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Joe Walsh, Power Trio Pioneer
When people have heard of Joe Walsh, they tend to dismiss or underestimate him. Elitists revile him and the rest of the Eagles for their ubiquity in the late ’70s and intermittently since 1994. Snobs sneer at Walsh’s whiny voice and guitar heroics, or pigeonhole him — perhaps with affection — as a mere novelty act, the “Clown Prince of Rock,” the guy who recorded a few funny songs forty years ago.
In fact, Walsh is a versatile and innovative musician and composer who strongly influenced the evolution of popular music nearly a decade before he joined the Eagles in 1976, and continued to do so even after the supergroup broke up in 1980. He is currently in the midst of a minor career resurgence.
Early Influences
Born Joseph Fidler in Wichita on November 20, 1947, he does not remember his father. “My dad was an Air Force instructor in Okinawa, in a Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, and when I was one and a half, he bumped wings with another guy and didn’t come back.”
A few years, later his mom married again. The boy’s new stepfather adopted him and gave him the surname Walsh.
