He’s arguably the Valley’s best claim to rock & roll royalty. And his music career began in Kings and Tulare Counties. The story of Journey’s lead singer, Steve Perry, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
He was a small-town boy, born in Hanford in 1949 to a Portuguese-American family. His father Ray Perry was a part-time big band singer and co-owner of the local AM radio station KNGS. His parents divorced when he was seven, and Steve went to live with his mother Mary Quaresma in Lemoore. His life took a turn when he heard Sam Cooke’s song Cupid on the radio. Cooke’s soulful sound was an inspiration for the young Kings County tenor. As a teen at Lemoore High School, Perry played in various bands as a drummer and singer. He later attended the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, where he took band, choir and speech classes and began to focus on his distinctive voice.
He struggled to get a foothold on his music career in his early 20s, never quite hitting the big time. His big break came in 1977, when established San Francisco band Journey was looking for a new lead singer. The combination was magic. Between 1978 and 1987, Journey turned out massive hits like Don’t Stop Believin', Who’s Crying Now, Lights, and Anyway You Want It. Perry walked away from the band in 1987, but not before releasing the album Raised On Radio. Its cover depicts a stylized interpretation of the KNGS radio station, which still stands on Highway 198 to this day.
