80 Facts About Joe Walsh

Joseph Fidler Walsh was born on November 20,1947 and is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

Joe Walsh has experienced success both as a solo artist and as a prolific session musician, being featured on a wide array of other artists' recordings.

At Szymczyk's suggestion, Joe Walsh joined the Eagles in 1975 as the band's guitarist and keyboardist following the departure of their founding member Bernie Leadon, with Hotel California being his first album with the band.

Joe Walsh was born on November 20,1947, in Wichita, Kansas.

Joe Walsh's mother was a classically trained pianist of Scottish and German ancestry.

Joe Walsh was adopted by his stepfather at the age of five and given his stepfather's surname, but retained Fidler as his middle name.

Later, Joe Walsh moved to Montclair, New Jersey and attended Montclair High School, where he played oboe in the school band.

Joe Walsh acquired his first guitar at the age of 10, and upon learning The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run", decided that he wanted to pursue a career as a guitarist.

Joe Walsh planned to major in English and minor in music.

Joe Walsh has stated he was present during the Kent State massacre in 1970.

Joe Walsh was accepted and the band continued as a five piece for a short time until Phil Giallombardo, who was still in high school at the time, left.

Bill Jeric and Joe Walsh worked together on guitar parts, but Jeric left as well in the spring of 1968.

Joe Walsh was replaced by a returning Ronnie Silverman, who had been discharged from the military.

Joe Walsh proved to be the band's star attraction, noted for his innovative rhythm playing and creative guitar riffs.

Joe Walsh experimented with acoustic guitar, slide guitar, effects pedals, fuzzbox, talk box, and keyboards as well as running his guitar straight into a Leslie speaker 122 to get swirly, organ-like guitar tones.

In 1974, Barnstorm disbanded and Joe Walsh continued as a solo artist.

In late 1974, Joe Walsh played slide guitar on Vitale's debut solo album Roller Coaster Weekend.

Joe Walsh was taught the slide technique by Duane Allman, who played on Eric Clapton's Layla of Derek and the Dominos.

In 1975, Joe Walsh was invited to join the Eagles as founding member Bernie Leadon's replacement.

Joe Walsh was replaced by the same musician who had succeeded him in Poco: Timothy B Schmit.

In December 1974, Joe Walsh released his first solo album that was not considered a Barnstorm project, So What, which contained more introspective material such as "Help Me Through the Night" and "Song for Emma", a tribute to Joe Walsh's daughter who had been killed in a car accident that April.

In March 1976, Joe Walsh released a live album, You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind, which featured the Eagles.

Joe Walsh contributed "In the City" to The Warriors soundtrack in 1979, a song penned and sung by Joe Walsh that was later rerecorded for the Eagles' studio album, The Long Run.

Joe Walsh found moderate success with the single "Space Age Whiz Kids", about the pinnacle of the 1980s video arcade craze.

In 1992, Joe Walsh released what appeared to be his final album, Songs for a Dying Planet, his tenth solo studio album.

Keen to re-establish himself after receiving some poor reviews for his previous album, Joe Walsh enlisted his former producer Bill Szymczyk.

Joe Walsh's song "Vote for Me" was a minor success, peaking at No 10 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

In late 1984, Joe Walsh was contacted by Australian musician Paul Christie, the former bassist for Mondo Rock.

Christie invited him to come to Australia to perform with the Party Boys, an all-star band with a floating membership of well-known Australian rock musicians, including the critically acclaimed guitarist Kevin Borich, with whom Joe Walsh became good friends.

Also in 1989 Joe Walsh filmed a live concert from the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles with Etta James and Albert Collins, called Jazzvisions: Jump the Blues Away.

In late 1990, Joe Walsh was part of a band called the Best, along with keyboardist Keith Emerson, bassist John Entwistle, guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and drummer Simon Phillips.

In 1993, Joe Walsh teamed up with Glenn Frey for the "Party of Two" tour in the United States.

In 1998, ABC wanted to use a classic rock song rock for Monday Night Football that year, so they asked Joe Walsh to rewrite the lyrics to "Rocky Mountain Way" for the quarterback John Elway of the Denver Broncos.

In June 2004, Joe Walsh performed at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, Texas.

Joe Walsh was featured in September 2004 at the Strat Pack, a concert held in London, England, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

In 2006, Joe Walsh reunited with Jim Fox and Dale Peters of the James Gang for new recordings and a 15-date summer reunion tour.

In 2008, Joe Walsh appeared on the Carvin 60th Anniversary Celebration DVD as a celebrity endorser.

In 1974, Joe Walsh produced Dan Fogelberg's Souvenirs album and played the guitar, electric guitar, 12 string guitar, ARP bass and provided backing vocals.

Joe Walsh contacted Graham Nash to sing harmony vocals on "Part of the Plan", which helped send the album to No 17 on the 1975 Billboard album chart.

In 1973 Joe Walsh supplied the slide guitar solo on Michael Stanley's song "Rosewood Bitters".

