Any Way The Wind Blows

Joe Walsh : Second Hand Store

[Purchase]

On May 16, 1978 Joe Walsh released But Seriously Folks.... Recorded while The Eagles were struggling to follow up Hotel California, the album features many of his bandmates on backing vocals and pedal steel guitar from Don Felder on "Second Hand Store". The highlight is the eight minute album closer, 'Life's Been Good", his famous piss take on the decadent lifestyle of the rock and roller: 'I have a mansion, forget the price, ain't never been there, they tell me it's nice.' 

I bought a cassette in the Summer of '78 and still have it in the attic, probably melting in the heat of the Summer of '18.

From Greil Marcus writing for Rolling Stone

Joe Walsh seemed an odd choice as Eagle-come-lately because he has a sense of humor; he's a mensch, not an Übermensch. Presumably, Henley, Frey and  Co. wanted him for his guitar playing. Walsh added enormous punch to Hotel California -- he's the one who kicks "Life in the Fast Lane" into fifth gear -- but good as that album was, it hardly left room for Walsh's bizarre brand of self-depreciation. For that, he has to make his own records.




 "But Seriously, Folks..." -- whose jacket pictures Walsh relaxing at a cafe that is unremarkable except for the fact that it's underwater -- is a triumph in the grand tradition of So What? and You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind. (Since Walsh is now signed to Asylum, shouldn't he have called the new disc Voluntary Commitment, or something like that?) The sound is full of brilliant highlights, and the songs are good, though not as carefully written as Pete Townshend's, with whom Walsh shares a lot, and not as lazy as Jimmy Buffett's, with whom Walsh shares too much. On the other hand, not having to try very hard is pretty much what the album is about -- "Theme from Boat Weirdos," a delightful instrumental, comes off like a backing track for which Walsh couldn't be bothered to find lyrics -- and what makes Walsh's celebration of ease so much fun is that he's never arrogant. He's befuddled, but he won't look a gift horse in the mouth -- a phrase that might well turn up as the title of his next LP.

The best thing here is clearly "Life's Been Good," an eight-minute reverie on the absurdity of success (what's absurd to Walsh is that he's successful). It starts off with dramatic guitar figures -- this is the Big One, the music announces -- and then drops into bubblegum reggae for the world's least dramatic autobiography: "My Maserati does one-eighty-five/I lost my license/Now I don't drive." It's a tale of a rich, carefree rock star, laughing at the world that has given him his pleasures, and laughing as well at his ability to enjoy them without a twinge of guilt -- or even a hint of the self-pity such songs conventionally use as a substitute for soul. "I can't complain," Walsh admits. "But sometimes I still do."



 As always, Walsh sings in his filtered, tinny whine -- he sounds as if he's coming from across the street, an odd contrast to the full presence of his guitar and the band -- but after a while you get used to it. He's got a lot of Keith Moon in him, and the quality of his voice simply cops to the fact that he's not quite all there, aurally or otherwise. Queer as his voice may be, Joe Walsh is never as choked up as Tom Petty, but then he doesn't take himself as seriously either. Long may he keep on not doing so.

Well, "Second Hand Store" is fairly likable, but keep it to yourself -- a follow-up would ruin everything. "Life's Been Good" is not only Summer Song '78, it was born to be a novelty one-shot, and that it happens to say more about the tribulations of stardom than all the concept albums ever devised on the subject just goes to show how deeply significant AM radio can be. C+

Those We Missed: March, 1976

  On March 31, 1976 Led Zeppelin released Presence, the album the band recorded instead of going on tour thanks to the injuries Robert Plant suffered in a car accident. The word that best describes the album is "turgid". 

  Rather than waste a lot of space on this album, let's look at some other records we missed from March of 1976, including three live blockbusters.

Robin Trower : Daydream

[Purchase]

   March of 1976 saw the release of the year's best live album. Robin Trower leads a trio through a set recorded in Stockholm a year earlier. Trower fans rate this above all his studio efforts, even Bridge of Sighs. Magnificent! 

Joe Walsh : Walk Away

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Joe Walsh recorded this 34 -minute live career retrospective just months before joining the Eagles.

