from five people down to three. It was
instantaneous because two guys decided
not to come, and we didn’t know that
till we showed up at the concert. So we
had three people and just decided to go
ahead and do it because we’d driven up
to Detroit. We went on as three people
and pulled it off pretty good. Over that
next year or so, I really got some chops up
playing lead guitar. The school of thought
in the bands I’d always been in was that
if you played a record note for note, that’s
the way to do it, so I never even bothered
to improvise or anything.’
Szymczyk: ‘I went back to ABC and
told them that I wanted to sign this band.
They said “What? Now you want to sign
bands? We’ve got enough on the roster”
and I said, “That’s true, but I don’t like
any of those acts. Let me have this guy
and his band”, so they agreed to sign The
James Gang for a $1,700 advance, which
was Walsh’s first contract – $1,700 which
the three of them split – and we made Yer
Album, the first James Gang LP.’
Walsh tells the story slightly
differently: ‘After I met Jimmy [Fox], Bill
Szymczyk met us through a friend. He
had just signed up with ABC and wanted
to produce a rock ’n’ roll group. He got us
a record contract for $1,700 – that’s what
we got – and we bought a van with that
money and started playing all over. Over
the next year we did that first James Gang
album, and that was the first rock album
he’d done that got any recognition.’
At that point, the great Pete
Townshend of The Who entered the
picture. Walsh: ‘That was just before our
second album, James Gang Rides Again.
We had played with Pete in Pittsburgh
because our manager was the promoter
of The Who concert, and he put us on
the show. It was a strange combination of
things. They happened to come early, one
of those few times a band member will go
out and see who the act is playing in front
of them. It was the three-piece group and
we were heavy metal, you know, this and
that, and I guess Pete kind of identified,so he took me under his wing there. He
invited us to come over to England and
play.’
Townshend proved to be a great
inspiration to Walsh: ‘Yeah, he was
amazing. He really talked to me a lot and
helped me and introduced me to a bunch
of people. You know we got so much
mileage off his saying the nice things he
did about The James Gang, especially
over here. Now we could come over and
play the tour and all, that saved us maybe
a year of hard work.’
When his time with The James Gang
ended in 1971, Walsh was invited to join
Humble Pie, the theoretical super group
that initially featured Steve Marriott, of
Small Faces, and Peter Frampton from
The Herd: ‘Yeah, I got a call from Steve
Marriott and almost went, but I couldn’t
swing it and my manager wasn’t real
happy about it. He didn’t want me to
leave The James Gang at all. I was young
and didn’t know how to come over here. I
didn’t know anything about it and I had
to do it all myself, and it just didn’t work.
Almost though! Another six months and
I quit The James Gang because it had
been together for three or four years and
I wanted to do something else. I moved
to Colorado, went and hung out with
Szymczyk. Right around that period was
when I did Barnstorm.’
This was when Walsh started leading
his own band, Barnstorm, with his
erstwhile rival from another Ohio band,
Joe Vitale, on drums and the then
unknown Kenny Passarelli on bass:
‘Tommy Bolin, who had played with
Kenny at High School, gave me his
number. He said “There’s this guy who’s
up in Canada. He’s real good, but he’s
nuts.” So I called Kenny. He had just got
his wisdom teeth extracted, so he didn’t
even remember that I called. I had to
call him again a week later, and he drove
down in his 1937 Chevy with an upright
bass in the back seat, non-stop from
Vancouver, and said, “Here I am!” I said
to him, “This is the drummer. That’s it,
that’s all I’ve got.”’
Despite his success with The James
Gang, it was a problem for Walsh to
get a record deal for Barnstorm: ‘Yeah,
it was. I bumped into a bunch of stuff
from leaving The James Gang. It was
hard, it took a long time and I didn’t
know what I was doing either, half the
t i me.’
Eventually, the Barnstorm album
appeared in the autumn of 1972,
spending six months in the US album
chart but peaking outside the Top 75.
It was produced by Szymczyk, whoJoe Walsh on stage in 1975.