<P> The Eagles recorded the track with Don Henley on lead vocal three different times, twice at the Record Plant in Los Angeles and finally at the Criteria Studios in Miami . They first recorded a riff, but when it came to recording the vocal, it was found to be in too high a key for Henley's voice, so Felder progressively lowered the key from E minor, eventually settling on B minor . The second recording however was judged too fast . In Miami, the band fine - tuned the instrumentation and the lyrics and recorded numerous takes . Five or six best ones were selected, and the best parts were then spliced together to create the released version . According to the producer Bill Szymczyk, there were 33 edits on the two ‐ inch master . The final section features a guitar battle between Joe Walsh (who had replaced Bernie Leadon after Leadon's departure from the band in 1975) and Felder, which took the two of them sitting together working for around three days to achieve the necessary precision . Walsh and Felder initially started improvising but Henley insisted that the recording should follow the music as first recorded in Felder's demo . </P> <P> Henley decided that the song should be a single, although Felder had doubts and the record company was reluctant to release it because, at over six minutes, its duration far exceeded that of the songs generally played by radio stations . The band took a stand and refused the label's request to shorten the song . The song was released as the second single from the album after "New Kid in Town". The front cover art for some overseas editions of the 45rpm single released was a reworked version of the Hotel California LP cover art, which used a photograph of the Beverly Hills Hotel by David Alexander, with design and art direction by Kosh . </P> <P> As "Hotel California" became one of the group's most popular songs and a concert staple for the band, live recordings of the song have therefore also been released . The first live recording of the song appeared on the Eagles' 1980 live album, and an acoustic version with an extended intro is a track in the 1994 Hell Freezes Over reunion concert CD and video release . The Hell Freezes Over version is performed using eight guitars and has a decidedly Spanish sound, with Don Felder's flamenco - inspired arrangement and intro . </P> <P> "Hotel California" first entered the Billboard Hot 100 on chart dated February 26, 1977, and topped the Hot 100 singles chart for one week in May 1977, the band's fourth song to reach No. 1 on that chart . It peaked at number 10 on the Easy Listening chart in April 1977 . Billboard ranked it number 19 on its 1977 Pop Singles year - end chart . Three months after its first release, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing one million copies shipped . In 2009, the song was further certified Platinum (Digital Sales Award) by the RIAA for sales of one million digital downloads, and has since sold over 3 million downloads . </P>

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