We can pass over Journey's early incarnation as a Frisco hippie band ("Wheel in the Sky") and go straight to the moment when the band figured out that its meal ticket was Steve Perry, who clobbered power ballads like an old Italian lady with an umbrella catching a pickpocket on bingo night. Man, the guy could shred: "Who's Crying Now," "Faithfully," "Only the Young," "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'," "Lights," and the love theme to the popular film The Last American Virgin, "Open Arms."
Best of all, or maybe just most of all (the distinction is meaningless with Journey), there was "Don't Stop Believin'," a perfect cheese-metal hymn to streetlight people everywhere, the strangers searching up and down the boulevard, paying anything to roll the dice just one more time. (Fun fact: There is no such place as "South Detroit.") It was over much too soon, with the 1986 hit "I'll Be Alright Without You" a poignant farewell. The band fell apart, reunited, and recorded with both Perry and his sound-alike replacement, Steve Augeri. Greatest Hits captures Journey in all its mullet-tastic splendor. But it's still no substitute for the karaoke bar: To really comprehend the music of Journey, to understand what Steve and the guys were trying to say, you have to go there and join the streetlight people, as the lights go down in the city. Especially when somebody gets drunk enough to tackle "Don't Stop Believin'."
The original members of Journey came together in San Francisco in 1973 under the auspices of former Santana manager Herbie Herbert. Originally called the Golden Gate Rhythm Section and intended to serve as a backup group for established Bay Area artists, the band included recent Santana alumni Neal Schon on lead guitar and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and lead vocals. Drummer Prairie Prince of The Tubes, bassist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner, both of Frumious Bandersnatch, rounded out the group. The band quickly abandoned the original "backup group" concept and developed a distinctive jazz-fusion style. After an unsuccessful radio contest to name the group, roadie Jack Vilanueva suggested the name "Journey." The band's first public appearance came at the Winterland Ballroom on New Year’s Eve, 1973. Prairie Prince rejoined The Tubes shortly thereafter, and the band hired British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who had recently worked with John Lennon and Frank Zappa. On February 5, 1974, the new line-up made their debut at the Great American Music Hall and secured a recording contract with Columbia Records.
Journey released their eponymous first album in 1975, and rhythm guitarist Tickner left the band before they cut their second album, Look into the Future (1976). Neither album achieved significant sales, so Schon, Valory, and Dunbar took singing lessons in an attempt to add vocal harmonies to Rolie's lead. The following year's Next contained shorter tracks with more vocals and featured Schon as lead singer on several of the songs.
Journey's album sales did not improve and Columbia Records requested that they change their musical style and add a frontman, with whom keyboardist Gregg Rolie could share lead vocal duties. The band hired Robert Fleischman and transitioned to a more popular style, akin to that of Foreigner and Boston. Journey went on tour with Fleischman in 1977 and together the new incarnation of the band wrote the hit "Wheel in the Sky." But fans were lukewarm to the change, and personality differences resulted in Fleischman's being fired within the year.
In the fall of 1977, Journey hired Steve Perry as their new lead singer. Perry added a clean, tenor sound and the band became a true pop act. Their fourth album, Infinity (1978) reached No. 21 on the album charts and gave the band their first RIAA-certified platinum album plus hit singles out of "Lights" and "Wheel In the Sky".
Drummer Aynsley Dunbar did not get along with singer Steve Perry and did not approve of the new musical direction.[6] He was fired in 1978 and replaced by Berklee-trained jazz drummer Steve Smith.[7] Perry, Schon, Rolie, Smith, and bass player Ross Valory recorded 1979's Evolution, which gave the band their first Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 single, "Lovin,' Touchin,' Squeezin;'" and 1980's Departure, which reached No. 8 on the album charts and included the top-25 "Any Way You Want It."[8]
Journey's newfound success brought the band an almost entirely new fan base. During the 1980 Departure world tour, the band recorded a live album, Captured, and recorded the soundtrack to the film Dream After Dream while in Japan.
Exhausted from extensive touring, keyboardist Gregg Rolie now left a successful band for the second time in his career. Rolie recommended pianist Jonathan Cain of The Babys as his replacement. With Cain's replacement of Rolie's Hammond B-3 organ with his own synthesizers, the band was poised to redefine rock music for a new decade in which they would achieve their greatest musical success.
