Journey and Friends - Super Jam II, The Automatt Studio, San Francisco, CA, 10-1-1978

I'm kind of surprised that I'm posting a Journey album, because I'm not much of a Journey fan. I sing along to their hits when I hear them on the radio, but that's about it. But I stumbled across this bootleg the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. The interesting thing about it is that it mostly consists of covers of classic soul and rock songs. The first two songs are Journey originals, and the last two are as well, but in between are no less than eight cover songs in a row. I never thought I'd hear Journey do songs like "Hold On, I'm Coming," "Crossroads," and "Born Under a Bad Sign," much less more obscure ones like "Show Me" by Joe Tex.

Adding to the interest, there are some special guests singing on some songs. I suppose I should first explain what exactly this is. Apparently, in 1978, the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show got the idea of doing special shows featuring different musical acts performing with each other. The first one of these was called "Super Jam," and consisted of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing with some other Southern rock stars. (Some band members had died in a plane crash in 1977). 

This was the second one, Super Jam II. Journey was the main band for all the songs. However, they were joined on some songs by the Tower of Power horn section for songs that needed horns, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Road Runner." Two singers from the band Stoneground also took part, Annie Sampson and Jo Baker. Sampson sang lead vocals on "Road Runner" (originally by Junior Walker and the All-Stars), and Baker sang lead on "Love Hurts." They stuck around and sang on most of the other songs as well. For instance, on the song "People Get Ready" Journey's main vocalist Steve Perry sang lead on the first verse, Sampson took the second verse, and Baker did the third verse.

They were also joined by Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers. He was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist in the band's early years, writing and singing many of their biggest hits. But he left the group in 1977, about a year prior to this performance. He pursued a solo career for a few years, but didn't have much success, and rejoined the Doobie Brothers in the late 1980s. Johnston joined this concert from "Hold On, I'm Coming" onwards. At first, he just played lead guitar, along with Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon, trading solos. But he sang lead vocals on "Show Me" and "Crossroads."

Surprisingly, Journey started out as kind of a prog rock band, as well as a splinter band from Santana. The original lead vocalist, Gregg Rolie, was the lead vocalist for Santana's first four albums. Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon had played in Santana with Rolie. But while Rolie was the lead vocalist for Journey's first couple of albums, they didn't find much success. In 1978, Steve Perry joined, and he took over singing most of the songs. The band also switched to a more commercial sound, and soon gained massive popularity. 

This concert took place at a transitional time, with Perry being in the band less than a year. Two of the songs were actually mainly sung by Rolie: "Anytime" and "Born Under a Bad Sign." He stayed with the band until 1980. They he amicably quit, saying he wanted to start a family and explore a solo career. So while there are a couple of famous Journey originals here ("Lights" and "Wheel in the Sky"), overall, this is pretty different from how they would sound a few years later.

This performance took place in a recording studio, with no audience present. It was supposed to be broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, but apparently that never happened, due to legal problems getting permission for all the special guest participation. But it leaked out as a bootleg that sounds as good as a commercial release. The only song to be officially released from this is "Good Times" (a Sam Cooke cover), which appeared on a Journey box set.

There's some banter between songs, all spoken by Perry, but it sounds like this was overdubbed afterwards. On the version I found, there often was some music playing in the background at a low level while he was talking. I found this pointless and distracting, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of most of it. However, on track 3, there's the voice of someone faintly singing while he's talking, and I couldn't manage to get rid of that.

By the way, if there was a "Super Jam III" or beyond, I haven't heard of it.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Feeling That Way (Journey & Friends)
02 Anytime (Journey & Friends)
03 talk (Journey & Friends)
04 Road Runner (Journey & Friends)
05 talk (Journey & Friends)
06 Love Hurts (Journey & Friends)
07 talk (Journey & Friends)
08 Hold On, I'm Coming (Journey & Friends)
09 talk (Journey & Friends)
10 People Get Ready (Journey & Friends)
11 talk (Journey & Friends)
12 Show Me (Journey & Friends)
13 Crossroads (Journey & Friends)
14 Born Under a Bad Sign (Journey & Friends)
15 talk (Journey & Friends)
16 Good Times (Journey & Friends)
17 Lights (Journey & Friends)
18 talk (Journey & Friends)
19 Wheel in the Sky (Journey & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17258187/JORNY1978SuprJmIIThAutmttStdoSnFrncscoCA__10-1-1978_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Bq5hLjEN

I used a photo of the band from 1979, since they had a different drummer for almost all of 1978. This is from an appearance on "The Midnight Special" TV show.