The Eagles classic that is “still a challenge” for Joe Walsh to play
Even before Joe Walsh joined the Eagles, he was deemed one of the best guitarists around. Fusing a hard rock edge with a refreshingly funky predilection, his work in the James Gang and Barnstorm placed him firmly at the forefront of American rock in the early 1970s and saw him tour with The Who and even destroy hotel rooms with John Belushi. Simply put, he was a star in his own right and had already broken through to the other side of fame when he joined the Los Angeles band in 1975.
It was a masterstroke when the Eagles hired Walsh, who replaced the outgoing Bernie Leadon. Not only was the guitar hero sick of leading a group and writing all the songs, but his status seemed perfect to replace the former Flying Burrito Brother Leadon, who had enjoyed far greater success than any of the other Eagles before they formed. Giving the group more confidence in their decision, as the last Barnstorm effort, 1974’s So What featured Eagles members Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Randy Meisner, they knew there was chemistry.
When Walsh joined, he was the final part of the puzzle in many ways. Allowing songwriter and vocalist Frey to concentrate on rhythm guitar also meant the group could stick to having a twin-lead six-string assault, with it quickly becoming apparent that Walsh was the perfect foil for Don Felder. The band’s first album featuring Walsh, 1976’s Hotel California, is drenched in the melodic push and pull between the worlds of fire and ice that Walsh and Felder represent, to the extent that Henley would later describe their convergence as “Duane Allman and Eric Clapton” combined.
While Walsh is widely hailed as the man who qualified the Eagles to take the step up and become a truly legendary band, with Hotel California one of the best-selling albums of all time, he has always been one of the more unassuming figures of his stature. He’s even maintained that playing the title track, which features the two minutes 12 seconds-long solo, in which he and Felder weave between each other, is “still a challenge” to play, a surprising comment considering how many times he’s played it, and just how lauded he is on the fretboard. It shows that even the highly-mythologised greats are still human, no matter how many storied musical moments they lay down in the studio.
Speaking to The Telegraph in 2013, Walsh said that he has never grown tired of playing the guitar solo in ‘Hotel California’, despite doing it literally thousands of times. He then revealed: “It’s still a challenge. I really have to pay attention. I mean, I can play it crappy. But I like to play it good.”
Looking back on that fast time when the band was more immersed in the artistic flow state than they would ever be, Walsh explained that he and Felder had an empty slate after the singing had been captured, and they could do what they wanted. The pair agreed that they would make individual statements in the song’s body and then come together as one at the end.
This was an unusual move for them because, as two lead guitarists by trade, they were regularly in competition, pushing each other to outdo themselves. Yet, they worked as one for the finale of ‘Hotel California’, and it’s no surprise it resonates most out of all Eagles songs, mirroring the spirit of the heady era it was recorded. It was an astounding moment of digging deep within, so it’s no real surprise that Walsh still struggles to play it. Moments like that, when the universe fully aligns for artists, do not happen often.
Joe Walsh’s thoughts on the Eagles album ‘Hotel California’
Given that Hotel California was the moment that changed the Eagles’ career forever, and saw the band refine their classic soft rock sound to a degree that it sharply pierced the mainstream, Walsh is a big fan of the LP. Yet, others in his position might not have been so democratic, given that despite his renowned and instrumental impact on its success he only has a handful of songwriting credits on it. Remarkably, he didn’t even receive a credit for his key role in the title track, which is astounding when listening to the supreme dovetailing between him and Felder during the climax.
Walsh is no fool though, and he knows that ‘Hotel California’ was an artistic highpoint that the band would never replicate. In one interview, he admitted that the success of Hotel California was beyond any of the band members’s “wildest dreams”. He said: “I think having been a part of the making of Hotel California and then having it succeed beyond any of our wildest dreams, that was truly a high point.”
