Gregg Rolie - Career

Career

Prior to Santana, Rolie played with a group called William Penn and his Pals while attending Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, circa 1965, playing at least one high school dance at Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, California. A year after graduating from high school in 1965, Rolie joined with Carlos Santana and others to form the Santana Blues Band, which was later shortened to Santana. With Santana he was part of their first wave of success, including an appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival and several hit albums. He is perhaps best known for being the lead vocalist on Santana's hits Black Magic Woman (US #4) and Evil Ways, as well as his work developing a style and a sound on the Hammond B3 organ. However, persistent differences with Carlos Santana regarding the musical direction of the band led Rolie to leave the band at the end of 1971. He went home to Seattle, opening a restaurant with his father, which was not very successful.

In 1973 Rolie joined a new band with ex-Santana guitarist Neal Schon; this became Journey. Starring in a lineup that featured Schon, Aynsley Dunbar, George Tickner, and Ross Valory, he was keyboardist for the band's first six albums. On Journey and Look into the Future, he was lead vocalist, and on Next he shared those duties with guitarist Neal Schon. After Steve Perry joined the band in 1977, Rolie sang co-lead vocals on several songs on the albums Infinity, Evolution, and Departure.

After leaving Journey in 1980, Gregg released several solo albums, including the eponymous Gregg Rolie in 1985. This album featured the song "I Wanna Go Back," which later became a hit for Eddie Money, and included contributions from Carlos Santana, Peter Wolf, Neal Schon, and Craig Chaquico. A second solo effort, Gringo, was released in 1987.

Rolie formed The Storm in 1991 with Steve Smith and Ross Valory of Journey. The band also included Josh Ramos (whose guitar style resembles that of Neal Schon) and Kevin Chalfant (whose voice resembles that of Steve Perry). Similar to his work with Journey and Steve Perry, Rolie played keyboards and was a co-lead vocalist on several tracks of the band's first, eponymous, album, which hit #3 on the Billboard albums chart and spawned the Top Ten single "I've Got A Lot To Learn About Love." Despite this success, their second album, recorded in 1993, was shelved, due to the industry's shifting focus to favor rap and alternative music audiences. It finally saw limited release in 1996, and in 1998, Rolie and other former members of Santana, including Neal Schon, briefly reunited as Abraxas Pool, releasing one eponymous album. When Schon left to lead a re-formed Journey later that year, Rolie and other Abraxas Pool members formed the Gregg Rolie Band, which released the album Roots in 2001.