Johnny Winter : It's All Over Now

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   When our college radio station took requests for a fundraising three day marathon, the old timers would pledge $10 to hear classic numbers like this one. Winter changes at least one line in this Bobby Womack crisis to celebrate the joys of oral sex. You need to hear Captured, Johnny Winter's third live album, in one sitting for the full effect. Raucous! 

Eddie and the Hot Rods : Writing on the Wall

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  Among the hardest rocking of the UK pub scene-sters, Eddie and the Hot Rods would have a break out year in 1976, winning the NME poll for 1976's most promising band. It's all anticipated by this March 1976 single featuring the hard blowing harmonica sounds of Lew Lewis. The single would appear on the forthcoming Teenage Depression.

Michael McDonald's quest for world supremacy began here when he took over lead vocalist and some songwriting duties for Doobie Brother Tom Johnston.

  On Amigos, much to everyone's relief --and by everyone I mean primarily CBS Records executives, Carlos Santana finally seemed to tire of his jazz fusion adventures and returned to the latin influenced rock that made fans of millions. The result: Santana's first Top 10 album in four years. 

Doctors of Madness : Mainlines

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A sixteen minute Glam Rock epic may have been a year or two behind its time, and 14 minutes too long for the punk rock explosion to come. But people swear on the third or fourth hearing you'll come to realize it's a masterpiece.

40 Year Itch : Lovers and Friends I Still Can Recall

Robin Williams  (right) as a mime, 1975



[Purchase]

   Critics who have called Two Sides of the Moon an embarrassment or a total disaster may have missed the point. Moon gathered 60 his best friends in the music biz ( including Joe Walsh who was recording down the hall), and spent $200,000 of MCA's money on this huge rock n roll prank. Only his sober cover of the Beatles's "In My Life" doesn't belong in the party and it's hard not to think he had just four more years to live while listening to this.

John Lennon contributed guitar and vocals to "Move Over Mrs L", a song Lennon wrote for Yoko.

Give It A Giggle, Instead Of A Sigh

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His second album since parting ways with the James Gang, Joe Walsh's The Smoke You Get The Player You Get went Gold on the strength of the #23 hit "Rocky Mountain Way" --which became one of the first songs many a young bass player would learn in the decades to follow thanks to the fact it has...one note.



Most of the album is not riff heavy rock n roll ( there are a lot of acoustic numbers) and it's not really a Joe Walsh solo album. His band Barnstorm contributes more than back up. In fact I've just realized my deep cut choice, " Happy Ways",  is written and sung by bass player Kenny Passarelli. Apparently he can do a lot more than play one note (fretless) bass.


Walsh followed up this album by playing on Dan Fogleberg's Souvenirs and then his own So What, which featured "Song For Emma", a tribute to his four year old daughter who died in a car accident earlier that year. In 1976, he joined The Eagles in time to play on their best album Hotel California. His 1978 solo But Seriously Folks got me through high school.

40 Year Itch: Those We Missed Sep '72

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Joe Walsh leaves The James Gang and that band's hard rock sound behind for acoustic guitars, harmony vocals and even some experiments with an ARP Odyssey synthesizer on his first solo album Barnstorm.  "Comin' Down" is the final track on the album. This one's a grower and the best of the bunch in today's post.

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"Dinah Flo" was the single on Boz Scaggs's fifth album My Time, recorded with the mighty Muscle Shoals backing band. Surprising that it would take four more years for Boz to make what seems to my ears a small leap from "Dinah Flo" to Silk Degrees.

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For their second album of 1972, Manfred Mann's Earth Band get heavier  and more experimental than on their magnificent debut. Then they close the whole thing out with a Dylan cover that ranks among the best ever.

[Purchase a Styx Anthology]

Chicago based prog rockers showed off their classical training on their Wooden Nickel eponymous debut which featured a 13 minute suited called  "Movement for the Common Man", the third section of which is Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". Styx could also get heavy handed. Witness  "After You Leave Me", the final cut on the album.These were probably not the best of times.

[Purchase]

Founders of World Music, the African and Caribbean expats who recorded as Osibisa in London may sound stale compared to the more authentic high life recordings we can all hear in this digital age. But they were the shit in the 1970's.