The James Gang, JB's and Joe Walsh in Kent, Ohio

By Jason Prufer

I can't tell you how many times throughout my life that the name Joe Walsh has come up. By the 1980s when I was coming of age the guy existed somewhere between myth and legend. Everyone around here in Kent had a story about him. I'd heard everything from "he was my neighbor" to "my Dad was actually his best friend" to "we used to see him play downtown all the time." It was like the guy must have been everywhere -- but for me, he existed in this other Kent. Not the Kent I had ever known. In the years since, I have gotten closer to finding out the truth about Joe Walsh in Kent but there are still a lot things that I have never been able to figure out. From what I can tell Joe was legitimately a resident of Kent from the fall of 1965 to somewhere in 1970 or 1971. That's about 5 years. But in between those years I've always been trying to figure out what happened when and where. What is the timeline? What's the history? Where specifically did he live and when did he live there? Who did he live with? Did he write any music here in town? And if he did, what was it and when and where was it written?

I have in more recent years been able to track down people who did have a legitimate connection to Joe while he was in town but even with them I was only able to get a sliver of the full story. Someone who legitimately had a whole slew of experiences with him in 1966 was by 1968 completely off his radar. It's like he must have had a ton of friends who had a lot of different experiences with him but each person only has a very small part of the full story.

There's a lot of complicated layers to this Joe Walsh story and if I could put another chapter and maybe his strongest chapter on what he did here in Kent I would have to say it's his time in The James Gang. There were a few parts of this story I was interested in. Number 1 --- that album cover. The first James Gang LP cover with the photos taken in downtown Kent. I wanted to know all about that. Number 2 --- what happened at JB's? From what I could tell there was some kind of long residency there that happened in the late 60s. And number 3 -- how important was Kent to The James Gang and to Joe Walsh's career?

Some time back I wrote an extensive piece about Joe's first band the Measles. What prompted the piece was stumbling upon some photos of that band in the vast personal archives of Ritch Underwood. For over 50 years Ritch has been a master of getting himself behind the scenes and up close with some of the biggest artists and entertainers in the world. He's incredible and he's a pro at slipping in and out of these situations with a camera in hand -- bringing back photographic proof of his unbelievable endeavors. Even as recently as just a couple weeks ago he pulled off getting these rare gems. The guy is truly prolific.

Joe Walsh at JB's in Kent, Ohio during a James Gang
gig in a photo dated January 1969. (Photo by Richard Underwood)

One thing I had never forgotten while digging through his collection was that I had once seen buried deep in a photo album, a couple pictures he had taken of Joe Walsh at JB's in the era that he would have been fronting The James Gang. When I first saw these photos they went by really fast. I think I saw over 500 photos that night and these couple pics of Joe Walsh just breezed by me -- but they made an impression. I even remembered that I had seen a January of 1969 date stamp on the photos. For a couple years I couldn't get these pics out of my mind. It was the only time I had seen photographic proof of The James Gang playing at JB's. This was not someone's Dad saying he had seen them there one night --- these were actual photographs of them performing there.

Very recently Ritch allowed me to scan the photos and do some research on them. I wanted to know more about them. Since Ritch was the photographer I knew he would have the story. Ritch was more than willing to tell me about these pics and about what he remembered about the night -- now 50 years ago -- when he caught The James Gang at JB's.
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Ritch Underwood:

"On the night I took these photos I had been in the Navy for several years and I was home for Christmas. I probably came from my parents house in Stow to this performance. I can't even remember if I went down there with anybody. I may have gone spontaneously just to see what was going on or I may have gone down with Fred Weber because we had been friends from when he was with The Chancellors and he would have been with the Measles at this time. We have always been good friends and done stuff together. I might have even gotten a hold of him and gone down. 

"I can't remember if I even knew if anything was going on in downtown Kent that night but what I do know is that when I got down to North Water Street, Marblecake were playing next door at The Kove and Joe was playing at JB's and I had never seen his then current band which was obviously The James Gang. 

The James Gang at JB's in Kent, Ohio late December 

1968 or early January 1969. Fred Weber on guest 

vocals. From left to right: Fred Weber, Tom Kriss, 

Joe Walsh, Jim Fox. (Photo by Richard Underwood)

"What I remember is that I was knocked out by Joe’s playing -- it was like a different Joe than I had heard when I was playing with him in the Measles. Remember music had changed a lot between 1967 and 1968. And this new band was like an aftermath to those changes he had made following the Measles and the changing music of the times. Now he was playing music like Jeff Beck, Cream and Led Zeppelin. Anyway I was just down there doing what I do and taking pictures and I had Fred Weber with me and then at one point he went up and sat in with them. They played "Let Me Love You" by Jeff Beck and Fred was just kicking ass singing on it and Joe was just nailing the damn thing. Really playing it.

"I took these photos because I had not seen Joe's new band yet and I wanted to get some pictures of them. And they were actually kind of shitty pictures. I don't even think they are very good because ya know I was down there bullshitting with friends I hadn't seen in a while. My philosophy on photography then is the same as it is now -- just capturing the moment. I just wanted to take some photos of Joe in his element. I wanted to capture the band down there and what they looked like at this time. But I was impressed with these three guys playing together and Joe was playing a hell of a lot of guitar.

