We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
After he left the James Gang, Joe Walsh decided he wanted to expand his range of material from power trio boogieing and even though he formed another trio, this one gave us something different.
Walsh, along with bass player Kenny Passarelli and drummer Joe Vitale went to Caribou Ranch in Colorado and recorded the self-titled LP “Barnstorm”.
This is an album that kinda gets lost in the shuffle and was out of print for many years. It’s a beautiful record filled with a more folk-country-rock aesthetic than he had given us before. Layered electric and acoustic guitars plus keyboards including Walsh experimenting with an ARP synthesizer. Vitale even pulls out as flute on one tune.
Stand outs for me include “Here We Go”, “Birdcall Morning”, “I’ll Tell The World”, and the one really hard rocker “Turn To Stone” which he would re-record a number of times in later years.
This LP gives us some idea where he would go with future solo projects and also how his stuff would sound after joining the Eagles.
Walsh, sometimes comes off as a goof in his interviews and of course, he had well documented troubles with alcohol over the years, but this record shows him working at a high level and it delivers the goods.
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