"Funk #49" is a song written by Joe Walsh, Jim Fox, and Dale Peters, and recorded by American hard rock band The James Gang, being featured as the first single off the group's second studio album James Gang Rides Again (1971).
The song was a moderate success upon release, peaking at #59 on the Billboard Hot 100, but has since become a "classic rock standard", and still gets constant airplay on classic rock radio stations.
"Funk #49" is 3:35 in length, though it only has two verses. Much of the song is instrumental, drawing from Joe Walsh's guitar,Dale Peters's Bass work, and Jim Fox's drumming. The lyrics focus on a wild girlfriend the singer cannot tame. Most of the song is a vehicle for Walsh's guitar performance. The song got its title as a sequel to Funk #48, a song from the previous album.
Walsh explained the writing of the song, ""I came up with the basic guitar lick, and the words never really impressed me intellectually, but they seemed to fit somehow. It was a real good example of how we put things together, bearing in mind that it was a three piece group, and I don't think that there was any overdubbing. The only thing we really added was the percussion middle part, which the three of us actually played, putting some parts on top of the drums, but that's the three piece James Gang, and that's the energy and kind of the symmetry we were all about."
The song peaked at #59 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971.
The song was well-received by music critics. George Starostin called it "a terrific number that has almost immediately managed to occupy an honorable spot on my "best white funk of all time" table - the rhythm section pounds away like mad, and Joe's swingin' shakin' guitar lines totally make the grade."