“I got a call – ‘I’m putting a super band together, and I want you to be one of the guitar players.’ The other guitarist was Neal Schon from Santana”: How Les Dudek joined Journey “for two hours”

Guitarist Les Dudek has lived quite a life. He appeared on two of the Allman Brothers Band's best known tracks, Ramblin' Man and Jessica, toured and recorded with Cher, recorded with Steve Miller, and soloed onstage with Mike Bloomfield (without him knowing).

In another fascinating bit of trivia, Dudek was also a member of Journey for, as he puts it, “about two hours”.

Fresh off his studio work with Miller, and live dates with Boz Scaggs, Dudek got a call from Journey's manager, Herbie Herbert.

“[Herbert] said, ‘Les, I’m putting a super band together, and I want you to be one of the guitar players,’” Dudek told Guitar World in a recent interview. “I asked him who the other guitarist was, and he said, ‘Neal Schon from Santana. Great player.’

“I went to rehearsal the next day – it was me, Neal, Ross Valory on bass, Gregg Rolie on keyboards, and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. We jammed for a couple of hours doing some cool fusion shit. It was great stuff.

“I looked at my watch because I knew I had a meeting across the street with somebody from Columbia,” Dudek continued. “I went to the meeting, and the president and vice-president of Columbia were there waiting for me. They offered me a solo deal right on the spot.

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“It’s like the best Cinderella story ever told in the music business. I went from not knowing how I was going to pay my rent to having to decide: Do I go with Journey or a solo deal with Columbia? I chose Columbia.”

Eventually, Journey's second guitar slot went to the late George Tickner, who played on the band's self-titled debut album, and co-wrote tracks on the band's second and third LPs, 1976's Look Into The Future and 1977's Next, respectively.

Similarly to Dudek, however, Tickner left the band when other opportunities presented themselves, in the latter's case a full scholarship to study medicine at Stanford.

To read Guitar World's full interview with Dudek, which covers all of the aforementioned stories from the guitarist's lengthy, checkered career, and many more, pick up the new issue of the mag at Magazines Direct.