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 1965, his senior year. In 1966, 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 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. He started to feel burned out by the non-stop schedule of touring, plus felt his creativity was drained, and soon announced he was leaving the band. Since his departure was amicable, he hand picked his successor,
Jonathan Cain. 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. The band also included singer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos. Prior to their inaugural tour in support of their first album, Steve Smith left the band and was replaced by Ron Wikso. Similar to his work with Santana and Journey, Rolie played keyboards and was a co-lead vocalist on several tracks of the band's first, eponymous, album, which spent 17 weeks on the
Billboard albums chart peaking at #133 and spawned the hit singles "I've Got a Lot to Learn About Love," and "Show Me the Way." 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!" In 2016, as part of Santana's original line-up they released their fourth album, titled
Santana IV. 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. In 2019 Rolie reunited with Schon, Castronovo and Mendoza for four more concert dates. ==Discography==