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Gregg Rolie Net Worth $10 Million

What is Gregg Rolie’s net worth?

Gregg Rolie is an icon in the music industry who has a net worth of $10 million. He’s one of the most recognizable voices of the 60s and 70s.

If you don’t know Gregg Rolie’s name, maybe you know his music—he was a founding member of legendary rock bands Santana and Journey, performed with famed Beatle Ringo Starr, and spent almost 50 years in the music industry.

Rolie has the credentials to prove his place in rock history—he scored a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame not once, but twice.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been a stalwart of the music industry for generations, and has inducted the likes of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Queen, and Bob Marley.

So what do we know about Gregg Rolie—the singer, songwriter, and voice of a generation of rock fans.

Read on to find out.

The Origin Story

@Getty

Gregg Alan Rolie was born on June 17, 1947, in Seattle, Washington.

Rolie’s family relocated to Palo Alto, California, for his high school years, and he attended Cubberley High School.

It was here that Rolie started his first band.

The band—called William Penn and His Pals—wasn’t great, but it was a start.

Like every musician, it was all about starting somewhere.

Gregg graduated from Cubberley High in 1965, and eagerly sought out his next steps.

His next steps, as it turned out, were going to launch him to superstardom.

gregg rolie married

@Getty

Love & Marriage

Gregg Rolie met his wife, Lori, when she was working as an airline stewardess in 1979.

By now, Gregg was a big star—he and his band were killing time in an airport lounge waiting for their connecting flights home when he struck up a conversation with her.

The pair didn’t waste much time getting to know each other.

By 1980 they were married, and they welcomed a son and daughter into the world not long after that.

Lori is an author and publisher of children’s books, including Meem’s Little World.

In a 2019 interview, Gregg was asked what the song Only You was inspired by—or who had inspired it.

Rolie explained that his wife said to him, “you’ve never written a song about me.”

Gregg, thinking she was joking, said that all the songs he’d written were about her, but she didn’t buy it.

To placate his wife, he said he’d write her another song—one of her very own.

And that was the song: Only You.

Gregg went on to say that the song really is the history of how the couple met, and what Lori means to her rockstar husband.

The pair live in Dripping Springs, Texas, outside of Austin—and they’ve been married for more than 40 years.

An Iconic Career

A few years after high school, Gregg was looking for a new band.

He went to an open mic night at the Fillmore music venue in San Francisco, where a young Carlos Santana happened to be playing.

Carlos Santana, Jose Areas, Mike Carabello, David Brown, Gregg Rolie, and Mike Shrieve (from left to right) – @Getty

Back then, Gregg once explained in an interview, Bill Graham (the venue’s manager) only let locals on stage.

A friend of Gregg’s tracked Santana down after the show—the iconic guitarist was working at a hamburger stand on Columbia Street.

Gregg’s friend—Tom Frasier—invited Santana to come and jam with them, and he agreed.

During the jam session, Gregg, Carlos, and Tom were getting high when the police arrived.

Carlos went to hide in a tomato patch, and Gregg followed. The pair’s bond was forged that day.

Within 6 months, Carlos and Gregg had teamed up with Danny Haro and Gus Rodriguez—drums and bass—and Michael Carabello.

Mike Shrieve arrived not long after, then Chepito and David Brown. “We just kept getting new people in,” explained Rolie.

These fresh faces are what brought about the classics rock fans know and love.

Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va, and Evil Ways were all born in those early days of Santana.

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The Journey

Eventually, Rolie went on to form a new band—Journey—alongside Santana’s guitarist Neal Schon.

Steve Perry, Steve Smith, Ross Valory, Gregg Rolie, Neal Schon (from left to right) – Getty

Rolie’s role in the band grew.

He was the keyboardist and lead vocals for Journey’s first three albums, and—in an interview decades later—Gregg revealed it was too much.

By 1978, they’d secured a new frontman—Steve Perry.

When Rolie finally left Journey in 1980, he joined Ringo Starr in his All Starr Band—and has enjoyed an impressive solo career on the side.

gregg rolie wife

Neal Schön and Gregg Rolie – @Getty

 Net Worth

Gregg earned most of his wealth from serving as the lead singer of the bands “Journey” and “Santana.”

Rolie was also part of Santana. He was inducted into the Rock Hall with Santana in 1998 and with Journey in 2017.

Therefore, Gregg Rolie has an estimated net worth of $10 million.

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Kim

Wednesday 20th of July 2022

I thought that Greg Raleigh's first wife was Garnett