Meet the Northeast ‘Gypsy boy’ who became a rock star

At long last, the saga of one of Northeast’s unsung musical heroes is being sung.

James Walsh dropped out of Edison High School some 60 years ago in the wake of Beatlemania. Teaming up with other Northeast and North Side kids, he became the singer and keyboard player in a series of popular local bands including the Coronados, the Hot Half Dozen and the Underbeats.

But it was with Gypsy (as the Underbeats rechristened themselves) that the erstwhile rock star made his mark — a story shared in the new book “Working Musician: The Story of James Walsh and Gypsy.”

Conceived as a supergroup combining some of the best singers in the Twin Cities, Gypsy was “Minnesota’s premier rock and roll band,” said Al Zdon, who co-authored the book with the late singer.

“Nobody had harmonies like them,” said former Gypsy manager Dennis Donovan. Their music evolved from garage rock into something that was “very progressive and creative,” he said. “People should know the story.”

Here’s the two-minute version: After tearing up the Minnesota scene, the group moved to Los Angeles in 1968, living on rice and bologna until their big break — replacing Chicago as the house band at the legendary rock-and-roll nightclub Whisky a Go Go.

The club, the first venue inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, helped launch The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding in the 1960s, and Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe and Metallica in the ’80s. Gypsy was a mainstay there for two years.

On the strength of their popularity, Gypsy became one of two acts signed to the fledgling Metromedia label (the other was teen idol Bobby Sherman). They released four albums and played for nearly half a million people at the Atlanta Pop Festival.

But there were missteps. The group turned down an offer from the fabled Atlantic Records. While they gained national exposure touring in the 1970s with Canadian rock outfit The Guess Who, the move may have shunted them to the shadows as an opening act.

By 1975, Gypsy had run its course. Walsh returned to Minnesota and ran into (and got out of) drug trouble with the law. Along the way, he scrambled to seize opportunities. As manager of Metro Studios in Minneapolis, he helped Sheryl Crow cut a platinum single. He recorded an unreleased solo album at the iconic Muscle Shoals Sound in Alabama. He filled the gaps by hawking appliances at Warners’ Stellian, selling pianos and slinging hash at Key’s Cafe.

In 2023, Walsh, aged 74, died of congestive heart failure — but not before reconnecting with his old Edison pal Zdon.

The Northeast connection

Zdon describes “Working Musician” as a “book about a Northeaster, written by a Northeaster and published by a Northeaster.”

Walsh and Zdon met at Edison High School in Mrs. Miller’s home room. Walsh, Zdon recalls, had an aura and charisma. He was a luminary even then; he had joined the Coronados at the tender age of 13. The band covered The Beatles’ tunes, and Zdon gained cachet by saving his $2.50 in bus money to buy new Beatles albums and transcribing the lyrics for Walsh.

“In that era there were, like, 450 garage bands,” Zdon said. “You just needed a lead guitar and bass player. There were also a lot of local music venues and a structure in place to play nationally. Every town had a ballroom.”

Edison was a good launching pad, he said. “So many kids were really talented, but there were no silver spoons and we had to survive by our wits and talents. We had a drive to succeed. I think there’s something about the neighborhood. It still has the ‘magic.’ It’s no coincidence that it funneled into the arts scene.”

Zdon lost touch with Walsh until 55 years later, when he caught a gig by a revived lineup of Gypsy at Crooners Supper Club in Fridley. “We didn’t miss a beat. We had the same sense of humor, the same way of looking at the world.”

The book grew out of a series of conversations with Walsh. “I knew Jim’s health was fragile. He’d had a couple heart attacks. I thought: If we don’t record this history now, it will be lost. You know that book “Tuesdays With Morrie”? It became like ‘Thursdays With Jim.’  We’d get together and talk.”

A musical legacy

Gypsy had a resurgence in the 1980s, when many of the key players got back together and Walsh enlisted Donovan as manager. The band played Crooners, the Minnesota State Fair and sold-out venues in St. Louis, where one radio station really pushed them.

The book was actually conceived as “merch” to be sold at shows. Written in a style Zdon dubs “progressive rock journalism,” it melds Walsh’s stories with sidebars, essays, photos and interviews with local players including former Gypsy members Jim Johnson (a founder whom Zdon and others credit for the band’s success because of his insistence on perfection), Doni Larson, Jay Epstein, Enrico
Rosenbaum, Greg Moritko, Tom Nystrom and Bill Davis.

“Equating the book to music, I’d say Jim was singing lead and I was doing the harmonies,” said Zdon, who also writes for the Northeaster and has published six books about Minnesota military veterans.

After Walsh passed, “all the spinning plates in the relationships of Jim hit the floor,” said Zdon. “The book’s funding dried up and it languished for a few years until Greg Moritko and his wife Connie Vincent stepped forward to pay for it.

“I finished the book on March 3, 2023, and James Walsh died on March 4. He had read it and was happy with it, but he never saw the final. I asked him to be honest and, for the most part, he was. He’s a great storyteller. I hope it’s a useful addition to the history of Minnesota rock and roll.”

As for the group’s legacy? They were the “Gypsy music boys of Northeast.”

“It’s a neighborhood story,” Donovan said. “These guys, who maybe you’ve never heard of, made a lot of frickin’ people happy. Music is needed now more than ever, the way our world is.”