Since they’re brothers-in-law, it doesn’t take much to find Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh working on each other’s projects.
The two now have a long history of playing together (Walsh was part of the original All-Starr Band in 1989) and it continues on Starr’s new album with Walsh playing on two tracks — including the just-released “We’re On The Road Again,” a rocker that also features Paul McCartney, Edgar Winter and Toto’s Steve Lukather.
Walsh tells us that making music together is natural for the two men at this point:
“He’s my brother-in-law and he wants to involve me in making music, and what am I gonna say? No? I’m really, really, really blessed to…be in this family that I’m in that came along with my wife…and I still get in the studio and I’ll be playing guitar and I’ll look over and go, ‘That’s f***ing Ringo Starr! I don’t believe it!’ It still happens sometimes.”
In addition to “We’re On The Road Again” Walsh also plays on the track “Electricity” from Starr’s Give Me Love, which comes out September 15. Other guests on the album include Peter Frampton, the Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmit, Richard Page, Benmont Tench from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, Richard Marx, Don Was and others.
Starr will be taking the current All-Starr Band back on the road this fall, while Walsh has a pair of shows with the Eagles as well as a three-night run in Las Vegas and his VetsAid benefit concert on September 20 in Fairfax, Va.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
