Thank you Tony, my bud for allowing me to use your pictures on the site.
Hollywood Walk of Fame, January 21st, 2005 Honors Journey
Mayor of Hollywood
And now ladies and gentlemen, representing Journey, I know you'll want to to give an enthusiastic welcome to the microphone to Neal Schon and Ross Valory.
Neal Schon:
Thank you, how you doing out there? Who could ever have imagined that we would be standing here this many years later receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wow. In 1970, I joined the band, Santana, and , ah, during that duration, I met a wonderful gentleman by the name of Walter Herbert, Herbie Herbert and when the band folded in '72, ah, Herbie approached me about starting a band, wanted to manage me and that was the beginning of Journey. It was,ah, Greg Rolie, myself, Ross Valory, George Tinker and Ansley Dunbar. And who would know, right now that it would go on for so long and we'd have such a wonderful, long ride with so many great fans.
I wanna thank our fan club for working real hard for getting this star here and getting us in here. You guys are the greatest. I wanna thank my family, my mother, my wife, my children, Miles, Lizzy, Sara and Aja for all their love and support. And lastly but not least, I wanna thank you fans, you guys are the greatest - every body knows Journey fans are the greatest in the world. Thank you very much. Like to introduce to you, Ross Valory.
Ross Valory:
Humina, humina,humina, humina, chef of the future. I think I'm actually nervous for the first time but I'll get over it. It's hard not to repeat or to reiterate what Neal has said but it must be done. First of all, why did we have Ross and Neal up here out of all the people that deserve to be saying something. I guess it has to do with the fact that he and I are the only, ah, original members that are remaining in the band. Don't struggle too much with the math but Neal and I have been working for 32 years, 33 years, um, anyhow, um, I would like to repeat that the fans, the Journey fan club, and Journey past and present, is responsible for this event in entirety. Ah, there are many members of the band, formerly, that are not here and many that are, which we're very happy to see a very big turn out. And for those who are not here, we ah, show them respect and honor them, Herbie Herbert, Prairie Prince, Greg Rolie. Have I forgotten anybody, that's it, that's it. But last but not least we want to thank you all personally again and of course, another thank you to ASOF Management, and to my family and to my wife, Mary. Not that I'm going to hold my breath or lose any sleep over it but I'm just wondering when they're going to wake up in Cleveland. And now ladies and gentlemen, I have a special surprise for you, I think Mr. Steve Perry would like to say something.
Steve Perry:
Thank you, Thank you. I owe you all money, I owe you all money alright. I'd like to, ah, I'd like to thank you all for coming today too and there's some people I would really be remiss if I didn't thank that are responsible for this and I really want to mention the unsung heroes that for the bulk of the time that I was in the band, we had a road crew that just busted their a** every single night, every night and they would, they would set up the show, we'd look good, I guess we looked good (laughs)and then they would tear it down and they would just roll to the next night so we could rock again, ya know, so they really are the unsung heroes and they, they have a piece of this today and I'd like to also thank the fan club that was majorly important in Journey in the beginning, Fan Asylum, with Tim McQuaid as the owner, Lora Beard and Cyndy Poon. Very, very instrumental people that you, most of you do know, ya know.
And, there's one guy that, we had our ins and outs but, you know, who don't right? But, this guy, if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have been in the band at all. Ah, this guy did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. He literally would bring stages to us and light configurations and bigger sound systems and "whatdya think, whatdya think?" The guys, we'd all throw this around and we'd come up with ideas, and I just want you to know that for the bulk of the time that I was in the band, if it wasn't for Herbie Herbert this wouldn't be happening. Now this, I, I had the most amazing pleasure to join a band that was already in existence with some of the finest musicians that were ever going on at that time. There was nobody better. Ansley Dunbar was playing drums when I joined the band, ya know, Ross Valory was playing bass, Greg Rolie was lead singer, keyboard player and Neal Schon was magic fingers guitar, ya know, and then it evolved and all of a sudden in came Steve Smith on drums extraordinare, ya know, and Jonathan Cain, songwriter, singer, keyboardist, ya know, and magic fingers, Neal Schon on guitar. (laughs) So, I must say that I've had, I had an extraordinary experience being in the band. It's been the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me and, um, and lastly, very lastly, I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, you can have, you can have all the stuff that we knew it took from management with a crew and the best players, but without you, you don't have sh**. (laughs) Ok, so this star really belongs to you and I wanna thank you for making it happen. Thank you.
Mayor of Hollywood:
Frankly, I, I have something here. (Steve)You lost your wind screen there, oh my goodness, I, I've had some experience with these before. (Mayor) I'm glad you did that. I couldn't get up. (Hear the crowd singing Happy Birthday to Steve) Hold it, hold it, I have one more honor. This is from the City of Los Angeles. Ok, I'm not going to read the whole thing because mostly, most of it has been said. This,ah, is a proclamation for the City of Los Angeles, ah, instigated by Counsel man Eric Garsetti and signed by mayor, actually, everybody on the city counsel signed this and that is rare because those guys don't agree on anything and here it is and here is what it says.
"Now therefore be it resolved, that by the adoption of this resolution, the City Counsel along with the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, hereby, congratulate Journey on their 30th anniversary and on this special occasion of receiving their star on the world famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. And ladies and gentleman, as the mayor of Hollywood, I proclaim this, "Journey Day" in Hollywood."
Special thanks to Theresa for transcribing this for Perryville!!
