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Rik Forgo
ALLi Author Member
Location: United States of America (the)
Genres: General Nonfiction, Biography, History
Rik Forgo developed his love of music while managing a store for a prominent Washington D.C.-area record chain. The burning interest in rock and roll he cultivated there would stay with him for the rest of his life. A few years later, he began his writing career as an Air Force journalist in Panama and the Middle East. He also filed a few stories from the jungles of Ohio and New Jersey. Eventually, he found his way into the halls of National Geographic, where he took on a different kind of writing—coding software—in support of the company’s heralded magazine and books divisions. In 2018 he put all that experience together with his passion for rock and roll and founded Time Passages, his own rock-oriented publishing company, and stocked it with veteran rock journalists and seasoned professionals with record industry experience. The first book the company published was his own—Eagles: Before the Band, in 2019. He published volume two, Eagles: Up Ahead in the Distance, in 2021, and is now working on Eagles: Hell Freezes Over as the final volume in the nonfiction trilogy. When he’s not writing, designing, or editing, he and his wife, Maureen, and their dog, Zeus, relax and watch ducks and sailboats from their home near Annapolis, Maryland.
Rik Forgo's books
Eagles: Before the Band
The Eagles were the breakthrough act for Country Rock, the template for countless bands that followed. After their meteoric rise to the top of the charts, fusing electric guitars, pop sensibilities, and country and bluegrass music, the genre was never the same.
The Eagles showed everyone how it should be done – creating a new blueprint for the Californian sound.
This blow-by-blow account of the Eagles' epic journey to the limelight begins with their inspirations—the shoulders of the rock and roll giants on which they stood: The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and many others.
The band scored gold records for every album release in the first nine years together. They won scores of Grammy awards. They delivered songs that changed the musical landscape. Their thought-provoking, intimate lyrics joined with precision instrumentation that sounded as good live as in the studio—and legions of fans followed them.
But where did they come from?
Eagles: Before the Band maps their individual histories before they became the best-selling rock and roll band in American history. Their journey is as legendary as their music.
Eagles: Up Ahead in the Distance
"If you thought you knew all there is to know about the Eagles, think again... A rigorously researched, captivating tome on one of the top bands of the 20th century." – Kirkus Reviews
In 1972, the opening guitar chords of "Take It Easy" captured America's attention.
This debut single became that summer's national anthem, and the band from Los Angeles became a pop-rock phenomenon.
Eagles: Up Ahead in the Distance is an expansive book with 500-plus pages of detailed stories, in-the-moment photographs from rock's greatest photographers, exclusive interviews, comprehensive informational graphics, and Time Passages' brand of "forensic rock research" that uncovers specifics in the band's history that offers the most thorough retelling of the Eagles' story ever published.
Authors Rik Forgo and Steve Cafarelli pick up where the first book in the series, Eagles: Before the Band, left off—continuing the stories of the group's evolution from opening act to can't-miss headliners.
Volume II tracks the inspirations behind the songs you know—and some you don't; "Witchy Woman," "The Best of My Love," "One of These Nights," "Lyin' Eyes," "Take It to the Limit," "Hotel California," and "The Long Run."
It traces each band member's journey and the artistry and personalities that blended so beautifully but could clash so vehemently - a truly comprehensive biography of one of America's most loved Rock bands.