Wheel in the Sky - Original Demo with Fleischman

[Eric]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arPHu9ksDzo

Apologies if this has been posted previously.

[cinkidd]

Like the Perry version MUCH more.

[scarab]

woud have been interesting to hear a finished version, the demo does not sound very good.
I wonder if "all for you" is the only radio quality song they finsished?

[The_Noble_Cause]

Love how Robert screams Led Zepplin-style compared to Perry's crooning. A poster on YouTube claiming to be Robert's brother says:
"Well….. it just so happens that I am Roberts brother. (won't take much research to find this to be the truth.) There is much you don't know about what went on back in those days but I will tell you this….. As a kid I used to watch/hear my brother playing and singing Wheel in the Sky on the piano many many years before he had ever even heard of Journey. He wrote it. He didn't co write it. That goes for the other two songs as well. (Winds of March and Anytime)"

[Final Frontiers]

Love how Robert screams Led Zepplin-style compared to Perry's crooning. A poster on YouTube claiming to be Robert's brother says:
"Well….. it just so happens that I am Roberts brother. (won't take much research to find this to be the truth.) There is much you don't know about what went on back in those days but I will tell you this….. As a kid I used to watch/hear my brother playing and singing Wheel in the Sky on the piano many many years before he had ever even heard of Journey. He wrote it. He didn't co write it. That goes for the other two songs as well. (Winds of March and Anytime)"

LRI: You toured for a stretch with Journey in the late 70s and wrote several iconic songs including Wheel in the Sky and Anytime. Realizing it was a lifetime ago, do you recall any of the lyrical or musical birthing processes of those seminal tracks?

RF: Sure, I wrote “Anytime” with Gregg Rollie. After rehearsals one day at his home,
He had a beautiful white piano there, he started playing what was to be “Anytime” and I started singing the melody. Soon the lyrics started coming, we grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it in 15 minutes, Later, Gregg told me he had written the music with some friends of his, so if you look at the music credits there is a whole list of people on it. ”Wheel in The Sky” happened differently, everyone in the band was giving me lyrics, asking me if I could do anything with them, one day Ross Valory came in with a poem that his wife wrote. I wasn’t having much luck with everyone else lyrical ideas so I felt very obligated to make something happen, I didn’t care for the poem but there was a line in it, “the wheels in my mind keep on turning”, so I changed it to “wheel in the sky keeps on turning, don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow” and wrote the rest of the lyrics, never got to finish the song the way that I envisioned it though. I wanted the song to have a bridge in it, which I wrote, just before the solo…



http://www.legendaryrockinterviews.com/ ... n-the-sky/



It's not impossible that Robert repurposed the rest of "Wheel In The Sky" from an older idea. He's never mentioned it before though. You Tube comments need to be taken with a grain of salt. Robert's own words say that he wrote "Anytime" in 15 minutes with Gregg Rolie at his house.

Oh Journey, you and your revisionist history whether it's the writing of "Lights", "Wheel In The Sky", or the timing-intention of hiring Chalfant- you just keep unfolding like a flower.

And I also found this interesting so I'm throwing it in. It's from the same interview.




LRI: You maintained good relationships with the JOURNEY guys over the years and were invited to the Rock Walk of Fame ceremony. How close of friends were you guys during those early years and how much of an effect has the band or your experience blessed you over the years?

RF: I would like to say we are close, we spent a lot of time traveling together,
creating music together and recording. When they would come in to Los Angeles I’d always go to see them play, out of all of them I stayed more in touch with Ross. We talk on the phone or text. The Hollywood Walk of Fame gathering was very, very nice.
It was definitely a family reunion, and I was deeply touched to be asked to participate, after the ceremony the band was going to play at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. During the sound check, Neal (Schon, guitarist) told me he wanted me to come up and sing “Wheel in the Sky”, and later that night they introduced me and I went on stage to sing it. That was the first time I had been on stage in a long time, I realized how much I missed it, and soon after I had the bug and had to put together my own band… THE SKY

[ebake02]

I can definitely see some potential in this, I bet the finished product would sound pretty decent

[Enigma869]

What a shit show! More ammunition for the "Journey existed before Perry" crowd! Right. Sure they did! I'm not sure you could find a more compelling piece of audio to hammer home the point that the voice mattered, and it mattered a lot. Schon's guitar riffs were still there in this audio, and yet it sounded NOTHING like the "Journey" that I grew up listening to!

[Pacfanweb]

What a shit show! More ammunition for the "Journey existed before Perry" crowd! Right. Sure they did! I'm not sure you could find a more compelling piece of audio to hammer home the point that the voice mattered, and it mattered a lot. Schon's guitar riffs were still there in this audio, and yet it sounded NOTHING like the "Journey" that I grew up listening to!

Yep. IMO, Journey would be just another forgotten (or never known-about) 70's band if this was the direction they continued.

This proves to me that there are plenty of singers with amazing vocal abilities, but a select few are just so much better at using them.

