Career
Rolie was born in Seattle, Washington, United States. Prior to Santana, he played with a group called William Penn and His Pals while attending Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, circa 1965. [1]
A year after graduating from high school in 1965, Rolie joined Carlos Santana and others to form the Santana Blues Band, which was later shortened simply to Santana. As a co-founding member of Santana, Rolie was part of the band's first wave of success, including an appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969 [2] and central roles in several hit albums. He was their original lead vocalist, with his voice appearing on well-known Santana songs such as "Black Magic Woman" (US #4), "Oye Como Va", "No One To Depend On" and "Evil Ways". He also became well known for his skill on the Hammond B3 organ, with solos on many of the aforementioned hits. He has song-writing credits on many tracks from this period. However, persistent differences with Carlos Santana regarding the musical direction of the band led Rolie to leave in 1972.
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, Rolie 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. 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 spent 17 weeks [3] on the Billboard albums chart peaking at #133 [4] and spawned the hit singles "I've Got a Lot to Learn About Love," [5] and "Show Me the Way." [4] Despite this success, Interscope Records shelved the band's second album, which was recorded in 1993. It was finally released in 1996 on another label. In 1998, Rolie and other former members of Santana, including Neal Schon, briefly reunited as Abraxas Pool, releasing one album.
When Schon left to lead a re-formed Journey later that year, Rolie and Ron Wikso began work in 1999, on a Gregg Rolie solo CD, titled Roots, which eventually led to the forming of the Gregg Rolie Band. Besides Rolie and Wikso, Roots featured appearances by Neal Schon, Alphonso Johnson, Dave Amato, Adrian Areas, Michael Carabello. The Gregg Rolie Band saw Kurt Griffey taking over guitar duties and the addition of Wally Minko as a second keyboardist. They recorded a live CD at Sturgis called Rain Dance, which was released in 2009.
In 2010, Rolie released Five Days and subsequently formed a duo with Alan Haynes, which eventually led to the formation of the Gregg Rolie Quartet, with the addition of long time collaborator/drummer, Ron Wikso and bassist Evan "Sticky" Lopez.
From 2012 to 2021 he toured as a member of Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band performing Santana hits "Black Magic Woman", "Evil Ways" and "Everybody's Everything". [6] The band also included Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Todd Rundgren, Richard Page, Mark Rivera and Gregg Bissonette.
On February 2, 2013 Carlos Santana confirmed that he would reunite his classic lineup, most of whom played Woodstock with him in 1969. Santana said of Rolie, "I'm pretty sure Gregg's going to do it." Speaking in 2012 of such a reunion, Rolie told Radio.com "it's just a matter of putting it together and going and doing it. I would do it. I think it's a great idea. People would love it. It could be great!" [7] In 2016, as part of Santana's original line-up they released their fourth album, titled Santana IV . [8]
On February 9, 2018, Rolie reunited with Schon for a charity show at San Francisco's The Independent, benefiting North Bay Fire Relief. The group also featured former Journey drummer Deen Castronovo (who also sang some of the vocals) and bassist Marco Mendoza of The Dead Daisies. [9] [10] In 2019 Rolie reunited with Schon, Castronovo and Mendoza for four more concert dates. [11]
