After his departure from JOURNEY and before the forming of THE STORM, keyboarder/singer Gregg Rolie started a solo career in the mid 1980’s. Two years after his self-titled debut, he released the sophomore album “Gringo”. The album features an impressive list of guest musicians, among others Bob Marlette, Neal Schon, Dan Huff, Carlos Santana Vinnie Colaiuta. The production was handled by Richie Zito (HEART, WHITE LION, BAD ENGLISH a. o.) and David Kershenbaum (Tracy Chapman, Bryan Adams a. o.) while for the songwriting Gregg Rolie got some help from Martin Page, Peter Becket and André Pessis. It goes without saying that an album created by such professionals became a true gem! Stylistically you can shelf “Gringo” right next to Robert Tepper’s “No Easy Way Out”, VAN STEPHENSON’s “Suspicious He art” and THE ARROW’s “The Lines Are Open”. The comparison with the latter it no coincidence, since Gregg Rolie covered their hit song “Talk Talk” for “Gringo”. The legendary opener “The Hands Of Time”, the pompous “Don’t Wanna Be Alone Tonight”, the fast-paced “Too Late, Too Late”, the smooth ballad “Fire At Night” (featuring an amazing guitar solo duel between Neal Schon and Carlos Santana) and the quite poppy “I Will Get To You” are further highlights featured on “Gringo”. I am still in love with this album and in my opinion it’s a true classic. Unfortunately the AOR HEAVEN CLASSIX reissue doesn’t include any bonus tracks, but as usual it was remastered by Chris Lyne (SOUL DOCTOR) and includes some liner notes by Dave Reynolds.
