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Look What I Did!: The Joe Walsh Anthology

Joe Walsh - Look What I Did!: The Joe Walsh Anthology Audio CD

A fair review of the Joe Walsh "Look What I Did!: The Joe Walsh Anthology" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Joe Walsh reviews here, or go back to the Joe Walsh tabs.

Band: Joe Walsh
Title: Look What I Did!: The Joe Walsh Anthology
Rating:

Release Date: 1995-05-23
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Tuning, Pt. 1 2: Take a Look Around 3: Funk #48 4: Bomber 5: Tend My Garden 6: Funk #49 7: Ashes, the Rain & I 8: Walk Away 9: It's All the Same 10: Midnight Man 11: Here We Go 12: Midnight Visitor 13: Mother Says 14: Turn to Stone 15: Comin' Down 16: Meadows 17: Rocky Mountain Way 18: Welcome to the Club 19: All Night Laundry Mat Blues 20: County Fair 21: Help Me Thru the Night 22: Life's Been Good 23: Over and Over 24: All Night Long 25: Life of Illusion 26: Theme from Island Weirdos 27: I Can Play That Rock & Roll 28: I.L.B.T.s 29: Space Age Whiz Kids 30: Rosewood Bitters 31: Shut Up 32: Decades 33: Song for a Dying Planet 34: Ordinary Average Guy [Live][#]

Look What I Did
If you want alot of good music in one package, it's well worth the money. Although it doesn't have every Joe Walsh song on it that I would like, it's a pretty complete collection of Joe's work. .

Joe Walsh - A Nice Collection With A Few Blatent Omissions
Included are tracks from The James Gang, Barnstorm, and Walsh's solo career. This is a two disc anthology that covers Walsh's entire career up through the early 90's. For the most part it is a very nice collection. All of Joe's best known songs are here along with a healthy selection of album tracks. There are a few clunkers here and there and a few like "Space Age Wiz Kids" that sound extremely dated, but these are the minority. There are also a few omissions that seem inexcusable to me, most notably the absence of "The Confessor" which IMO is one of Joe's best compositions. Also missing are any tracks from the "Got Any Gum" album and surprisingly nothing from "Ordinary Average Guy" (the title track is included as a live cut). That being said, if you are looking for a good overview of Walsh's stuff or just exploring him this is a great place to start. .

Joe Deserves a Box Set
My only real beef is this seems to be geared to the casual fan. I love Joe Walsh and the music on these disks is great. The only rarities are The Bomber, with his nod to Bolero, edited out on most collections, and a live take of Ordinary Average Guy with Glenn Frey. Who needs Glenn Frey? Give us some previously unreleased material. I hope there is some in the vaults and that one day Joe will get an extensive anthology.

Walsh is underrated, and this is a real fine compilation; if disappointing in a few places
This is Joe Walsh. Alright. Most Rock fanatics will know him for his work with The Eagles; particularly on the Hotel California album. Most people who know Classic Rock will know him through his Rocky Mountain Way/Life's Been Good one, two punch combo, and perhaps Funk #49 and Walk Away from his early days with a Cleveland-based band called "The James Gang".

However, this guy has done so much more that could easily eclipse his known material, as well as other stuff done by those who set the standard. This is an obvious summary of his time.

Album #1- Yer' Album (Released by The James Gang); "Introduction" (Known as "Tuning Part 1" on here), "Take A Look Around", and "Funk #48" are included from this album. This compilation starts off on a rather odd note, since the guitar parts on "Tuning" are done by Jim Fox (James Gang drummer/founder) leaving Joe nowhere to be found! What's up with that? That track leads into "Take A Look Around"; a real good halfway-psychedelic tune, with a guitar solo that introduces Joe to us in a fantastic fashion. "Funk #48" is a fun, short tune that was really the band's song reserved for demos and sound checks. It's also fairly reminiscent of it's younger, more popular brother "Funk #49". Yer' Album is considerably obscure to the other James Gang albums, because this one didn't contain any big hits like Rides Again and Thirds did, but this compilation really needed the "Collage" track on here, since the liner notes mention it numerous times. Also, "Stone Rap" featured an incredible exchange of dialogue from the band, which would've been a novel substitute for the Walshless "Tuning". But what they put on here is acceptable.

Album #2- Rides Again (James Gang release; "Funk #49", "The Bomber Medley (Full Version)", "Tend My Garden", and "Ashes, The Rain & I" are included from this album. Hell, throw all the tracks from that album onto here; they're all great, but the sampling we have here is the best representation that you're going to get. Everyone should know "Funk #49". It's one of the tracks that immortalizes Joe, and one that floors Grand Funk Railroad in their own stamping grounds. The Bomber is a magnificent Guitar-heavy number that is very reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. It has to be heard to be believed; it's one of those tracks that makes Joe so underrated. Tend My Garden is a very respectable ballad, with some decent organ playing for good measure. Ashes, The Rain & I is one of the many folk/orchestral numbers that this band would end up doing during Joe's tenure. It's an OK track, but the James Gang Greatest Hits CD offers a better version of it. Great representation.

Album #3- Thirds (James Gang release); "Walk Away", "It's All The Same", and "Midnight Man" are included. This album is looked upon as the weaker of the Joe-era James Gang albums, since the other members of the band contributed their own material for the album, leaving Joe to only write half of the material for the album. Walk Away is a given, of course. Midnight Man is a fantastic composition, with the Neil Young kind of guitar dynamic that hits a home run on this track. It's All The Same is a very questionable track. Walk Away and Midnight Man are pretty much the best you're going to get from this album, but if we were going to have a third track from Thirds (clever, huh?), I would've rather had "Again". They covered the mandatory bases, here, though.

