Neal Schon

Wanted Dead Or Alive · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:30 am **Posts:** 3303

Neal Schon is one of the most underrated guitar players in rock music. He has enormous success with Journey, but his fantastic solo career often gets unnoticed. He has written some wonderful instrumental guitar pieces plus he has played some mean blues-rock.
What I like about him is his amazing tone he gets on his Les Paul...not even the highest notes sound grating and annoying.

Some of my favourite performances from his solo career:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZJ1nmsC_U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0pWjEHIaU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTX1YPT8PY8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgCTrXveC6M

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:21 pm **Posts:** 11747

Schon is a monster. Wanted, check this out immediately. The soloing starting from 3:33 is so ridiculous...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEDpSgn9 ... re=related

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:21 pm **Posts:** 11747

Wanted, check out that link!

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:21 pm **Posts:** 11747

Wanted Dead Or Alive · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:30 am **Posts:** 3303

Yeah, early Schon plays with lots of fire. You can clearly see the Santana influence there...and his tone is fantastic.

The Seeker · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:53 am **Posts:** 810

Neal is a fine, fine player no doubt, but I find his solo material a bit patchy. I like the heavier funkier sound of Soul Sirkus and I like IonU in parts but certainly Voice is one of the most banal and ill-conceived albums ever released.

Wanted Dead Or Alive · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:30 am **Posts:** 3303

IonU is one of his weaker albums IMO, his best ones are Late Nite and Beyond The Thunder. I don't mind The Voice, sometimes I enjoy it because of how ace his tone is...of course the artistic value of that album is 0, but it doesn't really sound bad.

rockvirtuoso · **Joined:** Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:36 pm **Posts:** 2361

The Seeker wrote:

but certainly Voice is one of the most banal and ill-conceived albums ever released.

theres no doubt about that, im surprised anyone stumped up the cash for its production

boo boo · **Joined:** Mon Oct 11, 2010 7:36 pm **Posts:** 10835

An avid Journey hater for a long time, I've warmed up to them a bit lately. :oops:

And I've definitely noticed that Schon's solos are my favorite part of any given Journey song. A pretty great player. But naturally his work with Santana is much more up my alley.

Timi · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 8:50 am

Schon's playing is one of Journey's biggest strenghts IMO. One of my favourite solos by him is found in Michael Bolton's "(Sittin' in) The Dock of the Bay" (Yeah, yeah...), fantastic playing there.

Wanted Dead Or Alive · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:30 am **Posts:** 3303

What is truly great about Schon is his tone, he has the best heavy-distorted tone in all music, his high pitched notes don't sound annoying at all! And I think his playing has only improved over the years and his guitar work in new Journey is much more dominant than in the Perry era. One of my faves is an instrumental from 2008, take a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXOeoiPhCJE

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 5:21 pm **Posts:** 11747

That was very Jeff Beck-ish, his vibrato is just amazin'.

Wanted Dead Or Alive · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:30 am **Posts:** 3303

Yep, he just sounds fantastic on those longer notes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbHdQza83cA - An instrumental from the new album

jfauser · **Posted:** Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:17 pm

You guys are making me reconsider buying tickets to go see them. Neal used to be my hero.

Sodacake · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:56 am

Neal is a pretty awesome player.

Neal Schon

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