Journey released their eighth and biggest-selling studio album, Escape, in 1981. The album, which would ultimately sell nine times platinum, went to number one on the album charts that year, and included three top-ten hits: "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believing," and "Open Arms."
Capitalizing on their success, the band recorded radio commercials for Budweiser and sold rights to their likenesses and music for use in two video games: the Journey arcade game by Bally/Midway and Journey Escape by Data Age for the Atari 2600.
This success was met with piqued criticism. The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide gave each of the band's albums only one star, with Dave Marsh writing that "Journey was a dead end for San Francisco area rock." Marsh later would anoint Escape as one of the worst number-one albums of all time.
Journey's next album, 1983's Frontiers, continued their commercial success, reaching No. 2 on the album charts. Four hit singles included "Separate Ways," which reached #8, and "Faithfully," which reached #12. During the subsequent tour, the band contracted with NFL Films to record a video documentary of their life on the road, Frontiers and Beyond.
Lead singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon both pursued solo projects between 1982 and 1985, and when they returned to Journey to record their 1986 album Raised on Radio, bass player Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were fired from the band for musical and professional differences. Studio musicians handled the two vacant slots, including future American Idol judge Randy Jackson and established session player Larrie Londin. The album sold two million copies. A truncated tour followed, which featured Jackson on bass and Mike Baird on drums. Steve Perry left Journey in 1987.
Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain teamed up with Cain's ex-Babys bandmates John Waite and Ricky Phillips, forming Bad English with drummer Deen Castronovo in 1988. Steve Smith started a jazz band, Vital Information, and teamed up with Ross Valory and Gregg Rolie to create The Storm with singer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos.
Between 1987 and 1995, Journey's record label released three compilations. In 1993, Kevin Chalfant (of The Storm) performed with members of Journey on a few shows, and Schon, Cain, Valory, Smith and Rolie briefly considered reuniting the band with Chalfant as lead singer.[citation needed] In 1995 Steve Perry agreed to rejoin the band on the condition that they seek new management. Herbie Herbert was fired and The Eagles Manager Irving Azoff retained.
In 1995, Perry, Schon, Cain, Valory, and Smith reunited to record Trial by Fire. Released in 1996, the album included the hit single "When You Love a Woman," which reached #12 on the Billboard charts and was nominated in 1997 for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Plans for a subsequent tour ended when Perry injured his hip hiking in Hawaii, and could not perform without hip replacement surgery — which he refused to undergo. In 1998, Schon and Cain decided to seek a new lead singer, at which point drummer Steve Smith left the band as well.
In 1998, Journey hired drummer Deen Castronovo, Schon's and Cain's Bad English bandmate, and drummer for Hardline, to replace Steve Smith. The lead vocalist position was filled by Steve Augeri, formerly of Tyketto and Tall Stories.
In 1998, Journey with Steve Augeri and Deen Castronovo recorded a track for the soundtrack to the movie Armageddon called "Remember Me." The band released their next studio album, Arrival, in Japan in late 2000 and in the United States in 2001. "All the Way" became a minor adult contemporary hit from the album. In 2002, the band released a four-track CD titled "Red 13," with an album cover design chosen through a fan contest. In 2005 the band was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, embarked on their 30th anniversary tour, and released their twelfth full-length studio album, Generations, in which each band member performed lead vocals on at least one song.
In July 2006, Steve Augeri was diagnosed with a throat infection that temporarily took his voice, and Journey briefly used pre-recorded vocal tracks on tour. [18] The band hired singer Jeff Scott Soto from Talisman to fill in, and Soto officially replaced Augeri as Journey's lead singer in December 2006.[19] On June 12, 2007, Journey announced that Soto was no longer the lead singer, and said that they were looking to move in a new direction.
In December 2007, after briefly considering the lead singer of a Virginia-based tribute band, Journey hired Filipino singer Arnel Pineda of the cover band The Zoo after Neal Schon saw him on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Journey debuted their new lead singer in February 2008 in Chile, released the album Revelation, and announced a summer tour with Heart and Cheap Trick.[23] Revelation debuted at #5 on the Billboard charts, selling more than 196,000 units in its first two weeks, making it the band's best selling album since Trial by Fire.
