Click here to play the podcastWe dive into the electrifying atmosphere of live music on this episode, as we take a detour from studio recordings to explore the raw energy and spontaneous magic of live performances. This time around, we’re sizing up “Meadows” by Joe Walsh, from his dynamic 1976 live album, You Can’t Argue with a Sick Mind.
Join us as we trace the origins of Joe Walsh’s musical journey and examine the intricate layers of “Meadows,” from the driving guitar riff that hooks you in, to the dual drummers and star-studded band lineup that includes the likes of Don Felder, Jay Ferguson, and Willie Weeks. With two drummers, two keyboard players, and a percussionist, you’ll discover how this ensemble manages a tight, uncluttered sound that defines true musicians. Whether you’re a die-hard Joe Walsh fan or just love the thrill of a great live album, tune in and turn it up.
“Meadows” (Joe Walsh & Patrick Cullie) Copyright 1973 Songs of Universal Inc., Barnstorm Music Inc. and Belkin Music Company
TRANSCRIPT:
We are back once again for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. We’re here on the Pantheon Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Brad Page. Each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we delve into it together to see how it works: what goes into making it a great song? As always, musical knowledge or experience isn’t a prerequisite here. We don’t get into music theory or anything too technical. We’re just going to use our ears and sharpen our listening skills.
Now, usually on this show, we focus on studio recordings, where we can examine how a song was put together, the choices made during production and recording. But in the next few episodes, I want to take a look at some live recordings. There are a lot of great live albums out there, some pretty popular and some really famous ones. You know the ones I’m talking about– from “Frampton Comes Alive” to “Kiss Alive”, Allman Brothers “At the Fillmore East”, Thin Lizzy “Live and Dangerous”, Humble Pie “Performance Rocking The Fillmore”, I mean, there’s just so many great live albums.
But what I want to do is go off the beaten path a little bit and play some probably less familiar tracks that highlight different aspects of what I love about my favorite live albums. This time, we’re looking at a track by Joe Walsh from his 1976 live album, “You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind”. This is a song called “Meadows”.
Joseph Fiddler was born in Kansas in 1947, but he was an army brat and moved around a lot. His father was killed in a plane crash in Okinawa, Japan, when Joe was only a year and a half old. His mother would later remarry when Joe was five, and he took his stepfather’s surname, Walsh.
Like many kids, he was insecure. Never felt like he fit in. But he had a talent for music. His mom was a classical piano player. Maybe he inherited that from her. He got a guitar when he was about ten years old, but it was hearing The Beatles for the first time that really kicked him into gear.
He went to college at Kent State in Ohio and gigged around regularly with a band called The Measles, and eventually hooked up with the James Gang out of Cleveland and became their guitar player. The James Gang was originally a five-piece. But when their keyboard player and lead singer quit right before a gig in Detroit, Joe stepped up and became their lead vocalist as well.
The James Gang built a following, got a recording contract and released three albums between 1969 and 1971, and they had a pretty big hit with the song “Funk #49”.
But Joe was restless with the limitations of that band, and quit the James Gang in ’71. He put together a band called Barnstorm and recorded a couple albums with them, which were really marketed as solo albums. The second album featured “Rocky Mountain Way”, which of course became a big hit.
It was around this time that Joe had met Irving Azoff, who became his manager. Azoff was also managing a little band called The Eagles.
In April of 1974, his wife was driving his daughter to school when someone ran a red light and crashed into them. His wife was knocked unconscious, but his four-year-old daughter suffered major head trauma and didn’t survive. As you can imagine, it was heartbreaking and pushed Joe further into alcohol and cocaine abuse.
At the end of 1974, he released his next album titled “So What”. A number of The Eagles appeared on various tracks on that album, and within a year or so, Joe would become a permanent member of The Eagles.
But in November 1975, before he officially joined The Eagles, Joe was invited to appear on “Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert”, one of the all-time great rock music TV shows. So many great performances on that show, and they’re worth watching just for Don Kirschner’s awkwardly stiff introductions. Classic.
Anyway, Joe put together an all-star band and filmed a live show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on November 26, 1975. It was broadcast on Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and billed as “Joe Walsh And Friends”. I don’t believe the video of that show was ever officially released; you can find it on YouTube, but the quality is pretty rough. But some of those tracks were released as a live album in March 1976. It was called “You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind”.
This was the height of live album mania, of course. “Frampton Comes Alive” came out that same year, but this album was a relatively concise single LP. It doesn’t feature everything from the Don Kirchner footage, but it’s really well recorded and well performed. And it’s one of those live albums where I prefer most of these versions over the original studio versions.
This episode we’re listening to the song “Meadows”, which is the second track on this live album. First, let’s have a quick listen to the original studio version, which was released on Joe’s second solo album called “The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get” in 1973.
The live version is a few beats-per-minute faster, as is often the case, but I think the riff and the groove of this song really benefit from being faster. It just feels, well, livelier. And the performance is just great. I mean, look at the lineup of this band:
Of course, you’ve got Joe Walsh on guitars and vocals; Don Felder of The Eagles, also on guitar; Jay Ferguson on keyboards– e was in Jo Jo Gunne and Spirit. We covered one of his Spirit songs in a previous episode. He also had a big solo hit in the seventies called “Thunder Island”.
