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Rocky Mountain Way
"Rocky Mountain Way" is a 1973 song by American rock guitarist Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm, with writing credits given to all four band members: Walsh, Rocke Grace, Kenny Passarelli, and Joe Vitale. The song was originally released on Walsh's second solo studio album The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get.
Walsh appeared in studio on The Howard Stern Show on June 12, 2012, and talked about how the lyrics to the song came to him in 1972 shortly after releasing his debut solo studio album, Barnstorm.
"I'm living in Colorado and I'm mowing the lawn. I look up and there's the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and there's snow on them in the summer. And it knocked me back because it was just beautiful. And I thought, 'Well I have committed. I'm already in Colorado and it's too late to regret the James Gang. The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way I had, because the music was better.' I got the words. Bam!"
Walsh has varied that story over the years, however, telling the Rocky Mountain News that he wrote the lyrics while recording the album at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio. The song features Walsh using a guitar talk box manufactured by audio and radio engineer Bob Heil, inventor of the Heil high-powered talk box. The distinct tone "... gives Walsh's blues stomp a futuristic wave, as if a hulking mechanical beast was looming just over those rocky mountains."
The song was used as the title to Walsh's 1985 compilation album, which featured previously released singles and tracks from his albums Barnstorm (1972), The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get (1973) and So What (1974).
In Jake Brown's book Behind the Boards II (2014), record producer Bill Szymczyk writes about how Walsh first came up with an instrumental "blues-shuffle" recorded at the Criteria studio, then stripped down to drums alone at the Caribou studio and rebuilt from there, adding lyrics to make the final version. Walsh is described as having layered about "six or seven" guitars on the recording, playing through a small amp with one Shure SM57 microphone aimed at it. Szymczyk says the thick guitar sound is from Walsh himself, not from studio trickery. Walsh's distinctive nasal voice was noticeably saturated in the recording with double tracking and a talk box was used to alter the guitar solo.
In 1976, Walsh recorded the song on his You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind solo album.
Walsh played the song frequently while on tour with the Eagles, including the 1977 Hotel California Tour, again in 1979 and later into the first half of 1980's Long Run tour, also being added yet again to the set in the 1994 reunion tour with Eagles.
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Rocky Mountain Way
"Rocky Mountain Way" is a 1973 song by American rock guitarist Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm, with writing credits given to all four band members: Walsh, Rocke Grace, Kenny Passarelli, and Joe Vitale. The song was originally released on Walsh's second solo studio album The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get.
Walsh appeared in studio on The Howard Stern Show on June 12, 2012, and talked about how the lyrics to the song came to him in 1972 shortly after releasing his debut solo studio album, Barnstorm.
"I'm living in Colorado and I'm mowing the lawn. I look up and there's the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and there's snow on them in the summer. And it knocked me back because it was just beautiful. And I thought, 'Well I have committed. I'm already in Colorado and it's too late to regret the James Gang. The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way I had, because the music was better.' I got the words. Bam!"
Walsh has varied that story over the years, however, telling the Rocky Mountain News that he wrote the lyrics while recording the album at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio. The song features Walsh using a guitar talk box manufactured by audio and radio engineer Bob Heil, inventor of the Heil high-powered talk box. The distinct tone "... gives Walsh's blues stomp a futuristic wave, as if a hulking mechanical beast was looming just over those rocky mountains."
The song was used as the title to Walsh's 1985 compilation album, which featured previously released singles and tracks from his albums Barnstorm (1972), The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get (1973) and So What (1974).
In Jake Brown's book Behind the Boards II (2014), record producer Bill Szymczyk writes about how Walsh first came up with an instrumental "blues-shuffle" recorded at the Criteria studio, then stripped down to drums alone at the Caribou studio and rebuilt from there, adding lyrics to make the final version. Walsh is described as having layered about "six or seven" guitars on the recording, playing through a small amp with one Shure SM57 microphone aimed at it. Szymczyk says the thick guitar sound is from Walsh himself, not from studio trickery. Walsh's distinctive nasal voice was noticeably saturated in the recording with double tracking and a talk box was used to alter the guitar solo.
In 1976, Walsh recorded the song on his You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind solo album.
Walsh played the song frequently while on tour with the Eagles, including the 1977 Hotel California Tour, again in 1979 and later into the first half of 1980's Long Run tour, also being added yet again to the set in the 1994 reunion tour with Eagles.