Although Pineda was not the first foreign national to become a member of Journey (former drummer Aynsley Dunbar is British) nor even the first non-white (former bass player Randy Jackson is African-American), the transition was difficult for a number of fans who expressed what Marin Independent Journal writer Paul Liberatore called "an undercurrent of racism." Keyboardist Jonathan Cain responded to such sentiments: "We've become a world band. We're international now. We're not about one color."
Current members
Neal Schon - lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals, lead vocals (1973-present)
Ross Valory - bass, backing vocals, lead vocals (1973-1985, 1995-present)
Jonathan Cain - piano, keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals (1980-present)
Deen Castronovo - drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals (1998-present)
Arnel Pineda - lead vocals (2007-present)
Former members
Gregg Rolie - keyboards, lead vocals, backing vocals (1973-1980)
George Tickner - rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1973-1975)
Prairie Prince - drums, percussion (1973-1974)
Aynsley Dunbar - drums, percussion (1974-1978)
Robert Fleischman - lead vocals (1977)
Steve Perry - lead vocals (1977-1998)
Steve Smith - drums, percussion, backing vocals (1978-1985, 1995-1998)
Randy Jackson - bass, backing vocals (1985-1987)
Larrie Londin - drums, percussion (1985-1986)
Mike Baird - drums, percussion (1986-1987)
Bob Glaub - bass (1986)
Steve Augeri - lead vocals, occasional rhythm guitar on tour (1998-2006)
Jeff Scott Soto - lead vocals (2006-2007)
Discography
Revelation 2008
The Full Discover Package 2007
Departure 2006
Live In Houston 1981: The Escape Tour 2005
Generations 2005
The Essential Journey 2001
Arrival 2001
Greatest Hits Live 1998
Trial By Fire 1996
Time Cubed 1992
Raised On Radio 1986
Frontiers 1983
Tron 1982
Escape 1981
Captured 1980
Evolution 1979
Greatest Hits 1978
Infinity 1978
Next 1977
Look Into The Future 1976
Journey (1st LP) 1975
Official Website: http://www.journeymusic.com/
Listen to Journey Music!
Watch Journey Video!
Don't Stop Believing
Wheel in The Sky
Open Arms
Best of all, or maybe just most of all (the distinction is meaningless with Journey), there was "Don't Stop Believin'," a perfect cheese-metal hymn to streetlight people everywhere, the strangers searching up and down the boulevard, paying anything to roll the dice just one more time. (Fun fact: There is no such place as "South Detroit.") It was over much too soon, with the 1986 hit "I'll Be Alright Without You" a poignant farewell. The band fell apart, reunited, and recorded with both Perry and his sound-alike replacement, Steve Augeri. Greatest Hits captures Journey in all its mullet-tastic splendor. But it's still no substitute for the karaoke bar: To really comprehend the music of Journey, to understand what Steve and the guys were trying to say, you have to go there and join the streetlight people, as the lights go down in the city. Especially when somebody gets drunk enough to tackle "Don't Stop Believin'."
The original members of Journey came together in San Francisco in 1973 under the auspices of former Santana manager Herbie Herbert. Originally called the Golden Gate Rhythm Section and intended to serve as a backup group for established Bay Area artists, the band included recent Santana alumni Neal Schon on lead guitar and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and lead vocals. Drummer Prairie Prince of The Tubes, bassist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner, both of Frumious Bandersnatch, rounded out the group. The band quickly abandoned the original "backup group" concept and developed a distinctive jazz-fusion style. After an unsuccessful radio contest to name the group, roadie Jack Vilanueva suggested the name "Journey." The band's first public appearance came at the Winterland Ballroom on New Year’s Eve, 1973. Prairie Prince rejoined The Tubes shortly thereafter, and the band hired British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who had recently worked with John Lennon and Frank Zappa. On February 5, 1974, the new line-up made their debut at the Great American Music Hall and secured a recording contract with Columbia Records.
