Topic: Riff-In-A-Jiff
In 1977, San Francisco band Journey were at a transitional point in their career. After three albums, no breakthrough success had yet come. The band, which previously hadn't had a bona fide frontman, then added lead vocalist Robert Fleischman and opted for a more commercial sound. But the new vocalist's stay in the band would turn out to be relatively brief. Within a year he had been replaced by vocalist Steve Perry.With the addition of Perry, Journey found the winning combination they had been looking for. Their fourth studio album, Infinity (1978), was a huge hit, achieving triple platinum status in the US. The first single, "Wheel In the Sky", proved to be Fleischman's most notable legacy to Journey; he had written the song with guitarist Neal Schon and bassist Ross Valory during his tenure in the band. "Wheel" reached #57 on the Billboard chart, and Journey went on to have eighteen Top 40 singles, ten of them being Top 10 Hits.
Tabbed here is the Intro. One playing note regarding the final four bars: This part consists of a combination of a strummed D5 chord and individually played bass notes. The most efficient way to play this part is to fret the D5 chord with your index and ring fingers, and fret the bass notes with your middle finger. By using this fingering, you can continue to hold the chord while playing the bass notes.
JOURNEY - "Wheel In the Sky" (N. Schon/R. Valory/R. Fleischman)
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/varriffs.txt
Audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odaxks_ihYg
Live version with a good view of Neal Schon playing this Intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_izfiVS-sXM
Updated: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 5:24 PM EST
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This one took awhile, but now "the Douce is loose". "Mama Let Him Play" -- Jerry Doucette's most succesful single -- was drawn from his 1978 debut album of the same name (pictured). The disc was recorded for the ill-fated Mushroom Records, (whose roster also included Chilliwack and Heart). It rapidly achieved platinum status in Canada, and in 1979 Doucette landed the Juno Award for Most Promising Group. The follow-up album The Douce Is Loose (1979) went gold in Canada.
Mad Mad World (1991) was Tom Cochrane's first solo album after his departure from Red Rider. From that album came his most successful single, "Life Is A Highway". The single gave him a runaway #1 hit in Canada, reached #6 on the US Hot 100, and was successful worldwide. The album achieved rare 'diamond' status in Canada, for sales of over one million, and it also sold two million internationally. All of this netted Cochrane four Juno Awards in 1992, for Album Of the Year, Songwriter Of the Year, Male Vocalist Of the Year, and Song Of the Year for "Life Is A Highway". Added to this were three other awards from songwriters'/publishers' associations (SOCAN and ASCAP).
A few days ago when posting a Coney Hatch tab, I wrote about how Kim Mitchell had played a key role in helping the band in their early days. It got me thinking: guess who hasn't been done in the riffs section yet? If you guessed Kim Mitchell, you just might be smarter than a 5th grader. (No guarantees, though.
We go into the request file for this tab, Coney Hatch's "Devil's Deck". The big break for this Toronto band came in 1981 when (Max Webster lyricist) Pye Dubois caught one of their local club shows. He introduced them to Kim Mitchell, who first worked with the band to further hone their sound, and was then instrumental in getting them signed to Anthem Records, the label that was also home to both Mitchell and Rush.