That’s especially true if you happen to be a guitar player.
So Walsh, who happened to be the owner of not one but two 1959 Gibson Les Pauls, was happy to hand one over to Page. “I found one in the basement of a family-owned music store; I think in Athens, OH, where Ohio University is. It was just in the basement. I just walked in another garage, and it was all boxes – and I said, ‘What do you get downstairs?’ And there was a Les Paul! And I found another one through a friend, I traded him some stuff for one. So, one I really liked and one I just was saving for a rainy day, so I gave Jimmy that one. (Farout)
t would have been enough for Walsh to be the impetus for giving Led Zeppelin what became their signature sound, but Walsh actually did it again for another classic British rock band. It was once again thanks to The James Gang being a reliable opening act, as they were when The Who came to America in 1970. “He really identified with what we were doing,” Walsh told Rolling Stone in 1975. “Pete’s a very melodic player, and so am I. He told me that he appreciated my playing. I was flattered beyond belief because I didn’t think I was that good. Pete and I really hit it off. We had the same frustrations about working with a three-piece group.”
Once again, Walsh bonded with another legendary English guitar player because he was frustrated about getting a fuller sound. Walsh didn’t have any Les Pauls to hand out this time, but he had another solution: a Gretsch 6120 manufactured in the same year as the Les Paul Walsh gave to Page, 1959. “Townshend had finished Tommy and was going through the same changes,” Walsh explained. “We got along so well that I gave him the fat orange Gretsch guitar that he used on Who’s Next and Clapton’s Rainbow Concert.”
Unlike Page, Townshend wasn’t taken with his gift when he first saw it. “I opened the case, and it was bright orange, and I thought, ‘Ugh! It’s horrible, I hate it,'” Townshend recalled in a 1972 interview with Guitar Player. “I went home and went into my studio and plugged it in, and it totally wrecked me out. It’s the best guitar I’ve got now.”
“I used that guitar on every track on Who’s Next. It’s the best guitar I’ve ever had,” Townshend continued. “It’s the finest guitar I’ve ever owned; it’s the loudest guitar I’ve ever owned. It is so loud, man; it whips any pickup that I’ve ever come across. It’s maybe six or seven times louder than anything I’ve come across. If I plugged it in my amp tonight, normally I’d be working on volume six or seven, but I would work this guitar on one.”
Pro tip for anyone who wants a great guitar: be friends with Joe Walsh. Sooner or later, if you complain about wanting a bigger sound, he just might gift you with an unbeatable six string that will give you your signature sound.
