It's one thing to regard an elderly celebrity or acknowledge when one passes, but it takes a lifetime of fandom — or at least of frequent regard — to really appreciate the contribution to your life a certain person has had, and the effect you experience when that person is revealed to be, simply, human.
These thoughts crept up on me during a recent concert I attended by the Temptations and the Four Tops. I was a big fan of neither group growing up, but each group had several hits that crossed over into the world of music that reached me during my childhood and teen years. Each group now has only one surviving original member; Otis Williams of the Temptations is 77, and Abdul "Duke" Fakir of Four Tops is 83. With younger, more agile talent keeping each group moving, it was a delightful show.
Perhaps it is just a middle-age thing, but I found myself fascinated and somewhat saddened by these old dudes up on the stage. Immensely talented and immeasurably fortunate, they chased and captured fortune and fame through their lives, but they couldn't outrun time. I found myself regretting that I hadn't followed their careers more closely.
But that got me to thinking about careers I did follow. One in particular is that of Steve Perry, most famously the lead singer of the rock band, Journey. I suppose I didn't so much follow his career so much as I was acutely aware of it because I am such a fan.
I didn't know much about Journey before 1981, when their album of that year, Escape, caught my attention. All I knew about them was their hit songs that had been played on local radio for only the whole of my teen years to that point. What I didn't realize was that, despite being a band since the early 1970s, they weren't a phenomenon until Mr. Perry came along in 1978 and gave them lyrical and vocal prominence. Of course, also little to my knowledge, I became a true fan of Journey just about at the peak of their fame, and about the middle point of Steve Perry's musical arc.
I wasn't much into music as a teen. Perhaps the only record I owned outright, the only record I listened to in my childhood that hadn't been handed down from my older siblings, was "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen, which I had purchased on 45 rpm single in 1975, when it was still in regular rotation on the local radio stations. I was 11 years old. Then, in my junior and senior years in high school, popular music truly started speaking to me. I remember asking for — and receiving — three distinctive albums for Christmas, 1981: Dream Police, by Cheap Trick; Permanent Waves by Rush; and Journey's Escape. Mixed in during that time was access to my siblings' handed down albums for already classic rock standards, and my formal introduction to/discovery of the Beatles.
After that, the first group I followed was Journey. In 1983 I breathlessly awaited the release of their new album, Frontiers. When my favorite radio station, after having played their new single, "Separate Ways...Worlds Apart" from Frontiers, for weeks on the radio, switched without mention to the album version of the song, which has a longer vocal/instrumental interlude after the last verse, I had a fan-girl type meltdown!
While in the US Air Force and earning my own money, I back-collected their offerings from their beginnings as an off-shoot from Santana (singer/keyboardist Gregg Rolie; guitarist Neal Schon), and into the Steve Perry era, connecting the dots to Escape.
With the entire library in my possession, I noticed between Departure and Frontiers a gradual deterioration in the overall quality of Perry's voice, and a distinct reduction in, if not his vocal range, then his willingness to go there.
I was a reluctant fan of Steve Perry's 1984 solo album, Street Talk. Reluctant because, shouldn't Steve be working on the next Journey album? Fan, because, dammit, there were some good songs on that album!
Then, in 1986, Journey released Raised On Radio. Indicated by the title, alone, there was trouble. It broke from their long tradition of one-word, themed album titles, certainly since the beginning of the Perry era: Infinity (1978), Evolution (1979), Departure (1980), Escape, Frontiers. Perry's voice was yet more scratchy, and gone altogether were the stratospheric high notes for which he was famous. Then, in the album liner notes, there was the photo of the band: Perry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and Schon, the only original member of what had always been a 5-man group. The list of credits for each song revealed the other longtime members abandoning ship and being replaced by studio musicians during the creation of the album. And it sounded more like a Steve Perry album than Journey.
And then there was silence. Behind the scenes there was turmoil and personal strife between the members. Publicly, there were rumors: "Steve Perry has throat cancer" had the strongest legs and persisted for a long time.
And then, 1995 brought Trial By Fire, the first Journey album in nine years! Perry's voice sounded even worse. But, the more-than-one-word title aside, the new album heralded to me the long-awaited return of Journey to the radio, to the arena, to rock and roll prominence.
They officially broke up shortly after the album's release.
And that was the last anyone, for the most part, heard of Steve Perry.
Until 2017.
The internet went abuzz when Perry made a surprise appearance with a band called The Eels at a small Minneapolis, Minnesota, venue. Performing in the band's encore, Perry sang an Eels song, and then two Journey standards, "Lights," and "Don't Stop Believin'." It was his first stage appearance anywhere in 25 years.
In 2018, Journey was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Perry spoke on behalf of the band in their acceptance, but declined to perform with them out of respect for their current lead singer, of whom he spoke glowingly in recorded interviews after the ceremony. Then, later in the year, he surprised the music world by releasing a new solo album, Traces, written in the aftermath of the death of his girlfriend, who had succumbed to cancer.
In the collection of mostly mellow, reflective tunes, Perry, now age 70, retains the classic tone of his voice, but it is clearly tattered from the overuse and abuse in his heyday, and from lack of use after he stepped away from the business in the 1990s, not to mention his age.
Seventy years old. As I have mentioned in this blog before, celebrities who step away from — or who are otherwise shunned by — the spotlight don't age in my mind, so when one whose voice still rings pure in my memory and every time I spin one of his old tunes appears suddenly old, it is quite a shock, as it is often just hearing one's current age.
In moments such as these, I'm filled with a melancholy that's hard to shake. Is it their glory years I mourn, or my own? Will their music — or anyone's music, for that matter — ever make me feel like I did that day Frontiers was released?
I felt a brief spark when I learned of, and downloaded, and listened to Traces because I am still a fan, after all, but nothing was ignited.
Maybe it's maturity, or maybe it's just the result of getting old: there are a few sparks, even fewer fires, but, mainly, a general, warm melancholy.
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