“Healing”: Who did Joe Walsh call his musical role model?
When Joe Walsh ran for US president in 1980, he promised to make his hit ‘Life’s Been Good’ the new national anthem and pledged free gas for the entire nation. He may have only been doing this tongue in cheek – not least because he was actually ineligible, being three years too young to run – but it’s clear his intentions were largely in the right place, campaigning on the front of fighting for a better world and for greater political participation.
In this sense, especially when it comes to his music, Walsh’s moral compass has to have been borne out of some sort of significant guiding force in order to combine both his sonic and philanthropic visions into such a strong aspect of his artistry. Of course, determining a role model within the rock music realm is often a difficult task – people are not always who they say they are, and a single wrong move can leave a legacy in ruins – but in Walsh’s eyes, there’s one man who has never faltered on his path.
That would be Willie Nelson, the country legend who, in the space of 92 years, has not only whipped up an astonishing 154 albums to his name, but has also had a hand in creating one of music’s most seismic charitable forces. Move over Band Aid or Live Aid, because it’s Nelson and Co.’s famous Farm Aid, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, that sets the shining example of the power music yields, according to Walsh.
The guitarist previously described the singer and his philanthropic efforts as his biggest inspiration within the industry, saying: “I looked at Willie Nelson and Farm Aid as a role model; they do it every year, and it draws people together, and drawing people together where they realise they’re not alone, to me, is strategic in healing.” As such, he revealed that it’s not just the charity efforts alone that he learns from, but the magical ability of music to promote togetherness.
Certainly, between Nelson and his co-founding fathers of Farm Aid, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, they are no strangers to what the benefit does for its audience far beyond its initial reach. Yes, of course, the main aim is to help the scores of farmers across the United States, but the message being evoked behind this is one of unity through music – that there is far more to bring people together in the rock world than divide them, and it’s evidently a message Walsh is more than happy to get behind.
For his own part, the Eagles guitarist was so inspired by the concept of Farm Aid that he stole the premise to form his own version, VetsAid, to help local veterans in the New York and New Jersey area, to reimburse them in honour of their service since 2017. In a musical landscape often full of grand gestures but very little substance, Walsh is a rare exception. He may have admittedly nicked the format from his hero Nelson, but at least his reasons were commendable.
As such, the line of examples for role models in rock possibly just got a little bit longer, with the addition of Walsh to those charitable leagues. That’s the thing – whether you’re a personal fan of their music or not, no one can dispute the philanthropic efforts of either Walsh or Nelson, and it’s for this reason that they’ll be enshrined in a golden legacy more than any other.
