Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than forty years, he has been a member of five successful rock bands: James Gang, Barnstorm, Eagles, the Party Boys, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. In the 1990s, he was also a member of the short-lived supergroup the Best. Walsh has also experienced success both as a solo artist and prolific session musician, being featured on a wide array of other artists' recordings.
Joseph Fidler Walsh was born on November 20, 1947 in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Robert Newton Fidler and grandson of Alden Anderson Fidler and Dora Jay Newton. Walsh's mother was a classically trained pianist of Scottish and German ancestry, and Walsh was adopted by his stepfather at the age of five after his biological father was killed in a plane crash. In the 1950s, it was common practice for Social Security, school registration, and health records for children to take the name of their stepfather, but Walsh's birth father's last name was Fidler, so he took that as his middle name.  Walsh and his family lived in Columbus, Ohio, for a number of years during his youth. When Walsh was twelve years old, his family moved to New York City. Later, Walsh moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and he attended Montclair High School, where he played oboe in the school band.  Inspired by the success of the Beatles, he replaced Bruce Hoffman as the bass player in the locally popular group the Nomads in Montclair, beginning his career as a rock musician. After high school, Walsh attended Kent State University, where he spent time in various bands playing around the Cleveland area, including the Measles. The Measles recorded for Super K Productions' Ohio Express the songs "I Find I Think of You", "And It's True", and "Maybe" (an instrumental version of "And It's True"). Walsh majored in English and minored in music; he was present during the Kent State massacre in 1970. Walsh commented in 2012: "Being at the shootings really affected me profoundly. I decided that maybe I don't need a degree that bad." After one term, he dropped out of university to pursue his musical career. CANNOTANSWER
Early life and education
Walsh is active in charity work and has performed in a number of concerts to raise money for charitable causes. He has also been a personal contributor to a number of charity causes including halfway houses for displaced adult women in Wichita, Kansas. Walsh funded the first talent-based scholarship at Kent State University in 2008.  Walsh's love of Santa Cruz Island grew into a lifelong commitment to conserve the environment there, and he has been active in preserving the island's parks. He is President of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, and has served on the Foundation's board since the 1980s.  Walsh had often joked about running for office, announcing a mock presidential campaign in 1980 and a vice presidential campaign in 1992. Walsh ran for President of the United States in 1980, promising to make "Life's Been Good" the new national anthem if he won, and ran on a platform of "Free Gas For Everyone". Though Walsh was only 32 at the time of the election and thus would not have met the 35-year-old requirement to actually assume office, he said that he wanted to raise public awareness of the election. In 1992 Walsh ran for vice president with Rev. Goat Carson under the slogan "We Want Our Money Back!"  In an interview to promote his album Analog Man in 2012, Walsh revealed he was considering a serious bid for political office. "I think I would run seriously, and I think I would run for Congress," Walsh told WASH in Washington, D.C. "The root of the problem is that Congress is so dysfunctional. We're dead in the water until Congress gets to work and passes some new legislation to change things."  In 2017, Walsh contacted others in the music industry Zac Brown Band, Gary Clark Jr., Keith Urban to try to organize and perform what became VetsAid  - a concert series along the lines of the Farm Aid program spearheaded by country entertainer Willie Nelson. CANNOTANSWER
Public service