HOUSTON -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is so thrifty that its managers --
including top brass -- still share hotel rooms on the road.
Companywide manager meetings are held in Texas in steamy August and in
Kansas in frigid February, when the hotel rooms are cheapest. But the
famously frugal company would never consider scrimping on one frill:
Joe Welsh, a 48-year-old, bleached-blond guitarist and songwriter who
goes by the name Guido and, with four other musicians, is the
company's unofficial house band.

"He follows us everywhere," says Jane Thompson, president of
Wal-Mart's financial-services division.

At 6 a.m. on a recent rainy Thursday, Wal-Mart managers gathered for a
midyear merchandise meeting. While the streets around the George R.
Brown Convention Center here were dark and deserted, bleachers inside
the cavernous hall were packed with 4,000 Wal-Mart employees clapping
and gyrating to Mr. Welsh's rendition of Jeff Beck's Freeway Jam,
their name badges bobbing with the music.

"What time is it?" shouted Mr. Welsh, as he hopped around the
purple-and-red-lighted stage in sunglasses and checkered sport coat.

It's Wal-Mart time!" the crowd shouted back. On cue, Mr. Welsh's band
launched into his anthem of the same name:

Well, c'mon everybody, it's time to rock
Wake yourself up, it's nearly 7 o'clock
We've got a whole lotta things we're gonna talk about
Do a cheer or two where we'll jump and shout
I know it's early, I've been here all night
We're busy working on Wal-Mart time.
Oh, don't you know it. We rockin' now b-b-b-baby.

The song, which comes at the end of a 20-minute set of classic rock
tunes, ends in a rhythm-and-blues version of the Wal-Mart cheer: "Give
me a W, Give me an A, Give me an L, Give me a Squiggle -- [everyone
shimmies] -- Give me an M, Give me an A, Give me an R, Give me a T.
What's that spell? Wal-Mart. I can't hear you. Wal-Mart. Who's No. 1?
The customer. Always. Uhn! Whose Wal-Mart is it? It's my Wal-Mart."

For the next hour and a half, the company's top executives took the
stage and updated the field officers on the state of Wal-Mart's
business and expectations for the second half of the year. They spent
the rest of the day looking at new products for the holidays in a
replica of a Wal-Mart supercenter.

"These are long, challenging meetings and Guido gets the blood
flowing," says Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott. Mr. Scott's wife,
Linda, is such a big fan that she hired Mr. Welsh to play at their
son's wedding in 1997. "In fact, Guido's the only reason my wife comes
to the meetings," Mr. Scott says.

Mr. Welsh is more than just a warm-up act. "He's a culture builder,"
says Joe Huber, 31, manager of a Wal-Mart supercenter in Spencer,
Iowa, who plays Mr. Welsh's two Wal-Mart-themed compact discs for
employees at store meetings "to get them energized."

An independent music producer in Nashville, Mr. Welsh plays 30 days a
year for Wal-Mart, including the annual shareholders meeting, which
draws 20,000 people to the Bud Walton Arena at the University of
Arkansas. It's an unusually appreciative audience, even at the usual 6
a.m. show time.

Joe Welsh took on the name Guido years ago after a bar owner said his
original country band should wear cowboy hats. Because he is short and
round, Mr. Welsh thought he would look stupid. So he donned a Panama
hat instead, and the band started calling him Guido, the Italian
cowboy. Neither Italian nor a cowboy, he went on to have a punk band
at first called Guido Toledo and, later, The Guidals. Eleven years
ago, broke and dejected after The Guidals failed to get a national
recording contract, he availed himself of his brother's help in
getting work as a sound engineer with Vista Productions, a Missouri
company that handles sound and lighting for major Wal-Mart meetings.

He began work choosing background music and then played instrumentals
for the meetings. His big break came in 1993 when Randy Parker, who
was special-events coordinator for Wal-Mart, called and asked him to
write a song. Inspired by all the Wal-Mart trucks on the road as he
drove sound equipment to Dallas, he wrote "Wal-Mart Proud," which got
a 15-minute ovation and launched a new career.

Mr. Welsh has since played every Wal-Mart meeting in the U.S. and one
in Canada. He has composed more than 30 Wal-Mart songs in his
Nashville studio, funded by his Wal-Mart income. For inspiration, he
mines legendary founder Sam Walton's biography -- he has read it five
times -- or picks up messages conveyed in the meetings.

For Wal-Mart's big merchandising kick-off meeting in Kansas last
winter, Mr. Welsh wrote "It's My Wal-Mart":

There is no big secret to our great success
Just pride and a legacy with which we are blessed
It is more than a tradition ... there is more we can do
We can make a difference because the brand name is me and you
It's My Wal-Mart....

"It's not a hip gig, but it's a great gig," he says. "It's a million
people in tune with you. It's almost like a cult."

Mr. Welsh refers to Wal-Mart's more than one million employees as
Wal-Martians. Managers often gather around the stage to greet him when
he's finished. They'll frequently ask him to play more current music,
but he is careful to keep the music inoffensive -- the toughest part
of the job, he says.

At a meeting in 1994, he started dating Margaret Brandon, a Wal-Mart
district manager from Arkansas -- "a nice country girl with a good
job," he says -- and married her two years later.

One night during a Dallas meeting, his Wal-Mart fans saw him at a club
and began shouting his name, much to the chagrin of the blues trio
that was performing. Mr. Welsh apologized to the band, explained the
situation and asked to sit in for a number so the crowd would behave.
The band refused and then, to embarrass Mr. Welsh, announced to the
crowd that Mr. Welsh was now working for Kmart, according to Mr. Welsh
and Brent Hoad, a Kansas City musician who plays in the band.

Mr. Welsh walked out, and his Wal-Mart fans followed, emptying the
room.

Mr. Welsh won't disclose how much he makes working for Wal-Mart. "It
pays the bills," he says.

Mr. Welsh still dreams of making it big, but he thinks his best shot
is as a record producer. He has cut two albums recently, including a
rock 'n' roll disc of mostly original songs, called Lucky Man Clark.
Mr. Welsh's lyrics are a little darker than the ones he writes for
Wal-Mart. In a song called "Apocolypso," he writes:

Take a look outside ... it's getting darker out there
Craziness and rounders swarm around us everywhere.

Write to Ann Zimmerman at

In article writes:

Joe Welsh, a 48-year-old, bleached-blond guitarist and songwriter who
goes by the name Guido and, with four other musicians, is the
company's unofficial house band.

"He follows us everywhere," says Jane Thompson, president of
Wal-Mart's financial-services division.

So, the secret of the band needing a bass player is out!

I say congrats to Guido for finding a niche in the commercial world
and filling it to "pay the bills."


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

I have 4 strikes against me for doing Guido's gig, though - I'm too old, too
fat, too busy and too grouchy. He doesn't need any of those things...


Lol...hey, wait a minute!!! That sounds like ME!!!!!!!






searching for peace, love and quality footwear
guido

http://www.guidotoons.com
http://www.theloniousmoog.com
http://www.luckymanclark.com