Journey released their eponymous first album in 1975, and rhythm guitarist Tickner left the band before they cut their second album, Look into the Future (1976). Neither album achieved significant sales, so Schon, Valory, and Dunbar took singing lessons in an attempt to add vocal harmonies to Rolie's lead. The following year's Next contained shorter tracks with more vocals and featured Schon as lead singer on several of the songs.
Journey's album sales did not improve and Columbia Records requested that they change their musical style and add a frontman, with whom keyboardist Gregg Rolie could share lead vocal duties. The band hired Robert Fleischman and transitioned to a more popular style, akin to that of Foreigner and Boston. Journey went on tour with Fleischman in 1977 and together the new incarnation of the band wrote the hit "Wheel in the Sky." But fans were lukewarm to the change, and personality differences resulted in Fleischman's being fired within the year.
In the fall of 1977, Journey hired Steve Perry as their new lead singer. Perry added a clean, tenor sound and the band became a true pop act. Their fourth album, Infinity (1978) reached No. 21 on the album charts and gave the band their first RIAA-certified platinum album plus hit singles out of "Lights" and "Wheel In the Sky".
Drummer Aynsley Dunbar did not get along with singer Steve Perry and did not approve of the new musical direction.[6] He was fired in 1978 and replaced by Berklee-trained jazz drummer Steve Smith.[7] Perry, Schon, Rolie, Smith, and bass player Ross Valory recorded 1979's Evolution, which gave the band their first Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 single, "Lovin,' Touchin,' Squeezin;'" and 1980's Departure, which reached No. 8 on the album charts and included the top-25 "Any Way You Want It."[8]
Journey's newfound success brought the band an almost entirely new fan base. During the 1980 Departure world tour, the band recorded a live album, Captured, and recorded the soundtrack to the film Dream After Dream while in Japan.
Exhausted from extensive touring, keyboardist Gregg Rolie now left a successful band for the second time in his career. Rolie recommended pianist Jonathan Cain of The Babys as his replacement. With Cain's replacement of Rolie's Hammond B-3 organ with his own synthesizers, the band was poised to redefine rock music for a new decade in which they would achieve their greatest musical success.
Journey released their eighth and biggest-selling studio album, Escape, in 1981. The album, which would ultimately sell nine times platinum, went to number one on the album charts that year, and included three top-ten hits: "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believing," and "Open Arms."
Capitalizing on their success, the band recorded radio commercials for Budweiser and sold rights to their likenesses and music for use in two video games: the Journey arcade game by Bally/Midway and Journey Escape by Data Age for the Atari 2600.
This success was met with piqued criticism. The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide gave each of the band's albums only one star, with Dave Marsh writing that "Journey was a dead end for San Francisco area rock." Marsh later would anoint Escape as one of the worst number-one albums of all time.
Journey's next album, 1983's Frontiers, continued their commercial success, reaching No. 2 on the album charts. Four hit singles included "Separate Ways," which reached #8, and "Faithfully," which reached #12. During the subsequent tour, the band contracted with NFL Films to record a video documentary of their life on the road, Frontiers and Beyond.
Lead singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon both pursued solo projects between 1982 and 1985, and when they returned to Journey to record their 1986 album Raised on Radio, bass player Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were fired from the band for musical and professional differences. Studio musicians handled the two vacant slots, including future American Idol judge Randy Jackson and established session player Larrie Londin. The album sold two million copies. A truncated tour followed, which featured Jackson on bass and Mike Baird on drums. Steve Perry left Journey in 1987.
Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain teamed up with Cain's ex-Babys bandmates John Waite and Ricky Phillips, forming Bad English with drummer Deen Castronovo in 1988. Steve Smith started a jazz band, Vital Information, and teamed up with Ross Valory and Gregg Rolie to create The Storm with singer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos.
Between 1987 and 1995, Journey's record label released three compilations. In 1993, Kevin Chalfant (of The Storm) performed with members of Journey on a few shows, and Schon, Cain, Valory, Smith and Rolie briefly considered reuniting the band with Chalfant as lead singer.[citation needed] In 1995 Steve Perry agreed to rejoin the band on the condition that they seek new management. Herbie Herbert was fired and The Eagles Manager Irving Azoff retained.
