The Total Plan (Weber Works, 2014)
Accomplished guitarist Marty Walsh has released a solo instrumental album titled The Total Plan where he showcases his talent as a musician and composer, delivering a fabulous mix of rock, funk, blues, fusion and jazz.
The band on the album includes Billy Sherwood (Yes and Circa), John “JR” Robinson (Rufus, Eric Clapton, Mike Oldfield/Steve Winwood) and numerous talented Los Angeles studio musicians.
“Everyone on the album are musicians that I have close personal and working relationships with,” reveals Marty. “Billy and I did an album that was released in 1996 under the band name The Key. People like John Robinson, Abe Laboriel, Michael Ruff and everyone else on the album I have worked with for years. When I came up with this idea I asked all of these wonderful musicians if they would play on one track for me. Graciously they all accepted.”
“Being an instrumental album it is simply about the music. There are a few things conceptually that I was trying to achieve with this recording though. The first being the fact that I wanted to make an album of music that I felt would appeal to the masses. The album is not a Jazz album necessarily; it’s really more of a pop record.
While there are improvised solos, the focus of the record is much more about the melodies and arrangements of the songs, which hopefully are memorable. The second thing that I wanted to achieve was making a record with many of the people that I’ve worked with over the years. I literally enlisted musicians for this project that I had worked with closely going way back to when I first started touring and doing recording sessions, and then also tapped into some of the faculty and also young musicians that I have worked closely with at the Berklee college of music.
There are ten songs on the album and each song has different groupings of personnel. I also feel that stylistically the album is quite diverse, which actually came about from tapping into all of these various musicians who brought their own identity to the project.”
Marty Walsh is an assistant professor in the Ensemble and Music Production departments at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. A veteran of the Los Angeles studio music scene, he has performed as a guitarist with some of the biggest names in the pop music business.
In the early 1980s, Marty’s guitar appeared on the hits “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton, “She Works Hard For The Money” by Donna Summer, and “Heartlight” by Neil Diamond. He also recorded with John Denver, Eddie Money, Kenny Rogers, Sheena Easton, and Julio Iglesias.
Continuing to do recording sessions into the 1990s, Marty was also part of the live band on the popular Nickelodeon Television show ‘Roundhouse.’
In the late 1990s, Marty played guitar on numerous Curb Records albums, including three of Leann Rimes’ albums, ‘Sittin On Top Of The World‘, ‘Leann Rimes‘ and ‘I Need You‘.
These days he can be heard on the Freddie Jackson single “Until The End Of Time.”
“While I am primarily a guitarist, and my guitar playing is the focus of the record, I don’t feel like my approach to the instrument is like a lot of other guitarists,” adds Marty. “As a young musician growing up, of course I was influenced by people like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, but then growing up in Los Angeles, guys like Larry Carlton, Jay Graydon, and all of the other LA studio guitar players that I had so much respect for certainly were extremely influential in my development. But even more influential than all of the great guitar players are a host of other musicians.
I have always had the tendency not to focus on guitar players and their approach to the instrument. Music that has influenced me over the years has tended to be from piano players, songwriters, people that compose memorable music and also many of the great producer/arrangers that I have worked with. Guys like Michael Omartian, the late Michel Columbier, and the late Tom Dowd. I had the good fortune to actually work with these people closely in the recording environment and learned so much about composing and arranging. That’s the kind of thing that I feel is really so important in moving people emotionally with music. Hopefully that’s what this album will do, move people emotionally.”