The Gang's all here

Walsh and Company hit the road for the first time in 35 years

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, August 7, 2006

The classic lineup of the James Gang came together in an instant on a bleary morning in 1967.

The band lost its original guitarist, Glenn Schartz, on a Saturday night at Kent State University.

"And Monday morning there's a knock on my door. 'You need a guitar player, man?' " drummer Jimmy Fox recalls. It was fellow student Joe Walsh. "How did you find out? Glenn's vapor trails weren't gone yet."

Bassist Dale Peters soon joined as Walsh helmed the group. He gave it the songwriting muscle it sorely lacked, spawning hits such as Funk #49, Walk Away and Midnight Man, until Walsh quit the group in 1971.

So when the re-formed James Gang takes the stage at Red Rocks on Friday night, it'll be the first tour of the power trio's classic lineup in 35 years.

"There was a long period of time when we were out of touch with each other. It wasn't really a band breakup. I just got frustrated in a three-piece band, and what I was writing had a lot more instruments and texture and stuff. It was very amiable," Walsh says. "The time off - it seems like about two weeks, really. When we got back together, everybody's pretty much the same – the same humor and we've got so many crazy shared stories. We reminisced to re-bond."

Spawned in Ohio with a heavy base in rock and funk, the band became legendary on the basis of three core albums, though the group went on without Walsh for several more discs. After that initial meeting, the chemistry among the three formed quickly.

"The Cleveland community really supported its local bands. We had a lot of places to play, and we were free to come up with our own style. It was a great time back then. Those were the days," Walsh says.

"All three of us had marching-band experience. We had training beyond rock 'n' roll," Fox says. "When the Bolero section worked its way into our show (in the song The Bomber), it was certainly no surprise to Joe and me."

Early on, Walsh had a couple of lucky moments in his career, attracting the attention of both The Who's Pete Townshend and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Townshend in particular has been a huge fan, saying Walsh's strength as a guitarist is knowing not only what to play but where to leave silences in his work.

"Yeah, I agree with that. I don't think you can play good lead guitar unless you can play excellent rhythm guitar. That would be my follow-up quote," Walsh says now.

"When we had our first album out, we were pretty big word of mouth in the Midwest. We got thrown on a Who show as the opening act. The Who were premiering Tommy. It just happened that Pete came early that day and stood by the side of the stage and watched the show. He really related because The Who was basically a three-piece band. He related to what I was doing. We've always been on the same wavelength, creatures from the same ZIP code.

"After that, he kinda took me under his wing, and that's really where I learned my style of how to sing and play. It's kind of lead rhythm guitar. . . . It's not rhythm, it's not lead, it's just both of them. That way you fill up all the spaces."

It was during his time in Colorado immediately after leaving the James Gang that Walsh discovered local guitar legend Tommy Bolin and recommended him as his replacement.

"I met Tommy and heard him play. I told the guys in the James Gang, 'This guy can do it.' That's some big shoes to fill, to be the only melodic instrument in a band. I told them, 'If you don't get Tommy, you're silly,' " Walsh says.

That gave the James Gang a latter-day burst of success.

"Playing with Tommy Bolin was the delight of a lifetime. But I still identify the band as Jimmy, Joe and Dale," Fox says.

Fans agree, making many of the band's songs radio fixtures. The stuttering riff from Funk #49, the James Gang's signature song, came out of a jam session like many of Walsh's licks have.

"We'd launch into these improv sections of the song, and just whatever came into our heads is what we'd play," Walsh says. "You just found that that particular riff would show up in some of our jams onstage. When it got time to go in the studio, we kinda dusted that off and organized it a little bit, threw some words on it real quick."

"Some of our best songs came out of dressing-room jams, waiting to go on," Fox says.

"You can sit at home with a legal pad and a guitar and stay up all night and you'll come up with stuff," Walsh says. "But to not have any particular thing planned and be playing with a bunch of other musicians, you stumble across all kinds of stuff that wouldn't show up on your own."

There were sporadic one-off reunions over the years, but it wasn't until Walsh's schedule with his other band - The Eagles - made time that the James Gang re-formed.

The James Gang did benefit performances in 2001, and "by the time we got off the stage from those three performances, we had the impression that maybe this is something we should do more of," Fox says.

Last year they did some rehearsals, then went to the House of Blues in Cleveland to ask for a night, a request quickly granted. That's when plans for the tour began.

Walsh has always been a fascinating guitarist, but fans and critics alike have noticed that his playing in recent live shows has been monstrously good.

"I've been practicing a lot. Of course I have to. I've gotta have my chops up for the James Gang," he says.

"I really enjoy playing now. I see a new generation of people coming to hear me, people who weren't around when all these records came out. I see an awful lot of kids who have got to be guitar players, because they're watching me like hawks. . . . I feel like a young kid in this aging body. All the stuff I've acquired - it's time to go out and play it for people."

While the band does do Walsh's solo hit Rocky Mountain Way, "I don't think we're going to throw in more of my stuff," he says. "I wanna keep it pretty much James Gang stuff. I don't know if the audience is going to realize that Life's Been Good didn't come out of the James Gang era. They may be yelling for songs, but we're going to keep it pure James Gang."