The 70s. Power Trios. Mustaches.
I know a lot of people have heard of The Eagles. I know a lot of people have heard of Joe Walsh. I know that a lot of people have heard of The James Gang, but these three numbers diminish next to each other.
If I remember my rawk history, Joe Walsh joined The James Gang when he was in college. He played a fine guitar and only got nudged into singing too when the band couldn’t find a good regular singer. Maybe they smelled bad. This wasn’t long after that whole unwashed “hippie” thing, ya know.
Look at them. They look kind of stinky. Those clothes don’t look too easy to launder, and I bet they’ve been wearing them for a while… you know… thinking they look all cool in them and shit.
Anyway…..
Joe’s got one of those voices that’s instantly recognizable. He’s also got a “unique look” shall we say. And he was apparently a bit crazy with the partying and the substance abuse and whatnot.
He doesn’t drink any more. Neither do I. Cheers Joe!
And he likes big tits. So do I! What a coincidence that two men here on earth would appreciate feminine mammary glands of large proportion! Except I never wrote a song called “I Like Big Tits”.
Before I go off in some tangent about other large parts of the female anatomy, I better provide a link to the song. I’ll go one better, and provide two links to this song:
- The version that was on the album “Thirds” from 1971
- A live (TV studio, looks like) performance with some of the parts done a bit differently. My guess is this is from 1970.
These lads needed to acquaint themselves with a hair clipper. Easy for me to say, but back then it looked just fine and dandy to gallivant about the town looking like you were related to bigfoot. Or a girl.
Please don’t tell Joe Walsh that I insinuated that he looks like a girl in that second video. A very, very ugly girl, but a girl nonetheless. He’s old now, but he’d beat me pretty solidly I imagine. Actually, he can afford to have me beaten professionally. He writes hit records, his fans, they can’t wait. They write him letters, tell him he’s great.
This song is one of my faves of all time. It was one of the songs that – when I had just started to listen to “classic rock radio” – made me say “Damn! There’s some fine shit dun been recorded before I was born!”
It’s also the first song I sang along to that made me realize I can actually sing. I found it easy to sing loud and clear to this one, and to put that swaggering vibrato into my voice. Is it called vibrato when you sing like that? I think you know what I’m talking about.
A fine, fine song it is, and listening to it makes me realize that I need to get all of this band’s early stuff with Joe. Tommy Bolin, who played guitar for 1 Deep Purple album and tour, was in this band for a while. I might have to pick up those albums and give them a listen, because I’ve heard Mr. Bolin was quite the creative guitarist. When he was in Purple, he was addled by a bad heroin addiction. His solos on that one album and on most of the live recordings from that era sound, to me, pretty lame. He repeats the same riffs over and over again, and they’re not even very good riffs.
I’m guilty of the same though, on this blog. I repeat the same dumbass jokes over and over again.
Rectum?! DAMN NEAR KILLED HIM!!!