(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 8 June 2025 22:30, UK
Some artists are truly too big to be considered a piece of one musical outfit. As much as Trent Reznor might revel in being the leader of Nine Inch Nails, to call him the frontman of the group would be drastically underselling everything that he has done, whether that be behind the scenes as a producer or working on his various film scores over the years. But compared to every other rock and roll star coming out of the 1970s, Joe Walsh seemed like a virtual cartoon character before he even launched his solo career.
But for as much as Walsh poses as one of the finest guitarists of his time and the court jester in Eagles, a lot of that was masking the pain he had inside. Not many people have to endure witnessing the horrific Kent State shootings and later have to learn of their child’s demise when they were out on the road, but Walsh always hid behind all his hangups by being the life of any party he could find.
And when listening to the James Gang, you would swear that Walsh never knew any party he couldn’t join. From the first few notes of ‘Funk #49’, his guitar sound was the epitome of what reckless abandon was supposed to be, but instead of flying off the handle at every opportunity, Walsh made sure that every band was perfectly calculated whenever he went on his insane solo runs.
Although the band never got off the ground like the other bluesy rock acts from their time did, that didn’t mean Walsh didn’t have friends in high places. One of his biggest contributions to music involved gifting guitars to his friends like Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend, and when he was rubbing elbows with people like Jimi Hendrix when starting out, Glenn Frey was a wide-eyed kid dreaming of what life could be like if he were able to play with someone like Walsh.
As time went on, though, Walsh found out that there were only so many places a power trio could go, and if he wanted to keep exploring new phases of his sound, that meant retiring his old band and moving on. It wasn’t an easy decision, but Walsh returned to the same method he always used when confronting his harsh emotions: he wrote a song about it.
“I got kind of fed up with feeling sorry for myself, and I wanted to justify and feel good about leaving the James Gang, relocating, going for it on a survival basis. I wanted to say ‘Hey, whatever this is, I’m positive and I’m proud.’”
Joe Walsh
Listening to ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, Walsh said that the entire track was about him breaking free from James Gang and striking out on his own, saying, “I got kind of fed up with feeling sorry for myself, and I wanted to justify and feel good about leaving the James Gang, relocating, going for it on a survival basis. I wanted to say ‘Hey, whatever this is, I’m positive and I’m proud’, and the words just kind of came out of feeling that way, rather than writing a song out of remorse.”
There was a lot of apprehension going into this new solo career, but ‘Rocky Mountain High’ doesn’t have a shred of doubt across its runtime. From the talkbox solo to Walsh’s brash delivery, this is a case of him announcing himself to the world and making the kind of record he could be proud of outside the confines of his old band.
It didn’t take him long to find another band in Eagles, but by then, Walsh was hardly returning to a group out of desperation. He had one of the greatest solo careers a man could ask for, but even if Hotel California sold in droves, he would always have tunes like ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ and ‘Life’s Been Good’ under his belt.
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