"Joe was like a different person from what I remembered. Because what I was seeing on this night wasn't the Joe Walsh of The Measles. The Measles wasn't exactly a "guitar" band. It was more like a Beatles kind of sound. With the Measles we were playing standard songs. We would do some songs where Joe would be featured on -- like a Yardbirds cover or something like that but his guitar playing wasn't necessarily the focus of that band. What I was seeing on this night was different. This was hard rock -- big volume power rock. It was great seeing him. I was kind of knocked out. 

"This was the first time I had heard -- that trio. So I was just grabbing pictures -- I wish I would have taken more at the time because who the hell even knew what was coming up for these guys. This was before even the first album." 

(Ritch looks at the photos he took at JB's and points to Joe's sunburst guitar)

"Now this guitar, I think it's the exact guitar that he gave to Jimmy Page. About seven months after I took this photo I went to the Atlanta Pop Festival (July 4-5, 1969) and got to go back stage and I met Jimmy Page. Jimmy showed me his guitar back stage and he said that he had gotten it from Joe Walsh and I am almost  positive it's that guitar you see in my pictures. There were stories that he gave it to Jimmy but I am sure some money changed hands. I'm sure Page could afford it. In those photos down at JB's Joe is playing a Flametop 59. Those are pretty rare guitars. You can even see the case in the photos --- with the pink lining. That's a pretty old case probably the original one that came with the guitar." 

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Wait a minute -- you think Joe Walsh is playing Jimmy Page's guitar here? You are telling me that Jimmy Page got his iconic "Number 1" Gibson 59 Les Paul from Joe Walsh and you think that this may be that guitar in this photo? The guitar that was pretty much responsible for Led Zeppelin II and beyond? The guitar that you immediately think of when you picture Jimmy Page on stage with Led Zeppelin? You think that's the guitar in these photos you took of Joe Walsh performing at JB's in Kent in what was probably December of 1968?

Are these the same guitars? At left is Joe Walsh playing a
1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard at JB's circa late 1968. 
At the right is Jimmy Page playing what looks like the 
exact same guitar at the Atlanta Pop Festival on July 5, 1969.

I had actually never heard this story so I did a little research. First I pulled up photos of Led Zeppelin from the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival to see if the guitar he was using looked like the guitar in Ritch's photos -- and if you look at this one photo you can see that with the exception of the addition of a pickguard, it sure as hell looks like the exact same guitar.

After I found that photo I decided to do some digging -- I then found this video on YouTube where Jimmy Page talks about how Joe Walsh gave him the guitar in San Francisco at a Led Zeppelin performance just a few months into 1969. Then I found that both Guitar Player and Guitar Wold have really recent articles where they talk about Jimmy Page getting the guitar from Joe Walsh.

When I went looking for Joe Walsh's side of the story I came up with this May 2012 article in Guitar World where Joe talks about flying out to see Jimmy Page to sell him what would become the famous Les Paul. And then I found a really recent telling of the story from this past August on the WTF with Marc Maron Podcast where Joe talks about selling Jimmy the guitar but he adds some details that aren't in the other pieces. In this version of the story, Joe adds that at the time of the "sale" he owned two Les Pauls. He says he found one from a guy in Akron and the other in the basement of a local family owned music store. Joe goes on to say that he kept the one he liked, and he gave the other one to Jimmy Page.

What is interesting is that if you go onto Led Zeppelin's website they have a very scholarly detailed timeline of Led Zeppelin's entire career. There's information about every single known show they played complete with photographs and original reviews of those shows if that kind of information is available.

When we look at the photographs on this timeline -- as far as I can tell, Jimmy Page is playing a telecaster with Led Zeppelin from the time of their very first gigs (September of 1968) through their 4 night run in San Francisco which went from April 24 - 27, 1969. If you look at photos from that last show in San Francisco you can see Jimmy is still playing a telecaster -- but -- if you look at the very next show that photos exist you land on May 2 and 3, 1969 and you can see all of a sudden Jimmy is now playing a Les Paul. What must be THE Les Paul.

Joe Walsh has a bit of a timeline reference on this too. If you look at this unofficial timeline of live performances by The James Gang you can see that Joe has a night off from playing with the band on both of the nights Led Zeppelin are playing at the Fillmore West in San Francisco -- April 24 and 27, 1969.

So is the guitar in Ritch's photos in fact the Les Paul that Joe Walsh would sell to Jimmy Page?

Here's what I think:

We know that Joe Walsh sold his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard to Jimmy Page in April of 1969. We know the photos from JB's show Joe playing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard and they were taken either in December 1968 or January 1969.

Here are my concerns:

Jimmy Page's guitar has a pickguard, Joe Walsh's guitar does not. Here's the thing though. It only takes like 1 minute to put a pickguard on a Les Paul and it's not exactly an uncommon practice to add one. Another concern is that Joe says he owned two Les Pauls at the time of the sale, and he gave Jimmy the one he liked the least.

Thing is, I have no information on what that other Les Paul was. The only thing I could find related to a different Les Paul owned by Joe Walsh from this era is this one James Gang photo showing Joe playing what looks like a different kind of Les Paul. Most that I showed that photo to thought the "other" Les Paul looked like a Goldtop.

There is however, nothing definite that I can find that either shows or says that the guitar Joe is playing in those photos isn't the iconic Les Paul in question. We could very well be looking at that guitar. They look identical.

So is it the same guitar?

I cannot say definitively yes or no. Maybe a reader knows for sure and maybe the only one who would really know is Joe Walsh. So Joe -- if you are reading this -- are we looking at that guitar in these photos of you at JB's? I'd love to know.