You also have David Mason on keyboards. This isn’t the Dave Mason who played in Traffic. This is a different David Mason who spent some time playing in Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. You have the great Willie Weeks on bass; he was one of those go-to players. He was on records by David Bowie, George Harrison, Donnie Hathaway, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder. He just played on tons of albums.
And then there are two drummers on this song, both playing together. Andy Newmark and Joe Vitale. Again, both highly regarded session players. Each of them has a credit list a mile long.
Plus you have a percussionist, Rocky Dzidzornu, also known as Rocky Dejon. He played on tons of tracks, including “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones. Now that is what you call an all-star lineup.
Now, let’s get into the track. It begins with Joe Walsh playing the riff before the whole band joins in. I gotta say, this is one of my favorite guitar riffs of all time. So let’s just hear those guitars for a second.
Let’s go back and hear the full band version. And remember, besides two guitars and bass, there are two keyboard players, two drummers and a percussionist all playing together. But notice it doesn’t sound cluttered. Nobody’s over playing. They’re very tight. Those are signs that you’re dealing with real professionals here.
The verses are a little mellower. The keyboards come more to the front. Jay Ferguson is playing piano while David Mason is on the organ. And of course, Joe Walsh with the lead vocal.
Let’s try to bring up the piano and the organ so you can hear how they interact.
I wouldn’t describe Joe Walsh as a typical singer. There’s a lot of quirks to his voice, but I’ve always loved it. It’s unmistakably him. I think he sounds great on the next part of this verse, so let’s hear that.
The riff comes back. Listen to that bass part by Willy Weeks.
Here’s the next verse. Some things are left unspoken some things are handed down the circle stands unbroken sending it back around.
Around during the verses, Andy Newmark is playing the traditional drum kit, but Joe Vitale is just adding fills, playing kettle drums with a pair of mallets. Listen for that.
Now at this point, we come to a new section featuring a guitar solo played by Don Felder. This is different than the studio version. There’s no guitar solo here on that version.
Now if you listen closely, you can hear a buzzing sound, probably coming from one of the guitar amplifiers. These days, they’d be able to remove something like that, but I kind of like it when these things are left in. It makes it feel like a genuine live recording, that they’ve captured something real. Let’s bring up Don Felder’s guitar.
Another thing to note about that section is that Joe Vitale switches from playing drums to playing synthesizer. So there’s only one drummer during that section, but there’s actually three keyboard parts.
At this point, the song builds back into the final verse, but there’s still plenty more of the song left to go.
We’re back to two drummers playing here. And this drum fill coming up is one of the few times where it’s very clear there are two drummers on this song.
Some more tasty playing by Willy Weeks on bass and a nice little Joe Walsh guitar lick here.
Now this is interesting: this is where the song seems like it should end. But they add a whole new section– and this is not part of the original studio version. Jay Ferguson is going to play a little bit on piano and then we’re going to get some extended guitar playing from Joe Walsh and Don Felder. That’s Joe Walsh on the right and Don Felder on the left. This is the kind of dueling guitars that these two would perfect on Hotel California, but they did it here first.
And here’s another new piece of music. Again, this is not part of the original studio recording, either. Jay Ferguson is once again going to take the lead on piano and now Joe Walsh is going to take a solo on his own. Let’s bring up Joe’s guitar for a little bit.
Joe Walsh – “Meadows”.
You can find the video of this performance on YouTube. Just search for “Joe Walsh Meadows live” and you’ll find it. It’s worth watching. Joe wears this goofy coon-skin cap through the whole performance. It looks ridiculous, but that’s Joe. It’s such a great performance though.
Of course, The Eagles would go on to massive success before imploding in 1980. Joe continued making solo records, but he descended deeper into alcoholism and drug dependency. When The Eagles started talking about reforming in 1992, they told Joe straight up they couldn’t do it unless he cleaned himself up. And he did. He got sober, and against all odds, Joe Walsh is still with us today– looking, playing and sounding great.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. We’ll be back in two weeks with another new episode. If you missed any of our previous shows, you’ll find them all on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or look for them in your favorite podcast app.
Be sure to share your thoughts on this song, or any of the other songs we’ve talked about, on our Facebook page; just search for “I’m In Love With That Song” on Facebook and you’ll find us. And of course, you can always send an email to lovethatsongpodcastmail.com.
And if you’re hankering for even more music related podcasts, well, the Pantheon Podcast Network has a bunch of other great music related shows, just waiting for you to discover them. So check them out.
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I’ll see you again soon. Thanks for listening to this edition of “I’m In Love With That Song” featuring “Meadows” by Joe Walsh.
RESOURCES:
Joe Walsh
https://www.joewalsh.com/
The James Gang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gang
Kent State University
https://www.kent.edu/
Jo Jo Gunne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Jo_Gunne
Spirit (Band)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(band)
Todd Rundgren’s Utopia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(American_band)
Willie Weeks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Weeks
The Eagles
https://eagles.com/
Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Kirshner%27s_Rock_Concert
The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get (Album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smoker_You_Drink,_the_Player_You_Get
Hotel California (Song)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California_(Eagles_song)