![]() ![]() Since Ritch was the photographer I knew he would have the story. Very recently Ritch allowed me to scan the photos and do some research on them. This was not someone's Dad saying he had seen them there one night - these were actual photographs of them performing there. It was the only time I had seen photographic proof of The James Gang playing at JB's. For a couple years I couldn't get these pics out of my mind. ![]() I even remembered that I had seen a January of 1969 date stamp on the photos. 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. When I first saw these photos they went by really fast. 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. Joe Walsh at JB's in Kent, Ohio during a James Gang Even as recently as just a couple weeks ago he pulled off getting these rare gems. 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. 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. What prompted the piece was stumbling upon some photos of that band in the vast personal archives of Ritch Underwood. Some time back I wrote an extensive piece about Joe's first band the Measles. And number 3 - how important was Kent to The James Gang and to Joe Walsh's career? 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. The first James Gang LP cover with the photos taken in downtown Kent. There were a few parts of this story I was interested in. 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. 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. Someone who legitimately had a whole slew of experiences with him in 1966 was by 1968 completely off his radar. 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. 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? But in between those years I've always been trying to figure out what happened when and where. ![]() From what I can tell Joe was legitimately a resident of Kent from the fall of 1965 to somewhere in 1970 or 1971. 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. 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. Everyone around here in Kent had a story about him. By the 1980s when I was coming of age the guy existed somewhere between myth and legend. I can't tell you how many times throughout my life that the name Joe Walsh has come up. ![]()
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