In 1995, Perry, Schon, Cain, Valory, and Smith reunited to record Trial by Fire. Released in 1996, the album included the hit single "When You Love a Woman," which reached #12 on the Billboard charts and was nominated in 1997 for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Plans for a subsequent tour ended when Perry injured his hip hiking in Hawaii, and could not perform without hip replacement surgery — which he refused to undergo. In 1998, Schon and Cain decided to seek a new lead singer, at which point drummer Steve Smith left the band as well.
In 1998, Journey hired drummer Deen Castronovo, Schon's and Cain's Bad English bandmate, and drummer for Hardline, to replace Steve Smith. The lead vocalist position was filled by Steve Augeri, formerly of Tyketto and Tall Stories.
In 1998, Journey with Steve Augeri and Deen Castronovo recorded a track for the soundtrack to the movie Armageddon called "Remember Me." The band released their next studio album, Arrival, in Japan in late 2000 and in the United States in 2001. "All the Way" became a minor adult contemporary hit from the album. In 2002, the band released a four-track CD titled "Red 13," with an album cover design chosen through a fan contest. In 2005 the band was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, embarked on their 30th anniversary tour, and released their twelfth full-length studio album, Generations, in which each band member performed lead vocals on at least one song.
In July 2006, Steve Augeri was diagnosed with a throat infection that temporarily took his voice, and Journey briefly used pre-recorded vocal tracks on tour. [18] The band hired singer Jeff Scott Soto from Talisman to fill in, and Soto officially replaced Augeri as Journey's lead singer in December 2006.[19] On June 12, 2007, Journey announced that Soto was no longer the lead singer, and said that they were looking to move in a new direction.
In December 2007, after briefly considering the lead singer of a Virginia-based tribute band, Journey hired Filipino singer Arnel Pineda of the cover band The Zoo after Neal Schon saw him on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Journey debuted their new lead singer in February 2008 in Chile, released the album Revelation, and announced a summer tour with Heart and Cheap Trick.[23] Revelation debuted at #5 on the Billboard charts, selling more than 196,000 units in its first two weeks, making it the band's best selling album since Trial by Fire.
Although Pineda was not the first foreign national to become a member of Journey (former drummer Aynsley Dunbar is British) nor even the first non-white (former bass player Randy Jackson is African-American), the transition was difficult for a number of fans who expressed what Marin Independent Journal writer Paul Liberatore called "an undercurrent of racism." Keyboardist Jonathan Cain responded to such sentiments: "We've become a world band. We're international now. We're not about one color."
Current members
Neal Schon - lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals, lead vocals (1973-present)
Ross Valory - bass, backing vocals, lead vocals (1973-1985, 1995-present)
Jonathan Cain - piano, keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals (1980-present)
Deen Castronovo - drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals (1998-present)
Arnel Pineda - lead vocals (2007-present)
Former members
Gregg Rolie - keyboards, lead vocals, backing vocals (1973-1980)
George Tickner - rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1973-1975)
Prairie Prince - drums, percussion (1973-1974)
Aynsley Dunbar - drums, percussion (1974-1978)
Robert Fleischman - lead vocals (1977)
Steve Perry - lead vocals (1977-1998)
Steve Smith - drums, percussion, backing vocals (1978-1985, 1995-1998)
Randy Jackson - bass, backing vocals (1985-1987)
Larrie Londin - drums, percussion (1985-1986)
Mike Baird - drums, percussion (1986-1987)
Bob Glaub - bass (1986)
Steve Augeri - lead vocals, occasional rhythm guitar on tour (1998-2006)
Jeff Scott Soto - lead vocals (2006-2007)
Discography
Revelation 2008
The Full Discover Package 2007
Departure 2006
Live In Houston 1981: The Escape Tour 2005
Generations 2005
The Essential Journey 2001
Arrival 2001
Greatest Hits Live 1998
Trial By Fire 1996
Time Cubed 1992
Raised On Radio 1986
Frontiers 1983
Tron 1982
Escape 1981
Captured 1980
Evolution 1979
Greatest Hits 1978
Infinity 1978
Next 1977
Look Into The Future 1976
Journey (1st LP) 1975
Official Website: http://www.journeymusic.com/
Listen to Journey Music!
Watch Journey Video!
Don't Stop Believing
Wheel in The Sky
Open Arms
Faithfully
No comments:
Post a Comment