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*******UPDATE!!

On October 20, 2018 I got to go backstage when The Eagles were at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland and I point blank asked Joe about the guitar. I showed him the photos from JB's and the photo showing the comparison with the 1969 Jimmy Page photo. Joe told me that the guitar in question in the old photos is in fact THE GUITAR HE GAVE TO JIMMY PAGE in April of 1969. Click here to see a photo of me with my friend Matt and Joe Walsh backstage that night when I asked him that question and presented him with the photos.

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Ritch Underwood continues:



"This band (The James Gang) flipped me out. Seeing three guys put out that much power. Also they were playing so much music I had never heard. I saw Joe many times over the years after this either with Barnstorm or solo or with The Eagles but this was the only time I ever saw The James Gang."


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Ritch always has the best insight. I wanted to know more though. I wanted to know more about these times in Kent with Joe Walsh and The James Gang. Joe joined the James Gang around January of 1968 but songs like "Funk #49" and "Walk Away" don't show up until about two years later. It was during these earlier years prior to those two breakout singles that The James Gang had their "residency" at JB's and this was what I was interested in knowing more about.

I remembered that an acquaintance of mine had a connection with James Gang's drummer Jim Fox who is seen in one of the photos. I thought I would take a chance and see if maybe I could land some sort of interview and before I knew it I was on the phone with him. Our conversation blew my mind -- Jim Fox had deep insight into every question I had and provided additional details and stories that I had no idea about.

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Jim Fox in conversation about The James Gang and Kent, Ohio:

JP: Tell me about how Joe Walsh got into The James Gang.

Jimmy: Ya know Joe and I have different recollections about how that happened. He recollects my calling him. That’s not my recollection whatsoever and we’ve laughed about this. Glenn Schwartz gave his notice that he was leaving The James Gang on a Saturday night. His notice was “Jimmy this is really painful but I am in big trouble and if I am not out of town by midnight, there’s gonna be hell to pay.” He was 7 years older than me which means he was probably 10 years older than (then James Gang bass player) Tom Kriss. Glenn was married and he had a son and the rest of us were kids man. So Glenn came to me, he was AWOL from summer camp, he was behind on his alimony, the drug cops were looking for him. It was a bad scene. And he said to me “Jimmy I have to go, I am going to California -- tonight” and I went back to Kent that Saturday night thinking “well look this is the end of the band”. I was inconsolable all day Sunday. I had no idea what I was going to do. I was paging in my mind – who could I call? What could we possibly do? 

And about 11:00am that Monday there’s a knock on my door. So I go to look through the peephole and it’s Joe! And I open the door and Walsh is standing there and in classic Walsh he says “man I heard you need a guitar player.” I was like Jesus Christ how does news travel like that ya know? This was obviously way before the Internet. How could he have possibly heard? So I said “come in come in” and we sat down and we talked for a while and I said yeah we lost Glenn – and Joe and Glenn were acquainted by then. They knew each other quite well. When you hear it characterized that Glenn was Joe’s teacher and mentor there is a lot of truth to that. These two guys would sit in a room with their knees touching – looking at each other and playing guitar for 8 hours at a time. But it’s possible that that was sort of pre-ordained. And here was Joe! And I knew he was trying to put together a group with some different guys. I knew that much about him. I don’t think I fully understood his capabilities at that time but I must have heard him at least once and been very very impressed.

Summit Hill Apartments in Kent, Ohio. This is where
Joe Walsh joined The James Gang. (Photo by Jason Prufer)

JP: Where did this happen where Joe showed up at your apartment?

Jimmy: That was on Summit Street. It seems to me the place was called Summit Hill Apartments. I lived there first and then after that I lived in Glenn-Morris apartments. But the incident with Joe showing up was at Summit Hill Apartments.

JP: What was your JB's run about? Was it a residency?

Jimmy: Ya know when I look back it was definitely a residency. I'm not sure we viewed it that way at the time and I am not sure that word was used at the time. What it was for us was an opportunity to work on what are normally considered to be off-nights. In other words, the way we set it up at JB's is we never played there on a Friday or a Saturday, we played there on Sundays and then we added Thursdays and eventually we added Tuesdays. So we were playing there for a long period of time three nights a week. It was great because we could take regular jobs (Fridays and Saturday nights).

(The JB's period) was certainly a great time for us. The "residency" was right at the time we were getting signed. We'd been trying probably for well over a year at that point to get a record deal and hadn't had much success at all. I still have rejection letters somewhere from just about every record company. We didn't have a lot of money in those days. At the end of every weekend we'd kick back I think it was maybe 2-3 dollars. And 2-3 dollars would buy us one more copy of the acetate we had of our original version of  "Bluebird" plus postage. And we'd pick a new record company every week and after 12 or 15 weeks you were past the good ones. With rejection after rejection after rejection and you don't want to give up because you have a belief in yourself ya know? So you start looking down the list and that's how you get to labels like ABC. They were a major but they were at the bottom of the list of the majors along with probably RCA and Mercury at the time. They just weren't strong labels. Atlantic is a strong label. Warner Bros. is a strong label. Capitol is a strong label. We got rejected by Elektra -- we got rejected by all of them. Apple -- I have a beautiful rejection letter from Apple Records signed by Derek Taylor.

JP: Did the residency at JB's start in the Joe Walsh era?

