Before his upcoming performance at the VetsAid Benefit Concert on November 12, Joe Walsh joined an interview with The SoCal Sound and shared the name he always wanted to play with but never got the chance to do so:
“Well, I’ll tell you the one that got away. I want to say John Lennon. But the one that got away that I really wanted to play with was Ray Charles. I really wanted to play guitar for Ray.”
Explaining what made him love Charles so much, he went on:
“I mean, he’s – I can’t describe it. American treasure. He was so great. And his life, if you read his book, his life and all of the different chapters in it, and he was just so funky. He was just as pure spiritually R&B as you can get. And I really wanted to play guitar for him, but I didn’t make it.”
Though he didn’t get to collaborate with the late singer, The Eagles’ guitarist worked with many musicians, like Ringo Starr, throughout his decades-long career. In addition to these musical projects, he occasionally created guitar tutorial videos, teaching some techniques such as slide guitar to beginners.
During the recent chat, a listener of The SoCal Sound touched on those videos by asking Walsh how he learned to play slide guitar, which he answered:
“Well, I guess who taught me to play guitar was all the guys that went before me. [I’m] self-taught, but I mean, I steal licks from everybody. Duane Allman – James Gang was playing with the Allman Brothers, and I humbly went up to Duane and asked him how to play slide guitar.”
Revealing what he learned from Duane Allman, he added:
“He showed me the tuning, and he gave me a slide, which is, of course, even bottle. Old medicine. He threw the medicine away, but it was the perfect size for your finger. So, Duane Allman showed me how to play slide.”
You can watch Joe Walsh’s full interview in the video below.