A few weeks ago, founding Eagles bassist Randy Meisner died. The real Randy Meisner.
For nearly 20 years, a man named Lewis Peter Morgan impersonated Meisner. Many websites have written about Morgan. In 2020, UltimateClassicRock.com wrote an article about Morgan and his history of misleading promoters and organizations who thought they were booking the real Randy Meisner.
According to SFGate.com, Morgan was arrested in 1998 for impersonating Meisner. He received 16 months and was set free. He resumed his act.
In 2006, Morgan was seen at a poker tournament according to Gambling911. In 2014, writer Nolan Dalla also wrote about meeting the imposter and even having dinner with him.
Five years before the poker tournament, some time around 2001, I met someone who claimed to be Randy Meisner in a bar in Tallahassee, Florida. It might have been Lewis Peter Morgan. Or it very well could have been Randy Meisner. I wrote about meeting this man in a paper I did for an anthropology class.
Here is what I wrote:
After interviewing Jenine, I met a man who claimed to be a founding member of the famous rock and roll band the Eagles. He introduced himself as Randy Meisner and continued on about how he was taking a Greyhound bus to Tempe, Arizona to go to Lake Tahoe with 70’s singer/ songwriter Jackson Browne. A week later I did research on Mr. Meisner, who was indeed a member of the Eagles. However, the man at Fatty and Skinny’s claimed to be 63. Randy Meisner is 55 years of age. I also read an online article about an imposter in Atlanta claiming to be the classic rock band’s bass player. Was the individual I met really Randy Meisner? Or merely an imposter?
I am not sure why Lewis Peter Morgan or anyone else claiming to be Randy Meisner would have been in a college bar in Tallahassee in 2001. But I guess that makes me a small part of one of the weirdest stories in Rock 'n' Roll history.