Jimmy: I think it starts with Joe -- early with Joe but during Joe. Now Joe's allegiance in that time was originally to Joe Shannon -- over at the Fifth Quarter. Joe had played there with The Measles. I don't know how often The Measles played JB's in comparison to how often they played the Fifth Quarter but it seemed to me that they were the house band over there.

I don't remember what exactly moved us over but it was an opportunity obviously. I don't remember how it came up -- and I don't remember how much music was at JB's before us. (JB's opened as a music venue in March 1966).

JP: Do you remember when the residency would have started and do you remember when it ended?

Jimmy: Well I think we can figure it out even though I don't remember it because I believe we didn't play the place until Joe was in the band. Joe joined in January of 1968. I would say it was shortly after that that we began playing there.

JP: I see shows listed for JB's as late as August of 1970.

Classified advertisement from a February 13, 1969 
issue of the Daily Kent Stater.

Jimmy: That's right. That makes perfect sense to me because we held onto JB's as long as we possibly could. Something interesting that you may get a kick out of -- we actually made the record deal inside of JB's -- at a table in JB's at a moment when the club wasn't open. We had played -- it must have been the night before or maybe two nights before out in Warren at the Packard Music Hall and Bill Szymczyk from ABC was sent out to hear us -- and I think more accurately Bill wanted to come out to Cleveland because he had a friend from the military in Cleveland so he figured 'there's a chance to kill two birds with one stone, I can get together with my buddy and ya know do my job as the brand new A&R guy at ABC Records and listen to these guys.' So he did and we talked and he said 'when can we get together tomorrow, where can we meet?' And we met down at JBs and had a talk and he made us an offer and we basically accepted it. I'm sure the legal work wasn't done that day but the agreement was made that day.

JP: What do you remember about the times at JB's?

Jimmy: Well ya know -- we all have really fond memories. Joe has said more than once -- he says ya know that was the best time of all because it's when we learned to play. It's when we learned to become who we became. There's nothing in the world like playing 3 sets or more a night -- over and over and over again. Ya know it's the 10,000 hours thing. This is when we put in the time. This was basically -- ok it's time to stop rehearsing in the basement and now we're playing enough that we can progress as we perform.

JP: So then would you say that The James Gang became a real band at JBs?

Jimmy: Yes absolutely -- absolutely

JP: What was the repertoire in those days?

Jimmy: At the beginning -- at least at the beginning of Joe, we were playing cover songs exclusively. We didn't have anything original. And what we were doing was we were reworking songs that we liked. And this goes back a solid year before Joe because the James Gang had Glenn Schwartz -- who we thought was an irreplaceable guitar player till we found Joe. Because of Glenn we had a lot of blues in the sets. So we did stuff like "Dust My Broom" all kinds of slow blues, all kinds of r & b. Blues oriented -- people like Little Milton -- that sort of thing. At the same time we did as we were capable -- the hits of the day that we liked. Jeff Beck's stuff, The Yardbirds. We did some Who -- we did a lot of Hendrix because again Glenn was there -- we had a superior guitarist so the guitar oriented rock & roll was where we were based along with a heavy slice of true mostly Chicago Blues I would say.

JP: So when Joe took over he just picked up where Glenn left off? He just picked up those songs?

Jimmy: Yes exactly. The first rehearsal was in my parents' basement which was in Cleveland Hts and I remember it perfectly because we had talked -- Joe and I agreed to give it a try. Honestly, I think we learned 30 songs that day. It was that quick. I mean obviously there were songs that we all knew -- for instance we were working on "Bluebird" by The Buffalo Springfield and we had ya know 60 to 80 percent of an arrangement that was about to go on the stage -- I said Joe here's one we're working on and I remember this very well -- Joe listened to us for a while and played along for awhile and said 'listen, what if we tried it like this' and immediately went into what really became our version of "Bluebird" and we were just like holy crap who is this guy?  -- And we literally rehearsed that week and we were on the stage by the weekend. It was an extremely smooth transition even though Joe and Glenn were different people. Ya know Joe had the mastery. He had the capability and the capacity to learn like that and again the songs we were playing were songs that many musicians knew. The Beatle tunes were popular and a lot of bands were playing them -- and the Stones ya know. A lot of bands were playing them. It was just a matter of locking the arrangements together and Joe was very very good at it and if along the way he heard something that he thought he could do better he would say so and and I would say 9 out of 10 cases we'd agree with him -- we'd just move our arrangement over to what he was thinking.

JP: Can you name some of the specific songs that you played at JB's?

JB's circa 1970 on North Water Street in Kent, Ohio

Jimmy: Oh boy -- I have a song-list on this computer and I am afraid it's earlier than when Joe was in the band. Let me see if I can pull it up. It might give us some ideas. -- (he finds it) okay BINGO - November of 1967 so this was with Glenn but this was right at the end so we're talking about "Born in Chicago" Butterfield, "Foxy Lady", "Purple Haze" "Jeff's Boogie" which I remember -- that became Joe's song. We used to jam on "Mustang Sally." Here's a perfect one -- Freddie King "The Stumble." We used to open almost every night at JB's with "The Stumble" -- great instrumental -- and there's an old old old tradition, from that era -- pre-Beatles era is what I am talking about -- where a group would open with an instrumental. That's just the way it was done. "I Can't Keep from Crying Sometimes" which was a Blues Project tune. "Hey Joe", "Fire" another Hendrix -- oh here's a great one that we did with Joe -- a Procol Harum song. We did a lot of Procol Harum songs but we did one called "She Wandered Through the Garden Fence." That's a great great song. We also played Procol Harum's "Homburg" with Joe and I think that's their best record ever. I really do. "The Nazz are Blue" which is another Yardbirds tune. "Wake Me Shake Me" another Blues Project tune. "I Feel Free" Cream. "Stone Free" Hendrix. "Train Kept A Rollin" "Wind Cries Mary", "Light My Fire" believe it or not. That one might not have made it to when Joe was with us. Again this is from a list that I have of songs that we played just eight weeks out from when Joe joined the band. The question is, did all of these songs survive that particular period of a few weeks or a couple of months till we started at JB's and I don't really know the answer to that because the longer Joe was with the band the more we made the band ya know -- the new band.

