Shindig! #169 – James Gang

Arguably the wildest, hairiest thing on six legs to come out of Ohio, heavy, groovy power trio JAMES GANG blazed through America and Europe for three years, rewriting the hard-rock rulebook, wowing their contemporaries and making a star of frontman Joe Walsh.

MARTIN RUDDOCK takes a look around

Having proved himself, Walsh never quite shook his jitters. Ambivalent about his newfound role of frontman/guitar hero and still in theory a Kent State student, he was unsure about the band’s future as a trio. He almost quit himself to join The Human Beinz that August, rehearsing with them until rogue guitarist Dick Belly returned to the fold.

Fate intervened when hot young producer Bill Szymczyk discovered the Gang at a local show in late 1968. Szymczyk had been working as A&R at ABC-Paramount and signed them to subsidiary Bluesway for a very modest $1700. Arriving at New York’s Hit Factory in January, they blazed through debut Yer’ Album in a few days. An uncertain singer-songwriter, Walsh worked like a madman, contributing a clutch of songs and doubling up on piano and organ. A bit of Dutch courage helped him cut loose on the harder tunes. “I still think if my voice is okay, it’s better on my own stuff. I have to be real drunk in the studio before I can get into the rock thing properly,” Walsh told Sounds.

https://youtu.be/zo0vBdlWQs0?si=hz6A2mBmyxBL0IPU

Yer’ Album remains a thrilling, off the cuff soup of late psych, power trio wildness, wide-eyed canyon-rock, studio chatter and baroque orchestral interludes. ‘Take A Look Around’ is a yearning, organ-led anthem, while the ominous ‘Fred’ speaks darkly of “padded cells” and moves nimbly between acid-rock crunch, prog and a brief jazzy interlude. And then there’s ‘Funk #48’, a catchy, group-penned collection of riffs, daft vocal chants and convulsive drum breaks that would take on a life of its own. There’s a softer side on show too. The stunning ‘Collage’ would get a definitive psych-soul treatment a year later by The Three Degrees on Roulette. The album is filled out by covers from the gang’s repertoire. A tough slow-mo stoner version of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Bluebird’ had Walsh faithfully replicating Stills and Young’s guitar battles on his own, while a breakneck nine-minute assault on The Yardbirds’ ‘Lost Woman’ has Kriss and Fox taking solos of their own between Walsh’s epic metallic Beck-isms. It closes on storming 12-minute hard-funk workout ‘Stop’, written by Szymczyk’s mentor Jerry Ragovoy. Previously a hit for Howard Tate in December ’67 and recently covered instrumentally on Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield’s Super Session, The James Gang were joined by Ragovoy on piano for the occasion. With Szymczyk’s immaculate, hard-hitting production the album roared. “This recording was mixed to be played at the highest possible volume,” the producer wrote in his sleeve note.

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