Life’s been good to rock guitarist Joe Walsh

Now, to help military veterans, he’s putting hundreds of his belongings on auction.

- MIKAEL WOOD

AMONG THE 800 items owned by Joe Walsh to be auctioned at the Troubadour are 400-plus guitars, recording gear and garments that he performed onstage in.

(IAN SPANIER For The Times)

Joe Walsh is onstage at the Troubadour on a recent afternoon performing his song “Lucky That Way” for an audience of about 50 people.

His guitar playing is bluesy and cool, his voice a lovable honk. But this isn't a gig by the 78-year-old rock star, at least not exactly: His instrument glinting under the stage lights, Walsh is showing a crowd of reporters one of the more than 400 guitars he plans to part with in a selloff organized by Julien’s Auctions.

Set for Tuesday and Wednesday at the Troubadour, the event will feature nearly 800 lots in all, including cars, recording gear, ham radio equipment and quite a few garments — not least a redbrick-pattern Moschino suit — worn by Walsh over his years as a solo act and as a member of the Eagles, the James Gang, Barnstorm and the All-Starr Band fronted by his famous brother-in-law, Ringo Starr.

So who does Walsh owe money? “No, no—I’m not in debt,” he tells me with a laugh in the Troubadour’s upstairs bar. “I just want all of these things to have a good home instead of lying in a dusty storage room because I do not use them anymore.” A portion of the auction’s proceeds will go to Walsh’s VetsAid organization, which provides assistance to veterans of the armed forces and their families.

“Veterans don't get enough care, and that really bothers me,” says Walsh, whose flight instructor father was killed while stationed with the Air Force in Japan when Walsh was just 20 months old. “To see a whole street of homeless vets — it’s like, why?”

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