Joe Walsh & Friends a Weird Pairing for CMT Crossroads

by Julian Spivey
CMT’s “Crossroads” is one of the few series remaining on the network that actually still revolves around music. In the past the series has featured some great pairings like Brooks & Dunn with ZZ Top and Kenny Chesney with John Mellencamp, but it’s also featured some head scratchers like Sara Evans with Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift with Def Leppard.
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The newest episode of “Crossroads” is billed as “Joe Walsh & Friends” featuring the James Gang and Eagles rocker and guitar virtuoso with a group of country music’s hottest names and faces, as well as ZZ Top member and fellow guitar God Billy Gibbons. The country stars included on the show were Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Hunter Hayes, Luke Bryan and Sara Evans.

I don’t mean this as a slight to Joe Walsh, because who doesn’t like Joe Walsh?, but I felt that Walsh was a weird musician to pair with this many different artists. However, none of the performances were bad. It’s just that none of the performances really popped either.

The best performance of the show was the finale in which Walsh and Gibbons, the only two rockers on the show, combined to perform the rip-roaring Eagles classic “Life in the Fastlane.”

Other performances included Walsh and Paisley, country music’s best guitar player, matching licks on Walsh’s solo classic “Rocky Mountain Way”, Walsh and country superstar Chesney collaborating on “Lucky That Way”, Walsh and young country phenom Hunter Hayes performing the Eagles hit “In the City”, Evans and Walsh crooning another Eagles hit “Best of My Love” and Bryan and Walsh teaming up for maybe Walsh’s biggest hit “Life’s Been Good.”

The only real disappointment of this “Crossroads” episode, other than some of the lackadaisical team ups, was that none of the artists teamed up with Walsh on any old James Gang classics like “Walk Away” or “Funk #49.”