Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr and the Mission to Save 45 Million Addicted Americans

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Men and Women Alike –

MARCH 16, 2019 – After checking into rehab for the final time in 1995, Walsh had to put his guitar down — possibly for good — in order to put his life back together. He didn’t think he’d ever play again. Over the course of 20 years, Walsh got married and eventually found his way back to music with the help of Ringo Starr, his actual brother-in-law and brother in sobriety. In 2012, Walsh released Analog Man, his first solo album as a sober musician. “People tell me I play better now sober than I did before,” he said. “But the only thing that matters to me now is that I can say I haven’t had a drink today.”

Sitting side by side backstage, Starr and Walsh are an odd pair: one a voluble English drummer in violet-tinted spectacles, the other steely, platinum-haired guitar god. Although the Liverpudlian is only nine years older than Walsh, he has a sweet, avuncular way of leaping to answer questions as if moving the target away from his withdrawn brother-in-law. Walsh sits silently, turning the words over in his mind. But like a pitcher with a long windup, when Walsh speaks, it’s with surprising power.