I think what happened was we probably went, if anything, a little less pure blues and a little more British Invasion rock. We were more interested in Beatles -- we were listening to The Zombies.

I think in the case of the lineup that was me, Joe and Dale or even Tom Kriss because it was Tom Kriss at this point, I think we were pretenders. I really do. I think we were interlopers and I think we learned what we learned more from the British versions than the authentic American versions. The only exception being Glenn Schwartz who was authentic and who was dirty. And Glenn knew nothing about the British Invasion. Glenn was listening to Lazy Lester -- we were like -- who? Our blues experience that came first hand was BB King and then to a lesser extent Freddie King and Albert King. A little bit of Albert Collins.

JP: These are like third generation blues players.

Jimmy: You got it -- that's when we came in. That's where we legitimately come in based on our own tastes and our own experiences. I mean let's face it. Where could you go to hear Little Walter? Maybe he played Cleveland once or twice in that era with Muddy Waters or whatever. There were one or two clubs in the area and because of Glenn, before Joe the gang was interested. Not to burst your bubble but in the case of the blues it really came more from us listening to Clapton and The Yardbirds then it did to listening to the sources. In other words I don't think I owned a Sonny Boy Williamson album -- I don't think I knew about him but I sure as hell knew the tunes. So it's a little bit of a backwards influence. A long loop of influence that went away and came back to the States. That repertoire -- the early Stones repertoire, particularly The Yardbirds repertoire and the Cream repertoire, that's where it really came out. Those songs became part of our DNA and it caused us in many cases to go back and try and find these older records. I looked up one day and was like 'this shit is American isn't it" and where the hell have we been?

Ya know Canned Heat had a number of gigs in Northern Ohio, in the Cleveland area in 67,68 and into 69 and we saw them enough times that we became friendly with them and a couple of us took a day off once with Bob Hite and I think it was Henry Vestine and we hit every record store in every bad neighborhood in Cleveland and man I mean Bob filled up a suitcase with 78s and ya know stuff like that and we were just in awe. We were just kind of following along -- he was getting stuff like Sugarcane Harris and Don and Dewey. I was like 'god this is our stuff man' ya know? And we never had a crack at it and here it was in plain site. So certainly at JB's and certainly with Joe we were carrying a lot of that along. And "Jeff's Boogie" is nothing but a 12 bar of that type of music. We just didn't really put it together.

JP: Going back to JB's what do you remember about the crowds there?

Current site of JB's on North Water Street in Kent.

(Photo by Richard Underwood)

Jimmy: (laughs) Total insanity. There's a story I tell I'm sure you will dwell on Joe Bujac (JB) at some point. This was very early on in our "residency" and Joe came to me and we were drawing ridiculous crowds and too stupid to know that we should ask for more money. That didn't occur to us till later and Joe (Bujac) must have gotten wealthy on us -- that's all that I can say (laughs). Joe (Bujac) used to drive around in a Ford Falcon with the trunk open and garbage cans hanging out of it. We had to go over to his house once and get the key to the club because we needed to pull some equipment out for a weekend gig and Joe Bujac said ya know "here's my address come over I'll give you the key" -- he was living up in Twin Lakes and we drive up to this rather beautiful house with Cadillacs in the driveway. And we thought to ourselves "this must be the wrong place." Very very early on Joe Bujac calls me aside and says in his inimitable way and says "Jimmy, I don't understand." I said "Joe (B) what don't you understand" he said "all these people come to hear you. All of them come -- but these people don't drink." he says "I don't understand why they come but they don't drink." and I had to explain to Joe Bujac that they are all stoned (and the stoner crowd doesn't drink.)

Bujac was a very very tough boss. He was Eastern European -- I am sure his life wasn't easy at some point.  He treated us very -- I don't want to say badly because it was the order of the day. There was no one better ya know there wasn't such a thing as a nice guy who owned a club. They were all hardball guys and they always beat us to death over the last nickel. They always cheated us on percentages if we ever even got near percentages which in most cases we didn't.

