Rides Again

People tend to think of James Gang (no “the”) as Joe Walsh’s band, but drummer Jim Fox founded the band before Walsh joined. The group’s second record, with Walsh on guitar and vocals and Dale Peters on bass, is its best-known and most popular release. The opening “Funk #49” is propelled by one of the greatest riffs of the classic rock era, and songs like “Asshtonpark,” “Woman,” and “The Bomber” (a seven-minute medley/jam that interpolates Ravel’s “Boléro” and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate To The Wind”) are similarly potent. Walsh, who wrote or co-wrote the album’s original songs, had a real gift for marrying a crunching blues-rock guitar sound to Fox’s pounding rhythm, with Peters gluing it all together. Producer Bill Szymczyk keeps things fairly simple, throwing in the occasional panning effect (it was 1969, after all) but otherwise offering crisp, clear documentation of the music in all its power.