The rock legend Joe Walsh struggled to keep up with: “He just wouldn’t stop”
By the mid-1970s, Eagles needed someone like Joe Walsh in their ranks to turn the stage into a spectacle.
The rest of the band were far from the most engaging performers of all time, and after Bernie Leadon stepped aside to focus on more country-focused music, Walsh gave them the shot in the arm and their resident Keith Moon-character whenever they started working on some of their heavier material. Walsh could definitely throw down with the best of them, but before he was even a star, he had the legends showing him the ropes of true showmanship.
Then again, Walsh wasn’t going to go out there looking like Freddie Mercury playing the heaviest music that he could. He wasn’t that kind of frontman, and when listening to him play all the way back in The James Gang, he was more than happy to talk to the crowd and hang out with everyone as if he were in some sweaty club playing to 100 people. Because, really, that’s how he saw all great rock and roll.
There are many artists that try to aim for those huge stadiums, but Walsh himself knew that there was a lot more room for him to work in if he treated every audience with that same everyman mentality. The James Gang were a garage band, but once ‘Funk 49’ started to gain traction, those garages started to become a little bit bigger once they started to play with the biggest names in music.
Anyone would have felt touched by a musical prophet if they got to jam with Jimi Hendrix the same way Walsh did, but part of the reason people loved having him around was his sense of charm. Much like his brother-in-law Ringo Starr, Walsh had the same good-time spirit that made it impossible to resist, even when he was making some of his more difficult albums in his solo career like So What. But that spirit was going to be tested a little bit when working with Little Richard.
There were plenty of artists who broke down the doors for showmanship, but hardly anyone had the same muscle as Richard did. Outside of the flamboyant stage getup, Richard would sweat his ass off trying to give every audience the time of their lives, putting his leg on top of his piano and singing until his throat was practically in stitches. Walsh could certainly throw down too, but he was nowhere near at that level when he got a chance to jam with the rock legend.
Walsh said that the song ‘But I Try’ had The James Gang playing with Little Richard, but he’s also proud to say that the rock icon wiped the floor with them, saying, “I came across a jam that The James Gang did with Little Richard. We played a group of about six shows with Little Richard and Chuck Berry. It is Little Richard at his best with the James Gang trying to keep up with him. It was about 15 minutes long, because he just wouldn’t stop.”
And it’s not like Walsh had good reason to be intimidated when Richard took to the stage. He had that same chaotic energy whenever he got up onstage, but listening to Richard for more than a few minutes feels like being given a shot of adrenaline. While Walsh eventually edited the track down to around seven minutes for the diehard fans, the whole thing could have easily kept going to see what the hell they were doing sweating through all 15 minutes of the final version.
Then again, maybe Walsh was trying to cover his own tracks a little bit on the final version. There’s already a lot of energy behind the version that we hear today, but even if he holds his own with Little Richard in some spots, no one would have wanted to hear the rest of the track and listen to the guitarist get his ass handed to him.