There's another very famous story. The band was really beginning to take off. We had not given up our JB's gig by any means. We were still playing there 3 nights a week just as the weekend gigs were getting better. Now this is the time we are getting into James Gang Rides Again era -- Spring/Summer 1970 --  ya know and 'the gang' was still coming back to JB's when we could and that was plenty. One day we get an offer for a really serious gig -- and it's the Goose Lake International Music Festival up in Michigan which eventually drew over a quarter million people. And for us it would be the biggest audience we would ever play to. We had already done some cool stuff. We did the peace festival at Shea Stadium though that was 50,000. This gig we were being offered was a quarter of a million -- but it's on a Sunday night. And Walsh says to me - "well you gotta tell Bujac, you gotta ask for the night off" I said "Joe he's not gonna give us the night off. If we're gonna do this gig we're gonna have to get hard about it." and he said "well we gotta talk to him let's see what we can do." So I go in there and ask to talk to Joe Bujac and he was already pissed off that I would even want to talk to him. I said "Joe (Bujac) we have an opportunity and I described the whole thing to him. He says "oh my god Jimmy this sounds like a great opportunity." and I said "yeah but it's a Sunday night" and he said "no no you play for me on Sunday nights" I said "Yes we do and what I am asking you for is the night off." he says "no you will be fired you'll never play here again -- you have to honor your commitments" I said "Listen there could be 250,000 people at this show" and that shut him up for a minute. That got his wheels turning. And he thought about it and he looked at me and he said "Jimmy -- there will be 250,000 people?" I said "Yes" he said "Jimmy how much do they get at the door?"

JP: So then what happened? Did he give you the night off?

Jim: Oh yeah. When he did the math he gave us the night off. And it was the only night that we ever fought for successfully and won. I mean you played for that guy and that was it. Bujac was very territorial and very insistent because again he came to depend upon it. These were his big nights. I think we started and finished there making $100 a night (laughs). We didn't have what it took to negotiate.

JP: When did the regular JBs gig end? How did that happen and why?

Joe Walsh at JB's in Kent, Ohio, circa December 1968/January 1969.

(Photos by Richard Underwood)

Jimmy: The time at JB’s ended completely organically. It ended in coincidence with our success curve. In other words we succeeded ourselves out of that gig because by that time we had a manager and we had a record company. There were job offers coming in that were real jobs. They weren’t paying much better to be honest with you – they were maybe $250 or $500 or $1000 but they were important gigs. They might have been supporting The Who or they might have been supporting Led Zeppelin. The pressure from this curve of success forced us at a certain point to go to Joe Bujac and say “we love you but we’re done” and I think probably by then it was a little easier to do then it would have been to do at any time previous because he was starting to understand. He probably believed he could keep us forever or close to forever but it was starting to look like we had hit forever. This was it. I mean we went out and played The Fillmore East one weekend(1970). And having said that I can’t swear to you we didn’t come back in that Tuesday and played at JB’s!

JP: Did you ever have any openers at JB’s?

Jimmy: I don’t believe we ever had an opening act at JB’s but we had something quite unique. We had an open stage. It was normally three sets a night. I think we played from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. That was a normal night at JB’s. Once we played the first two sets we sort of felt like we had satisfied our obligations in all directions – to Joe Bujac, to the audience – everybody. So the third set was always loose and anybody could play. And I remember specifically because I was in the music school at Kent. The horn section from the Kent State Jazz Lab Band – they’d come down and be our horn section. It was wonderful. I can remember that these guys would come up and we’d look at each other – they were pure jazzbos all the way. They wouldn’t know Beatles -- but we had commonality and the commonality was always the 12 bar blues. So we’d jam for like 20 minutes and these guys would just have these incredible arrangements. We’d just look over and say “the next 12 bars are yours guy – have a good time”.

I remember a character – and his name was Robin. He was a harmonica player. Most nights he would come up and do a tune with us. And we had characters like that throughout. Once in a while we’d have another guitar player come up – ya know like someone local who Joe would know and we’d do the double guitar thing. When somebody showed me this photo earlier this year of us playing with Fred Weber – even though I totally have no recollection of that whatsoever I wouldn’t have needed that photo to believed that it happened.

JP: These other photos from JB’s. The two where you just see Joe. What do you see in there? What does that trigger?

Jimmy: Well first of all. I see that there is a ceiling panel askew. And I thought to myself either Bujac was fixing the plumbing or somebody’s guitar got in the way and knocked that thing out because ya know we were very animated and it’s very possible someone could have just booted that thing out a little. Ya know I remember it was a low ceiling. This picture – in my eyes dresses the place up more than it really was. These pictures almost look clean and I never would characterized that place as a clean place. I am sure Bujac worked very hard at it but it was just a college bar back then let’s face it.

Joe Walsh at JB's in Kent, Ohio during a James Gang 

gig in a photo dated January 1969. (Photo by Richard Underwood)

Another thing that caught my interest right away was the fact that we have those Shure PA columns set up sideways and I am not quite certain why we would have done that because clearly it took up more room that way so we must have come to a conclusion at some point that we were getting better coverage with the PA sideways. Though for heaven’s sake on a stage that size you would have assumed that it would have left a much smaller footprint if you put it vertically which is the way it was intended to be used. I am just guessing this was probably Joe because Joe was the most attuned to sound and he said “ya know let’s just try this and see if we don’t get better sound that way.” We didn’t have a soundman, we worked the sound from the stage. Nobody had soundmen – they cost money. My recollection of it was that the head – ya know the control panel was usually somewhere between Joe and me where either one of us could reach it if we had to -- ya know in case something was feeding back or in case we became aware that something wasn’t getting out then one of the two of us could make that adjustment on the fly.

JP: What do you remember about Joe’s outfit?

