ALBUM: The Smoker You Drink the Player You Get (1973); So What? (1974)
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$
Joe Walsh is a good guitarist, good songwriter and great band member. It’s not easy coming to work for a new employer. So when Walsh joined the Eagles in 1975, there were concerns that Walsh was too hard rock for them or wouldn’t fit the Eagles sound.
While the Eagles sang the sedate Best of My Love, Walsh was playing songs like Rocking Mountain Way with its crushing guitar chords and nasty slide guitar. Before Rocky Mountain Way, he led the James Gang, a hard rocking, steady touring band with Midwest origins.
How would the Eagles with their soft Southern Cal delivery integrate with the rocking guitarist who loved to make his guitar talk through a vocoder and fuzz it all up with a fuzzbox?
Turns out he did OK. Understatement of course.
In 1998, a reader’s poll by Guitarist magazine selected the Hotel California guitar solos as the best guitar solos of all time.
(Hey what about Free Bird?)
When I hear the name Joe Walsh I always recall his lyrics: “My Maseratti does one-eighty-five, I lost my license, now I don’t drive”. *(Disclaimer: Do not try this at home boys & girls!)*
Yes one of his biggest hits, ‘Life’s been Good’ off of the ‘How ya doin’ album.