[ Joe ] Oh, great. Phil! I call him Philip of Youngstown.
[ WM ] Well, listen, to get started, I was thinking about all the great rock and jazz artists and players over the years that have come from Ohio: yourself, Richie Furay, Joe Walsh, Phil Keaggy, Glenn Schwartz, Benjamin Orr, Rick Derringer, Chrissy Hynde, Art Tatum, Arthur Tripp, Bootsy Collins. And that’ s just the tip of the iceberg. So, what is it about Ohio? Is it the water?
[ Joe ]( laughs) I don’ t know. It seemed to be a classic rock area. People love that music so much and we were all so inspired here. Of course, once we all saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, it seemed like the state of Ohio and all the cities and all that were very, very aware of how much people that lived here loved rock and roll music. And so, I think the reason we grew so many great musicians is because there were tons of places to play. And they recognized the fact that this was going to work out for all these clubs that live music was the thing back then.
And we’ ve lost a few, sadly. But there’ s still a bunch of us, and we’ re still working.
[ WM ] That’ s amazing. And you’ ve worked multiple times with our friend, Phil, including your own solo project, Roller Coaster. How did you meet Phil?
[ Joe ] There was a club in Kent, Ohio, called JB’ s. And JB’ s was the rock club in Kent, Ohio, near Kent State University. And The James Gang played there, Phil Keaggy, The Glass Harp, The Raspberries, everybody that was anybody played at JB’ s. And then my band played there. And so, we heard about this young kid, this 16, 17-year-old kid from Youngstown that was this insane guitar player. And he looked and sang like McCartney, and you started hearing about this one. So, they booked The Glass Harp, and of course, I had to go and check this out as I heard so much about it. And it was amazing. And they were amazing, and we became good friends.
For the next few years, I would go and see them and he’ d come and see us when we played. And then I was off to the road for years, and we kind of lost touch with the closeness that we all had living in that city. But we keep in touch. And then we’ ve had some recording projects. And then when it was time for my record, I had Joe Walsh, Rick Derringer, and Phil Keaggy play on my album, my first album, and I was honored to have them. It was great to see Phil again. And by then he had gotten married to Bernadette, and had moved. But we ended up on a few of the same projects. And then a few years ago, this young lady hired me and a bass player to go down to Nashville to record. She’ s from Ohio and knew Phil. So, she invited Phil to come play with us too. That was really great for me. It was great to see him, and we got to play together and stuff. Now I see he’ s got some new project he’ s doing. He’ s in some new band.
[ WM ] I see Phil at a monthly luncheon for old musicians. It’ s called the CCM Dudes lunch.
I was playing five nights a week! Just clubs in Kent, Ohio. And that’ s why I even got my first tour with Ted Nugent. And the reason was he heard about Kent, Ohio. He was in Detroit, and he heard about this music town and all these players. And of course, he was aware of The James Gang and all that, but he came down to Kent to search out looking for players. He was putting together a new band. And so that’ s how impressive we must have looked to the rest of the country as far as rock and roll music. He came down here, he heard me in a club and liked what he heard, I guess. And he called me, and I was off onto the road with him, which led to my whole life, I guess. But yeah, for some reason, I mean, we had the McCoys. I still talk to Rick Derringer all the time, and Richie, of course. And so many. Eric Carmen. The Raspberries. And The Outsiders. I mean, we had so many artists here, and for a while, Gary Lewis from Gary Lewis and the Playboys, he was living about 40 miles from here.
Joe with Phil Keaggy
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