Jimmy: I’ll tell you something hysterical is that the first thing I noticed in the photos are the pants! We got em on the same day. We got em through one of the most generous men who ever lived. Chuck Avner was his name and he ran a clothing store in Cleveland called Man Talk. He was a jazz guy too but he liked musicians and he had clothing that looked like that where nobody else in Cleveland did of course. We were playing in the battle of the bands in Cleveland which we won -- this has to be 1968. And we didn’t have the right clothes for the gig so we went in to see Chuck and we said “ya know Chuck here’s the situation – we gotta dress up man because ya know we’re about to make the finals of this thing and we’re gonna win it and we don’t have any money” and he said “here’s what we’re going to do guys. Each of you pick out a pair of pants” and they all looked like those pants in those photos in those days. His whole store was full of pants that looked like that. So Joe and I got these pants – I can’t remember if Tom Kriss got a pair but definitely Joe and I did. So we got these pants and Joe and I went up to the counter and Chuck says “ya know what, why don’t you guys take them. You can bring them back. I don’t care. Just take them and play” so we took them and clearly we never brought them back because here they are a year later in these pictures. Maybe after winning the battle of the bands we went in and paid for them.

Backside of The James Gang's Yer' Album taken out at Joe's

house Ranfield Road in Brimfield, Ohio. Released March of 1969. 

Photos must be from Summer 1968. (Photos by Bill Szymczyk)

JP: The Yer' Album album cover. Who is the photographer?

Jimmy: It was Bill Scymczyk – our producer. He’s the one who found us and signed us. Bill produced us, The Eagles --- he produced some of the greatest albums of all time and we were his first act.

JP: What do you remember about that day those photos were shot?

Jimmy: Well we later had a road manager named Tom Wright who was a brilliant photographer who shot the Rides Again cover. Tom has written books on photography. Bill Scymczyk was not that. Bill had a Brownie. “The record company needs some pictures man” – one of those deals. Not knowing what would wind up being what we spent a day taking pictures. The back cover photos which is like a montage -- collage of photos if I recall – those were taken out around where Joe was living at the time in Brimfield out on Ranfield Road – he was leasing some space out there above a garage. I don’t remember which came first – whether we started out there or we started downtown but over the course of the day Bill took photos out at Joe’s place. We were just walking around – in retrospect it reminds me of some of the Monkees footage.

We just took random photos. As far as what I remember from that experience where we took that front cover, I remember the railroad tracks and I remember Joe putting a penny on the railroad tracks and I had never seen anyone do that at that time. We had to have climbed down there (from behind Franklin Ave) -- I am sure that was our access and if it was difficult to get down from that way, I am sure we all gritted our teeth and did it. We weren't particularly daredevils. But Joe knew the area. Joe had lived downtown in this period. I am sure the idea for the front cover with the waterfall was Joe’s. We were both students but I was a student from out of the city whereas Joe lived in and knew the town. I don’t remember the specific photographs being taken but I remember going there to take them and I remember the tracks. It’s clear though that we are all posed in the exact same spot. So Bill just probably said "ok you stand there", "Tom you go over there." You know that kind of thing.

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Regarding the front and back covers of the first James Gang album I want to add a few things. First of all as Jimmy Fox stated, the photos were taken by Bill Szymczyk who is not a photographer. Bill is a producer – a truly prolific one but at the time he took the photos and produced that first James Gang album his resume wasn’t quite as dense as it became. It’s interesting that not only did he produce the first James Gang album but he would go on to produce their next three, then the following Joe Walsh solo albums and finally (not really finally but you can see the career arch I am going for) he would produce The Eagles' Hotel California. So just to be clear – we can draw a straight line from that ledge in Kent that rises out of the Cuyahoga River all the way to Hotel California. Also check this pic here to see what that ledge looked like around the time the album cover photo shoot took place. You can see that ledge at the very left. Also check here and here to see what this looks like today.

Front cover of The James Gang's Yer' Album Released March 1969

I wouldn’t even know how to get a hold of Bill Szymczyk to even ask him about that day taking photos down by the river and out on Ranfield Road -- but -- Bill if you are reading this --- do you still have the negatives from this shoot? Do you have any photo outtakes? I’d love to see what else you got that day. They would now be historic photos of downtown Kent as well as historic photos of that property out on Ranfield Road.

Speaking of that house and property on Ranfield Road – this has been something about Joe Walsh’s time in Kent that has always fascinated me. I had heard many stories about that place before I ever even knew it was the sight of the infamous photos on the back of Yer’ Album. I’d always wanted to know where the property was and what went on out there. These would have been formative years for Joe as an artist and since we know he was playing in The James Gang when he lived there, one can only assume it was the site of many many after-parties following James Gang gigs. I suspect most nights ended out there with the sun coming up. Also I bet you Joe could name at least 10 now classic albums/recordings that he discovered while living out there.

I had the privilege recently to meet the property owners of the Ranfield Road house

House on Ranfield Road in Brimfield, Ohio where Joe Walsh lived 

circa 1968. In those days the second and third floor exterior 

had a tudor look. The white siding was added in the 1970s. 

The bottom left apartment shown here was converted

from what was originally a garage. (Photo by Jason Prufer)

and they were about the nicest couple I have ever met. They have owned the property since the early 70s and gave me some terrific insight on the area and what it must have been like out there in the late 60s. They invited me out to the property to take photos and to tell me everything they knew about the history out there. From what they knew and from what everyone else seems to (vaguely) remember, Joe lived at least for some time in this specific apartment on the property and you can even see a bit of the exterior wooden staircase in one of the photos on the back cover of Yer’ Album.

