Four Men and an Afro: Journey circa 1977.
Shortly after my wife and I were married, we took up record collecting and used to trade records with a local guy named Ziggy. Ziggy would take our used records in exchange for a whole mess of store credit in his used record shop that we rarely got anything from because he had more junk than good stuff. Anyway, one night while he was blasting his music the subject of Journey came up. My wife mentioned how she had bought Journey videos from him for me and I said Journey with Steve Perry was great (there hadn't been any official replacement singers yet).
"Steve Perry", Ziggy said dismissively, "I f*ckin' hate what he did to that band."
Ziggy then went on to defend Aynsley Dunbar, who we both agreed is a great drummer, but is an unwitting part of what I call The Aynsley Dunbar Effect (more on that later). Anyway, Ziggy and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things other than he liked my money and I sometimes liked to buy music from him.
But what he said, in my realm of Journeyness, was important because it was the first time I ever heard anyone say they really liked the original Journey. For me (and a lot of fans) Journey started with Steve Perry and the Infinity record. Before Perry, there was...a blank slate made up of three records that were always in the cut out bin but never bought. But after Perry was fired, Schon said time and again that this was HIS band. And in a recent interview, Perry (weakly) explained that his infamous "I was never really part of the band" quote from VH1's Behind The Music stemmed from his initial introduction to Journey as Neal Schon's band.
Journey 1973-1975
Journey started when Carlos Santana broke up the original version of Santana. Roadie Herbie Herbert approached teenage guitar prodigy Neal Schon, who had started playing in Santana when he was fifteen (he was also asked to join Derek and the Dominoes at the same time), about starting a band that would back other musicians. Also joining was organist/vocalist Gregg Rolie also from Santana who had sung "Black Magic Woman" among other hits. Rolie played an important position in the original band as only his constant display of chest hair could offset Schon's mighty Afro. Bassist Ross Valory formerly of the Steve Miller Band and Frumious Bandersnatch and guitarist George Tickner came aboard as well. Originally titled The Golden Gate Rhythm Section, the band set out to be a sort of Booker T and the MGs of the Bay Area and performed with a variety of drummers. The main drummer they worked with was Prarie Prince of The Tubes. Led by Herbert's drive and vision, the band developed to the point of writing original music.
Following a failed "Name the Band" contest at the local rock station KSAN (a little funny to me because this radio station was Country & Western as far back as I could remember) roadie John Villanueva came up with the name Journey. The band signed onto Columbia records as they had developed a sound that mashed up Progressive Rock with Jazz Fusion. Prarie Prince decided to commit full time to The Tubes at this point and ex-John Mayall drummer Aynsley Dunbar was brought in.
Journey (1975)
The band was sent into the studio with Simon & Garfunkel producer Roy Halee to record their debut album. Journey is the definitive statement by the original band, an almost freeform mix of Jazzy Progressive Rock that could move fluidly yet catch fire. Schon blazed away on guitar as Rolie's pumped up Organ riffs and Dunbar's powerful drumming brought the group's dense, technical sound to bear. Rolie supplied the occasional vocals, most memorably on "Of A Lifetime". Instrumentals like the jagged "Kahoutek" and the ominous "Mystery Mountain" were mixed in with the happy go lucky Rolie sung "To Play Some Music". Journey failed to capture an audience and afterwards George Tickner quit.
Journey "Kahoutek"
Look Into The Future (1976)
What it boiled down to was there was no disputing the band's chops but also no hiding that they couldn't write structured music. They could jam better than most other bands, but without radio play or a crowd ready for Allman Brothers style jamming on Prog Rock that's not by Frank Zappa it seemed like they were playing in an empty cave. For Look Into The Future, the group focused more on writing shorter songs and succeeded in dabbling in blues rock ("On A Saturday Night"), Hendrix style rave ups ("She Makes Me Feel Alright") and George Harrison covers ("It's All Too Much"). But despite more songs for Gregg Rolie to sing, the songs weren't strong in commercial terms. A point made all the more obvious when former tourmates Kansas borrowed part of Journey's "I'm Gonna Leave You" and turned it into "Carry On Wayward Son", Kansas's breakthru hit.
Journey "On A Saturday Night"
Next (1977)
Future sold less than Journey, which is like saying people like rotten apples over rotten oranges. The band went to take singing classes and handed over the lyric writing to drummer Dunbar, who hadn't really written much beforehand. Dunbar gave it his best shot and the band did have cool song titles like "Spaceman" and "Hustler", but amateur songwriting and singing can only go so far. Next tries hard to fit the band's fusion rock in a commercial setting but as always the musicianship exceeded the quality of the songs. Schon started taking lead vocal turns on this record which added some variety. In total, Next was a decent platter but it even further defined them as unsellable. With Next, Journey had failed the old school record industry standard of having a break out album on the third try.Journey "Nickel and Dime"
Enter the Fleischman 1977
After three albums of steadily declining sales, Columbia basically said get some hits or go away. Herbert responded by bringing in a lead singer: Robert Fleischman. Fleischman was a Robert Plant type wailer from the Windy City and was either well liked or despised depending on who you talk to. He contributed to the songwriting on tunes like "Anytime" and "Wheel In The Sky" for what would become the Infinity record. But Herbert wasn't happy with Fleischman and soon after Journey's first lead singer was nothing but a memory. However, like any good manager he had someone waiting in the wings.
For a link of Fleischman in action with Journey, here's a link to a recording from 1977 called "For You"
After all this the band would start a string of Platnum albums and hit singles. The saga of Journey will continue...
7 comments:
Pre-Perry Journey had an awesome progressive sound, but they just couldn't take it anywhere. After a while, it was like they were just playing the same song over again.
Good ol' memories at Zig's. I liked going because it was about the only place open in this town after 9 p.m.
I am old enough to know that there was a Journey before the Steve Perry Journey but its like... yeah, there was a band named Journey, but it wasn't Journey, cause Journey doesn't exist without Steve Perry, regardless of what Neal Schon thinks. Yeah, I get it. It was his band. But he wasn't doing anything with it. Know what I mean?
Looks like the consensus is in and we all agree that before Perry the band couldn't write a song to save their life. I get what you mean Some Kinda Wonderful, if Perry hadn't joined they'd be a footnote in Carlos Santana's biography at best. They were a sinking ship in terms of their career. Although I think Journey and Steve Perry are better separate now (for me, Perry and the band really stopped working together after Frontiers) and still like them, those magic years from 1978 to 1983 defined the band.
Agreed with everything said :) I like them apart but what they had in the beginning was awesome :)
Journey was playing to packed venues around the Bay Area BEFORE Steve Perry. I saw them over and over at Winterland, including debut show in 1973, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, Palo Alto, San Jose etc.
They blew away every band they opened for, including Robin Trower, Montrose, ect.
They weren't marketed properly. That's it. No one outside of California had heard of them. If they had, there would have been no need for Steve Perry.
Again, I'm responding to what the host said. They DID draw crowds, For three years, I never saw them in less than a packed room. Every show brought in some new fresh material, or a different version of one of their famliar tunes, like a reggae feel for "Of a Lifetime". I have a full band signed copy of their NEXT album, remembering fans lined up outside of Banana Records in Palo Alto. If their albums were marketed better, they would have been nationaly known much sooner, without having to sell out with Steve Perry!
Commercial success doesn't make interesting music. The first 3 albums romp over what came after. I went through all their albums looking that same raw creativity and was disappointed. It's like many TV series where the story in season 2 is boring..
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