As a founding member, organist and original lead vocalist of Santana and Journey, Gregg Rolie has played on stages as famous as Woodstock, the Texas and Atlanta International Pop Festivals, and San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium. Years later, he came with Texas blues guitar wonder Alan Haynes to present “An Intimate Evening with Gregg Rolie” at Poor David’s Pub in downtown Dallas. At the start of the show he mentioned that he wanted to welcome the audience into his “living room” and pointed to a microphone set up in their midst to be used for questions he would answer mid-set.

Presenting his music from Santana which normally had multiple percussionists or the music of Journey which featured sometimes three vocalists harmonizing required an adjustment in his presentation. He sat behind a Steinway baby grand instead of his more well-know Hammond B-3 and Haynes played through two small amps with three Fender Stratocaster guitars. The music had a more relaxed and bluesy style in this setting, although both Rolie and Haynes would ratchet up their performances to more classic Rock dimensions whenever the song called for it.

Rolie’s touring his “Five Days” EP which was actually recorded in his Austin living room with Haynes. It features the re-imagined “Black Magic Woman” (no timbales or congas) and “Anytime” (no way to reproduce those “stacked harmonies”) as well as Blues standards and new music.

After opening with Santana’s “Evil Ways” and Journey’s “Look into the Future”, Rolie performed “IF I Went Home” from the new EP. He said that he started the song 30 years ago before he left Journey and could never complete it. Then he looked at it again and he polished it off in 10 minutes so that was one of those rare 30 year and 10 minute writing sessions!

He also featured solo songs like “Ordinary Man” and “Con Todo Corazon” from his 2001 “Roots” album and “As the Years Go Passing By” from the 2009 Gregg Rolie Band release “Rain Dance.” Some of these songs featured a gypsy-like rhythm which Rolie attributed to his admiration of the Gypsy Kings music. Of course, exotic rhythm from the keyboardist of Santana is not unheard of.

Sparks really flew when Haynes cut loose on Blues songs like “Trouble in Mind” and “Cool Little Mama”. Rolie’s excellent piano playing and vocals also got much more pronounced on these songs. This left no doubt that Blues is at the root of Rolie’s style of music.

The guitar pyrotechnics of Carlos Santana were admirably recreated on songs like “Black Magic Woman” and the finale instrumental “Treat”. Haynes also liked to take his wireless guitar into the audience and wonder through the crowd while pulling Latin Blues licks out of it.

The Q&A session in mid concert was very open and friendly and the duo stayed after the show to do a meet and greet and autograph signing session with everyone in the audience who stayed. It was definitely a night to remember when seeing a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in such a friendly, relaxed, and yes, intimate, context.