Also – photos of the property from the 1950s show it before the white siding was added and it reveals a tudor looking exterior for the second and third floors. Also according to the property owners, in the “old days” the house had a garage that was later turned into a 4th apartment and Jimmy’s recollections are that Joe lived “above a garage.”

Also since we know Yer’ Album was recorded in January of 1969 and was released in March of 1969 we can assume that the photos that grace that album were taken either in the summer of 1968 or early fall of 1968 – and if you do that math, that’s exactly 50 years ago. Not sure how long Joe lived out on Ranfield Road but he was obviously living there when those photos were taken. When he moved in and when he moved out though is unknown (at least to me).

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Jim Fox conversation continued...

JP: There's a recording of The James Gang that exists from this era. It's a bootleg recording. Are you aware of this? Supposedly it is sourced from Kent State 1968/1969.

Jimmy: Peripherally. I think I have heard it and I think it's been a long time since I have heard it.

JP: I honestly have no idea what it is sourced from but more than one bootleg has it labeled from The Eastway Cafeteria gig from January 1969. Other sources just say Kent State 1968 and one lists it as a WMMS broadcast.

Jimmy: Well I recall the Eastway Cafeteria gig. And the reason I recall it is that there are some photos attached to that gig. There are a couple of photos of the band and I've seen them and that's what prompted me to think back about that show. And I do remember it because it was a little unusual. Because remember, for us Kent was JB's and the thought that the University wanted us to play I think was kind of a bigger deal.

JP: On the recording you hear "Jeff's Boogie" and you hear "Blackbird." Does that sound right?

Jimmy: Yes. Now again that was classic Walsh. Almost everything we did that became popular and became a part of the public view came about from stage improvisation. "The Bomber" in its entirety was written and conceived on stage. Basically we'd been doing a version of "The Pusher" by Hoyt Axton. Something Steppenwolf had done and we kind of made it our own, which you do and we changed it from the regular Steppenwolf version into like a ten minute jam. When it became time to do Rides Again we were struggling for material in terms of record time. Rides Again came very quickly after Yer' Album. We needed tunes -- we really had only one or two new tunes. And we were sitting in the studio in Los Angeles thinking about "well, it's a shame we can't do 'The Pusher'" but we weren't really looking to do more cover material. There had been cover material on the first album and this time we were looking not to include any covers. We wanted to make everything ours. And we said "it's a shame we have all this original music attached to 'The Pusher'" and I suggested to Joe "what if we used the material that's ours and wrote a new song up front." and that's how "The Bomber" came about.

So all of the jams starting with "Bolero" and going into "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and all that other stuff came from stage jams. And "Blackbird" one night turned all of our heads like Linda Blair from The Exorcist -- Joe's playing "Blackbird" in the middle of "Jeff's Boogie" -- and that's kind of the way it went. We were a very spontaneous band we really were.

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A couple notes here at the end:

Somewhere in this period Joe Walsh lived at the Kent-Ellis Hotel which is now the mixed use building that houses BW3's on the corner of East Main and South Depeyster Streets. A photo exists showing Joe inside his room at the hotel with a sliver of the old Kent Cinema sign revealed in the window behind him. I also believe this photo was taken inside of the Kent-Ellis Hotel. I am not sure if this is before he lived on Ranfield Road or after but he's living there somewhere in this JB's period.

If you look close at Ritch Underwood's photos it appears that the two main ones were possibly taken before the actual performance or during a set break. It would be unusual for a guitar case to be open and up on a stand during an actual show.

If these photos do in fact show Joe playing what would become Jimmy Page's iconic Les Paul guitar then they would be (as far as I can tell) the only known photos of Joe Walsh playing that guitar.

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**UPDATE  --- they do and they are

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Also according to Wiki -- The James Gang's debut LP Yer' Album was recorded in January of 1969. This would mean Ritch's photos capture the band right in the period when they were recording that album. Listen to Yer' Album in its entirety here.

The photos of Joe Walsh at JB's were taken when JB's was downstairs. Also in this era the stage was against the north wall. Also JB's was a cavernous club and was quite dark. All three pictures are effected by a flash on Ritch's camera. Check some other interior photos of JB's in this era here, here, here, here and here.

When I talk to people who were around in Kent back in this time they all say this was the best era to be in town -- the few years preceding May 4, 1970. There isn't a lot of documentation that has survived that era of Kent but the few windows I have seen show it to be pretty swinging. It was in this period that you could see Joe Walsh front The James Gang at JB's twice -- sometimes three times a week playing three sets of music on those nights. That alone must have been like heaven on earth.

Big thanks to everyone who helped make this piece possible including Robert Lewis, Terry Hynde, Kyle James, Matthew Weiss, Steve Five, Nick Blakey, Matt Manus, Don and Candene Korom, Jimmy Fox, Lisa Rios, Matt Napier and Ritch Underwood.

Oh and I made a movie recently and I think it's really cool. It's called Archie and the Bunkers: Three Nights in Cleveland and it's about the band Archie and the Bunkers. You can watch it right here.

Oh and by the way I have a book coming out through Kent State University Press on January 29, 2019 and it's really awesome and Joe Walsh wrote the foreword to it and you should buy it. It's called Small Town, Big Music: The Outsized Influence of Kent, Ohio, on the History of Rock and Roll. You can pre-order it through Amazon right here.

One last thing. Whatever happened to Joe? Well --- for one he's playing next Saturday, October 20 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland with The Eagles. He's still great and so are The Eagles. More info on that show...right here.