Album #4- Barnstorm (Joe Walsh w/ Barnstorm); "Here We Go", "Midnight Visitor", "Mother Says", "Turn To Stone", and "Comin' Down" are included. This album, at first, looks like it's overemphasized, but it's understandable, since MCA never chose to remaster this album. Here We Go struck me as a pretty listless track, upon listening, but others favor the track. Midnight Visitor is an OK-ish Tolkien Folk ballad. Mother Says is a song that, I'd say, is among of Joe's most underrated songs; very psychedelic, and catchy. Turn To Stone is also included from this album, which is great, since it is far superior to the "So What" album version. You gotta listen to the guitar on this one. Comin' Down is a very random pick for this compilation, but I guess Joe thought that this Anthology could've used it. It's not bad.

Album #5- The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (Joe Walsh w/ Barnstorm); "Meadows" and "Rocky Mountain Way" are included. Both these tracks are academic, and they close the first disc out, but why only stop there??? No "Book Ends"? No "Dreams"?! Disappointing for sure, considering that this was Joe's breakthrough album. On a side note, Rocky Mountain Way ends with one of Joe's little hidden excerpts, for those keeping score. . .

Album #6- So What; "Welcome To The Club", "All-Nite Laundromat Blues", "County Fair", and "Help Me Thru The Night' are included. Welcome To The Club is kinda reminiscent to "A Life Of Illusion". Laundromat Blues is an amusing "working man" kind of ditty. "County Fair" I have mixed feelings over. Joe's guitar playing is amazing on this track, but the song is also kind of boring, and un-motivated at the same time. Help Me Thru The Night makes up for things, however, with Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Randy Meisner supplying some background vocals for good measure. "Time Out" could've been on here, but they still got good emphasis with this album. .

Album #7- But Seriously Folks; "Life's Been Good", and "Over And Over" are included. Life's Been Good is Joe's biggest track (and with good reason). Over And Over is one of the minor tracks from this album, but "At The Station" is a much more popular track, so it had to be on here. Oh, well.

Album #8- There Goes The Neighborhood; "A Life Of Illusion" is included. They got the big hit off the album; which is a really well-written song, even if it's really a rehash off of a Barnstorm song that never made it onto an album.

Album #9- You Bought It, You Name It; "Theme From Island Weirdos", "I Can Play That Rock & Roll", ""I. L. B. Ts", and "Space Age Whiz Kids" are included. Over-emphasizing comes in a very bad way, here. It would've been perfectly acceptable if just I. L. B. Ts was included, but they got some of the most mediocre stuff that Joe was making at the time on here. Theme From Island Weirdos is the very tired intro to I Can Play That Rock & Roll; a monotonic Guitar Rock song that Joe stated as being a tribute to the Rolling Stones. I found I. L. B. Ts to be mildly humorous, so that's a song that's worth listening. Space Age Whiz Kids, to put it mildly, is a Pop/Techno nightmare. If it weren't for the Talkbox in the beginning, I would not have distinguished it as a Joe song. Yuck! Bad selections there.

Album #10- The Confessor; "Rosewood Bitters" is included. The Confessor included more weird tracks and more pop, but this time around, Joe decided to throw some big Rock numbers onto the album. Rosewood Bitters is the decent minor track off the album, but that's all they include from the album here. That's right, they ridiculously shafted the title track, which featured some gunshot-like drumming from Joe Vitale, and Joe himself at his very loudest. Terrible. His later Single Disc compilation "Joe Walsh Greatest Hits: Little Did He Know" (which was recently repackaged as "The Definitive Collection") would rectify this, however.

Album #11- Got Any Gum; No tracks included. This album was another one with Pop dreck, and bad comedy, but thankfully they decided to nix putting any tracks off this album onto the compilation.

Album #12- Ordinary Average Guy; No tracks included. This album saw Joe pick up some momentum with the title track, but the studio version of the title track is foregone in favor of the live version.

Album #13- Songs For A Dying Planet; "Shut Up", "Decades", and "Song For A Dying Planet" are included. This album kinda followed within the vein of "You Bought It, You Name It", so do the math. Shut Up is a more bitter passage of Life's Been Good, and the song is also reminiscent of Weird Al. Decades is a long 12+ minute jam, which Joe proclaims as some of the finest he's written, but I'll let you decide on that. Song For A Dying Planet ends things on a mellow note.

Album #14- Soundtracks/Unreleased Material; "All Night Long" and "Ordinary Average Guy (Live)" are included. All Night Long is a given. It's a very fun tune; among Joe's most popular. And we get a live version of Ordinary Average Guy with Glenn Frey, for the Eagles/Walsh fan. But why only go there? They could've brought Joe's solo version of his big Eagles hit "In The City" off of The Warriors soundtrack, or "Waffle Stomp" from the Fast Times At Ridgemont High Soundtrack, but I can't complain with what we got.

Overall, despite some disappointments found in the 2nd Disc, the compilation is very well done. The Liner Notes offer some interesting insight, and you'll get a solid glimpse of Joe. High recommendation.

Life's Been Good
Walsh's finest and well worth the price. A re-mastered gathering of classic rock masterpieces and obscure rockers. Don't look for Eagles stuff because you won't find any. The long and complete version of "The Bomber" epitomizes his skills of brilliance. This is a must have for any serious classic rock music fan. .

You can see a complete list of all Joe Walsh discography, or go back to the Joe Walsh tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.