Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh will be in Schaumburg Sunday to play his smallest venue since he was getting The James Gang off the ground in the early 1970s: a fundraiser for congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth at John Barleycorn.
Duckworth, of course, is running against Rep. Joe Walsh, Tea Party-Ill. That coincidence inspired Duckworth’s campaign to ask Rock Star Joe Walsh for help. On Wednesday’s Roe and Roeper, the rock and roller and the politician explained why they’re working together.
“If your name were Joe Welsh, as opposed to Walsh, and you were famous as Joe Welsh from The Eagles, would you have come out?” host Roe Conn asked rock star Joe Walsh. “Would they have asked you? Did you ask them? How did this happen?”
“Regardless of who Tammy’s running against, I would be supporting her. My son is a Harvard graduate who pays attention to national politics, and he brought to my attention, ‘Hey, somebody’s running against the other Joe Walsh. He said, ‘You should check her out.’ And I did, and I’m very, very impressed with Tammy. She’s nothing but integrity and untapped ability.”
"How much of the Joe Walsh confusion has there been in your life?” Conn asked.
“I get some Twitters. People are mad at him and I get it. I get blasted.”
"Have you been in politics before?”
"Not on this level,” Walsh said. “I helped Alan Cranston a long time ago, who was a California senator. But I’ve never really jumped in her and signed on to the point where I’m backing Tammy.”
At this point, Duckworth called in on the Celebrity Hotline.
“Who contacted whom?” Roe Conn asked. “Did Joe contact Tammy or did Tammy contact Joe?”
“We reached out to Joe’s son, and said, ‘Do you think a rock legend would take a look at the campaign?’” Duckworth said. “The immediate response was, ‘He’s from the Midwest, he’s from Evanston, and we’ll get back to you.’ Within two days, we got the call back. He said he stands up for everything we’re standing for with people in the district.”
Duckworth then said she’ll be breaking her old “Confessor” t-shirt, a reference to a Joe Walsh solo album most Eagles fans probably haven’t heard.
“Tammy, what was your top band in the 1980s?” Conn said. “Don’t say The Eagles, because Joe Walsh is on the phone.”
“I gotta tell you, it’s probably between The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.”
Duckworth is very lucky she’s not running against a woman named Marilyn Manson. How many votes would that fundraiser lose?