Joe Walsh later lifted part of that solo and used it prominently in the Eagles' hit "Life in the Fast Lane".

In 1981, Walsh and former Barnstorm bandmate, Joe Vitale, went to work on old friend John Entwistle's fifth solo album Too Late the Hero, whenever they were free to work on it.

Joe Walsh was a background musician on Eagles bandmember Don Henley's 1982 hit "Dirty Laundry".

Joe Walsh was a regular guest DJ on Los Angeles radio station KLOS during the mid-1980s.

Joe Walsh was a frequent guest and guest-host of Detroit and Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl.

Onscreen, Joe Walsh has appeared in The Blues Brothers, Promised Land, The Drew Carey Show, Duckman, MADtv, Live from Daryl's House, Rock the Cradle, Zachariah.

In October 2004, Joe Walsh undertook speaking engagements in New Zealand to warn against the dangers of substance abuse.

Joe Walsh said the visit was a "thank you" to people who took him to Otatara Pa when he toured New Zealand with reggae band Herbs while under heavy alcohol and cocaine addictions in 1989, an experience he has cited as the beginning of a long journey back to good health.

On February 12,2012, Joe Walsh appeared on stage with Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and McCartney's band at the Staples Center in Los Angeles to close out the Grammy Awards.

Joe Walsh appeared on the 60th Episode of Live from Daryl's House with Daryl Hall, which premiered on November 15,2012.

On February 9,2014, Joe Walsh was featured in several songs on the CBS special The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles.

In 2014, Joe Walsh made a guest appearance on Foo Fighters' eighth studio album Sonic Highways.

On May 24,2016, Joe Walsh appeared on NBC's The Voice in which he played slide guitar, talk box and performed Rocky Mountain Way with contestant Laith Al-Sall.

Joe Walsh sang lead vocals and played lead guitar, including slide guitar, for 3 songs.

At the 2022 VetsAid benefit, Joe Walsh did double duty, performing a nine song set with the James Gang then returning for a four song finale backed by Nathan East, Joe Vitale and Tom Bukovac.

Joe Walsh is active in charity work and has performed in a number of concerts to raise money for charitable causes.

Joe Walsh has been a personal contributor to a number of charity causes including halfway houses for displaced adult women in Wichita, Kansas.

Joe Walsh funded the first talent-based scholarship at Kent State University in 2008.

Joe Walsh is President of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, and has served on the Foundation's board since the 1980s.

Joe Walsh had often joked about running for office, announcing a mock presidential campaign in 1980 and a vice presidential campaign in 1992.

Joe Walsh ran for President of the United States in 1980, promising to make "Life's Been Good" the new national anthem if he won, and ran on a platform of "Free Gas For Everyone".

In 2017, Joe Walsh contacted others in the music industry, including the Zac Brown Band, Gary Clark Jr.

Joe Walsh was married briefly to Margie Walsh in the 1960s, to Stefany Rhodes from 1971 to 1978, to Juanita Boyer from 1980 to 1988, and to Denise Driscoll from 1999 to 2006.

Joe Walsh married Marjorie Bach in Los Angeles on December 13,2008.

Joe Walsh's daughter Lucy Joe Walsh is a musician who has worked with Ashlee Simpson and others.

Joe Walsh released her debut solo album, Lost in the Lights, in 2007.

Joe Walsh's eldest daughter, Emma Kristen, was born in 1971 and died in 1974 at 3 years of age as a result of injuries suffered in an automobile accident on her way to nursery school.

Joe Walsh's story inspired the track "Song for Emma" on Walsh's solo album So What released later that year.

Joe Walsh has said that the album name So What was a result of Emma's death, that nothing else seemed meaningful or important in the months that followed.

Joe Walsh has mentioned having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger syndrome.

Joe Walsh admits to struggling with alcohol and drug addictions for most of his early career and has been in recovery since 1993.

In 1989, while touring with New Zealand band Herbs, Joe Walsh experienced an "epiphany" during a visit to Otatara Pa, an ancient Maori pa site in the Hawke's Bay region.

In 2004, on a return visit to New Zealand, Joe Walsh described the experience and hailed it as the beginning of his recovery from his addiction.

Joe Walsh related the story that in 1994, he woke up after blacking out on an airplane to Paris.

Joe Walsh holds an Amateur Extra Class Amateur Radio License, and his station callsign is WB6ACU.

Joe Walsh has been involved with the group's "Big Project", which brings amateur radio into schools.

Joe Walsh has included Morse Code messages in his albums on two occasions: on the album Barnstorm, ; and on Songs for a Dying Planet,.

Joe Walsh provides the theme song for the TWiT podcast Ham Nation, and he appeared as a guest in the first podcast, as well as episode 400.

Jimmy Page's sunburst 1959 Gibson Les Paul, better known as his "Number 1" was originally owned by Joe Walsh and was sold to Page in 1969.

In 1970, Joe Walsh gave a 1959 Gretsch 6120 to the Who's lead guitarist Pete Townshend.