OK I am sure this article dates me a little, but I have been a huge fan of the rock band Journey for years. A band formed to showcase the guitar skills of Neal Schon who was playing with the group Santana. The road manager of Santana, Walter Herbert was not in the good graces of Carlos Santana anymore. However he and Schon became good friends. Schon also knew he would always be in the shadow of the renown Carlos Santana. So the two had reason to forge ahead.
Over the first few years of the 1970's Herbert, who they called Herbie, built a nice ensemble around the young Schon. Ironically it included Greg Rolie a former keyboardist for Santana up until 1971. The first record released by Journey was for Columbia Records in 1975 entitled Journey.
In the early years Schon and Rolie shared the lead vocal duties. After being tired of touring the second guitar player quit the band. Then the band made some philosophical changes in their music by writing shorter songs and playing a less Jazz Fusion influenced style. Also after a second album and third album didn't have the big record sales hoped for, Columbia and the producers wanted a new lead singer. This brought a guy named Robert Fleischman into the fold. Although he did a couple recordings with Journey his first exposure was on tour. The fact that his manager and Herbie did not get along mixed with his boredom from feeling left out when the band performed the songs they had released up to that point caused many problems. So he was canned and replaced with Steve Perry. One of the greatest hires in music history.
Perry and Schon hit it off immediately. They began writing songs together and the band merged Perry into their group. Steve had a signature voice like the other popular bands of those days. Like Lou Gramm of Foreigner, Brad Delp of Boston, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, or Paul Rodgers of Bad Company, Steve Perry identified music fans with Journey.
By 1979 Aynsley Dunbar the drummer was fired and Steve Smith was hired. This also proved to be a perfect fit. By 1980 "Any Way You Want It" became the bands first top 25 single. The 1980 album Departure that featured that single went to #8 on the album charts.
After the tour promoting Departure, Greg Rolie called it quits. Interesting to note is that a band called The Baby's toured as the opening act on that Journey tour and Rolie became friends with The Baby's keyboardist Jonathan Cain. So Greg Rolie made his departure after Departure and named his own replacement Jonathan Cain to pick up where he left off. Cain left The Baby's and joined Journey.
Cain proved to be a great songwriter and Steve Perry could sing his songs like no one else could. Schon was not always happy with the ballad style songs but money and fame is what they had been striving for since the beginning so he went with the flow. And he is such an incredible guitar player he can play to anything. These developments rocketed Journey to their highest level. Although critics didn't like the arena rock bands like Journey and Foreigner they packed houses and were at the top of the charts for most of the 1980's.
The one twist in this story is the band that was made for Neal Schon ended up to be the band made for Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain as far as commercial success was concerned. But Schon was happy with the overall success and he was friends with the boys.
The slide back to earth started somewhat when Perry and Herbert had a falling out. Steve Perry had a successful solo album in 1984. Also Steve Smith, drummer, and Ross Valory, one of the original members with Schon, were fired. (Side note was that Randy Jackson of American Idol fame replaced Valory on bass) It was in 1987 after the death of his mother and the break up of his relationship, that Steve Perry quit.
Journey now found itself in a place they never were in. Up to this point replacing people wasn't hard but how do you replace such a distinct voice? And an incredible voice at that. In fact for awhile they didn't bother trying. The band mates basically went in different directions. Cain and Schon had success with a band called Bad English for example.
So here we had a band who started slow out of the gate and then reached super power status, lost after their dominant voice left. By 1994 some of the former Journey line up were discussing resurrecting the band without Perry. It turned out they didn't have to. Perry decided he had a little left in the tank. So in 1995 the basic line up from the early 1980's reunited to release the Cd Trial By Fire. Looked like Journey was going to re-establish themselves. Except that Steve Perry injured his hip and put him on the shelf for some time. He also seemed uncommitted to when or if he would return to tour. So the band had to make a call as to what to do. They had delayed touring for Perry to heal but promotion for the new Cd was sorely needed.
Steve Smith the drummer once again for the band, took a page out of history and decided if there was no Perry then there was no Journey and he quit and started a progressive Jazz band. The rest of the gang though didn't want Perry to be the end of their story this time. So they made a different move and found a guy named Steve Augeri, who sounded very similar to Perry, to take over. This sustained the band but proved not to be the catalyst they had hoped for. They became a successful has been band and that was about it.
Things got worse again when Augeri was having problems singing due to a throat condition. Jeff Soto had stepped in and did good enough that he got the job. But he could not resemble Perry even a little bit where as Augeri somewhat could. The band was losing what little of a niche they had re-established.
The most recent chapter is really amazing. Without Perry or a reasonable facsimile, Neal Schon and the boys were giving up again. They parted with Soto. Of course now they realized they would never be a super band but they wanted to at least sound like they did in their hey day. Schon was just scanning the Internet one night and found this band from the Philippines doing a cover versions of some Journey songs. Their singer Arnel Pineda did an admirable Steve Perry impersonation. After thinking it was first a joke, Arnel responded to emails from Neal Schon. Turned out he cut the mustard. He has performed live with Journey already in 2008.
We will have to see where all this goes to next. I am one of the small crowd that still likes Journey enough to see where this Journey is going to end.
