Walsh All Funked Up
I’ve started looking into Tommy Bolin. I’ve heard the name for years, but never looked into him. Still haven’t much, but when researching Bolin on YouTube, I found out that he must have replaced Joe Walsh in the James Gang, and my reaction was: Wait a minute. Joe Walsh? James Gang? There HAD to be some woodytone there.
Hell yeah, bubba!
(For all you Walsh fans, consider me better late than never.)
Here’s a clip of Joe playing the classic Walk Away. Les Paul, Marshall, that’s all (all that’s visible, anyway).
Here he is with the Eagles doing Funk 49, this time wielding a Tele. Ultra-dry, ultra-sweet, like…uh…some kind of expensive alcohol (sherry?).
Here in this Carvin promo, at 1:56, he talks about the importance of having a fixed bridge right down on the body, “just like the old Les Pauls.” Interesting.
For his back in the day (Live At Carnegie Hall) tone — woodytone — a Web search found this:
It was not two Marshall half stacks side by side (set up as wet/dry with the Echoplex ) at all as pictured on the Musikladden video [possibly referring to the Walk Away vid above]. It was a 100 watt Hiwatt stack that had been given to Joe by Pete Townshend. The guitar was a stock newer Les Paul with humbuckers. No vintage sunburst flametop yet at that point. When asked about the two amps set wet/dry, Joe said, “No, I never did that. It sounded funny live” and opted to run the echoplex directly into his one amp.
And there you have it.
Joe Walsh, Carvin, Hiwatt, Marshall, Gibson Les Paul,
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