[The_Noble_Cause]

What a shit show! More ammunition for the "Journey existed before Perry" crowd! Right. Sure they did! I'm not sure you could find a more compelling piece of audio to hammer home the point that the voice mattered, and it mattered a lot. Schon's guitar riffs were still there in this audio, and yet it sounded NOTHING like the "Journey" that I grew up listening to!

How is it remotely a shit show? Robert had a good rock tenor voice. Unlike Perry, Robert wasn't emulating Sam Cooke. With Herbie behind them, who knows what may have happened. You talk as if Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon are a bunch of talentless nobodies that hit the Perry lottery. I think this demo sounds pretty close to the final version.

[JohnH]

The song sounded ok. But, Perry just had the magic. It's his tone, soul, touch, feel, vibrato, songwriting, range without screaming, he was untouchable. Like Michael Schumacher at Ferrari , nobody there has come close to him before or since.

[Enigma869]

How is it remotely a shit show? Robert had a good rock tenor voice. Unlike Perry, Robert wasn't emulating Sam Cooke. With Herbie behind them, who knows what may have happened. You talk as if Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon are a bunch of talentless nobodies that hit the Perry lottery. I think this demo sounds pretty close to the final version.

To my ears, it's a shit show. Fleishchman trying to sceam certain parts of the song just didn't work, AT ALL! By the way, Schon absolutely did hit the Perry lottery, and I think he'd even admit (grudgingly) to that if you gave him truth serum! I don't care how talented Schon is as a guitar player. I'm telling you that without Perry's voice, "Journey" doesn't have 1% of the success that they ultimately had. That doesn't mean that Schon wouldn't have landed in another band or jammed his way into old age, playing in nameless clubs with the guys he was with. I'm just telling you that Fleishchman wasn't bringing them ANY commercial success with that voice and style, and I don't need any more proof beyond that Fleishchman didn't and Perry did! It's also worth mentioning that those in the music industry listened to Fleischman's voice, and came away with the very same conclusion!

[Eric]

I can definitely see some potential in this, I bet the finished product would sound pretty decent

I agree. VERY hard to hear this song in another way (especially just in demo format) but there is some cool stuff going on...and you can definitely hear that Journey was finding their way here.

[The_Noble_Cause]

To my ears, it's a shit show. Fleishchman trying to sceam certain parts of the song just didn't work, AT ALL! By the way, Schon absolutely did hit the Perry lottery, and I think he'd even admit (grudgingly) to that if you gave him truth serum! I don't care how talented Schon is as a guitar player. I'm telling you that without Perry's voice, "Journey" doesn't have 1% of the success that they ultimately had. That doesn't mean that Schon wouldn't have landed in another band or jammed his way into old age, playing in nameless clubs with the guys he was with. I'm just telling you that Fleishchman wasn't bringing them ANY commercial success with that voice and style, and I don't need any more proof beyond that Fleishchman didn't and Perry did! It's also worth mentioning that those in the music industry listened to Fleischman's voice, and came away with the very same conclusion!

Considering that Robert was replaced before Infinity was recorded, there is no way of knowing this. Robert has had moderate success in the industry with or without Journey. The band didn't become HUGE until Cain joined anyway.

[Enigma869]

Considering that Robert was replaced before Infinity was recorded, there is no way of knowing this. Robert has had moderate success in the industry with or without Journey. The band didn't become HUGE until Cain joined anyway.

I guess it all depends upon how you're defining "moderate success"

As for Cain, I would NEVER minimize his role in Journey. For me, he was more significant than Schon (and yes, I mean that). Cain was a SUPERB song writer who completely understood what people wanted to hear (Schon didn't have a clue in this area). I also think that Cain and Perry together had a once in a lifetime magic, when it came to songwriting. In terms of the "Huge" thing...who knows. They were well on their way, and absolutely were having commercial success with Infinity and Evolution. Again, I would never minimize Cain's role within the band, because he was VERY significant. I just know that this band had ZERO success, before Perry's voice became part of the equation. For those who liked Fleischman's rendition of "Wheel In The Sky", more power to you. I listened to it more than once, and it's AWFUL to my ears!

[The_Noble_Cause]

Considering that Robert was replaced before Infinity was recorded, there is no way of knowing this. Robert has had moderate success in the industry with or without Journey. The band didn't become HUGE until Cain joined anyway.

I guess it all depends upon how you're defining "moderate success"

As for Cain, I would NEVER minimize his role in Journey. For me, he was more significant than Schon (and yes, I mean that). Cain was a SUPERB song writer who completely understood what people wanted to hear (Schon didn't have a clue in this area). I also think that Cain and Perry together had a once in a lifetime magic, when it came to songwriting. In terms of the "Huge" thing...who knows. They were well on their way, and absolutely were having commercial success with Infinity and Evolution. Again, I would never minimize Cain's role within the band, because he was VERY significant. I just know that this band had ZERO success, before Perry's voice became part of the equation. For those who liked Fleischman's rendition of "Wheel In The Sky", more power to you. I listened to it more than once, and it's AWFUL to my ears!

Well, it's clearly not Perry. Perry is one of a kind. But I liked Robert's take on it.