn in Gainesville, Florida, where he grew up. He said it happened when he was about 14 years old. He said he watched from outside through a window. Don described Mr. King as being so kind and being a good role model for how to manage fame. He even spoke a little bit about his upbringing and how that helped influence how he handled fame as well.
Since we were talking about his early days it seemed like a good time to ask about Gainesville High School and a couple other students Don knew there in Stephen Stills and Tom Petty. Don had been in a band with Stephen Stills at home and then caught Stephen live when Don attended Woodstock. He was very funny in describing the range of emotions seeing a former band mate on stage at Woodstock. Tom Petty had also grown up in Gainesville and took guitar and piano lessons from Don through the local music store. He also spoke about giving very good musical advice to his band mates at the time in his group at the time, The Epics.
Then we got a chance to talk about new music. Back in July 2023 I had spoken to Don about new music. He told me then he was looking for a chunk of time to be able to get something ready for release. I asked him for a progress report. Don responded by saying he’s planning a tour to kick off in May of 2025 and “We’re gonna release an album just before that, probably April.” He said he has ten songs done and he’s looking to complete two or four more. He shared about how much he loves the entire creative process. Don spoke about collaborating with some players and writers down in Nashville. He did point out that despite it being Nashville, it will be Rock and not Country.
Of course, we also spoke about guitars. I focused in on Don playing a Strat. I felt as if he was playing a Strat more than anything these days. Don said during his show though he feels he still plays a Les Paul more than anything during his show. Don really went into some detail about building his own guitars down to wrapping his own pickups. We also discussed amps and as expected, his collection is amazing.