Neal Schon's Guitar Outshines His Journey

When guitars begin to talk what then becomes the Poet's message? Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana have either hired or led bands that feature vocalists holding down the pages connected to a Poet's writing instrument. What if Jimi Hendrix had never sang? Did he really need to? Would Prince find his name higher in the books of Guitar History if what he had chosen to let his fingers carry the vocal ranges? Duane Allman, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton and even George Harrison earned the right to write but might it have been more Mozart like if they'd not said anything? Neal Schon has finally released a collection of bad ass, ripped from the balls, G. licks that make total sense if what you makes you addicted to music are the five finger discounts that steals from your Rock driven soul. His most recent tour with Journey fan saw the perfect portrait of Carlos Santana in the way that Neal kept his steps in the back field allowing everybody but him be the lime in the light of success. It's not the first time a member of Journey has attempted to smoke a wad of solo-ism. Steve Perry stepped out and into Adult Contemporary Radio and never came back. Jonathan Cain all decked out in Jazz visualized life as a solo pianist while Randy Jackson with music's biggest bass guitar got all Hollywood glamorous on American Idol. Neal's first release The Calling instantly lets the air out of your passion for Steven Vai... some say it reminds them of Angus Young from AC/DC but nowhere does it come close to the true master Stevie Ray Vaughn. And yet if you knew the unspoken story of Neal Schon and where he traveled before formulating San Francisco's greatest 80's band...each bent note, mellow dramatic drag across perfectly tuned strings enhances the distance of how far music can be thrown without ever leaving a studio. IMDB.com paints a truer portrait of music's forgotten warriors... He was a guitarist in Carlos Santana's band Santana during its first commercial peak in the 60s, and played on the hits "Black Magic Woman" and "Oye Como Va" Journey was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6750 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Was invited by Eric Clapton to join Derek and the Dominoes. However, he was advised against it by Carlos Santana when rumors of Clapton's heroin abuse surfaced. Personal Quotes With radio being in the state it is, I don't really feel the need to make a whole record just for that, and be looking at my watch saying, Okay, this guitar solo has been playing for ten seconds, that's enough. (In 2011) A lot of the stuff we've done since the eighties was slower, and with Faithfully or Open Arms or whatever, those songs are embedded in stone and people expect to hear them live... if they don't, they're gonna be pissed and throw shit at you. With this album, I wanted to write grooves that we don't have in our show, and not just make a new Separate Ways or Stone In Love. Once you've written it once, it's easy to repeat it - just move the chords around. It's really simple to do that, but at this point, I don't see the purpose of it. (On the "Eclipse" album) The Sacramento Bee writes: Produced by, and featuring, Schon on all guitars and bass, The Calling reunites Schon with former Journey band mate, Steve Smith, who lends his virtuoso drum talents to all 12 tracks on the new album and GRAMMY Award-winning special guest Jan Hammer (Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra,) recorded Moog synthesizer solos on two tracks – Fifty Six and Tumbleweeds. Igor Len, an accomplished classical, jazz and film composer who had previously collaborated with Schon, is featured on acoustic piano throughout The Calling album. Recorded at Berkeley's famed Fantasy Studios during a break from Journey's busy touring schedule, Neal recorded the album completely from scratch in just four days. Neal once again teamed up with Dan Barnett (Journey: Live In Manila) to produce the video for the first single and title track from The Calling, filmed entirely in San Francisco and Marin County. The long-form video is available now at iTunes. See the video