How Joe Walsh became Ringo Starr’s brother in law

Ringo Starr was born in Liverpool in 1940 and first achieved fame as a member of The Beatles, band he joined in 1962. The American guitarist Joe Walsh, born in Wichita, Kansas in 1947 is seven years younger than Ringo and first achieved fame as a member of James Gang and then as a member of The Eagles.

Both had extremely successful careers and met each other over the decades but a few years ago they curiously became brothers in law.

How Joe Walsh became Ringo Starr’s brother in law

Well, Ringo Starr was first married with Maureen Cox, from 1965 to 1975 and then in 1981 he got married with the American actress Barbara Bach. They have been happily married for more than five decades already. In 2008, her sister, Marjorie Bach, got married to Joe Walsh and that’s when Ringo and Joe Walsh became brothers in law.

Since then their friendship only got bigger and they both played live with each other over the years and composed songs together. But they had worked together long before Walsh got together with Marjorie. The American musician was part of the first line-up of Ringo Starr All Starr Band from 1989 to 1992, being an occasional guest in 1995 and 2019.

In an interview with People in 2023, Joe Walsh talked about sobriety and about his love for Marjorie Bach. “That’s a gift of sobriety, is that there was a place in my heart for love instead of, ‘I got to get some more cocaine.’ Alcohol ate a hole in me where loving and caring had been. But all of that came back.”

“I met Marjorie, and she’s the other half of me that I had always been missing. I have some children, but I wasn’t around for them, I was too busy being a rockstar. But I rebonded with them. And another part of what I got with Marjorie was this extended family that she’s in—I had never been in a family like that,” Joe Walsh said.