Come sail away with Jimmy Leahey, guitarist for Dennis DeYoung. He’s playing at two Lehigh Valley shows. (original) (raw)

The first time Jimmy Leahey played guitar on stage in the band of Dennis DeYoung, former lead singer and keyboardist of Styx, he began tearing up.

He was performing at a rib festival in Illinois, and the song was the six-minute rock power ballad “Come Sail Away.” Thousands of people in the audience held up lighters and cell phones, bobbing along with the music.

The song hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978, and has remained a staple of pop culture. It has appeared in television shows including “South Park” and “Community” and for many, it brings back memories.

Leahey, of Stewartsville, N.J., says he was emotionally moved as he strummed the song “because it was such an anthem back in the day.”

Leahey is still a guitarist in DeYoung’s band, and joins him on Saturday at the Sands Bethlehem Event Center, where DeYoung performs his “The Grand Illusion 40th Anniversary Album Tour.” DeYoung has also had success as a solo artist. “Desert Moon,” a song on his 1984 album, reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Leahey also has his own group — the Jimmy Leahey Trio — featuring Leahey, bassist Scott Ward and drummer Don Plowman. It plays classic rock songs and is scheduled to perform March 29 at Rivals Sports Bar in Easton. Plowman also drums for the Craig Thatcher Band, a Lehigh Valley blues/rock group, and Ward plays bass for the Lehigh Valley’s Dana Gaynor Band.

A long career precedes Leahey’s first performance with DeYoung.

Music runs in Leahey’s family. His father was the late Harry Leahey, a jazz guitarist who played with musicians such as renowned saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and Poconos jazz icon Phil Woods.

Among other records, he was on Woods’ Grammy Award-winning 1977 album “Live from the Showboat.”

“My father, obviously, was larger than life to me, so I pursued jazz for most of my young years,” says Leahey in a phone interview from Ward’s home studio in New Jersey.

Growing up in North Plainfield, N.J., Leahey took up guitar when he was 7 years old. His father taught him guitar until Leahey graduated from high school. Leahey always knew he wanted to be a professional musician.

“I never thought of anything else in my entire life,” he says.

While other high school students his age were listening to the rock music of the 1970s, Leahey was digging into jazz guitarists Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin and Wes Montgomery.

Despite his focus on jazz, Leahey formed a band with two friends from high school that covered songs by groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Eagles. He says they still occasionally get together to play gigs.

After graduating from high school in 1981, Leahey began studying with a jazz guitarist named Ted Dunbar while gigging at bars in New Jersey and New York City. Leahey also taught private guitar lessons and began teaching in parochial schools in New Jersey.

Eventually, he met a musician named Glen Burtnik and played in his band for several years. Burtnik has a writing credit on Patty Smyth’s hit song “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough,” but perhaps his highest profile act was taking Tommy Shaw’s spot as Styx’s guitarist in the early 1990s.

Burtnik was not the person who introduced Leahey to DeYoung. But Leahey did meet John Waite, known for his hit song “Missing You,” through Burtnik. Waite needed a guitarist for his band, and Leahey got the job.

At the time, Leahey says he was employed at Rutgers University to support his wife and son (he has two kids now). He worked there for about 15 years, in jobs ranging from a fire alarm technician to a housing maintenance mechanic. The job’s vacation time allowed him to perform with Waite.

As Waite’s guitarist, Leahey says he began showing up on bills with classic rock acts including Heart and Foreigner.

“You just never knew where you were going to be with John or who you’re going to be around,” Leahey says. “So it was just an amazing experience.”

That was how Leahey first met DeYoung at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona.

Leahey says he was a bit starstruck at first, but DeYoung was unassuming. They began seeing each other at gigs every so often, and Leahey says DeYoung came to like his acoustic guitar playing.

One day, DeYoung called Leahey and asked if Leahey wanted to play guitar on his album “One Hundred Years From Now.” So, Leahey hopped on a flight to Chicago and went to DeYoung’s house.

They talked about the music for the album over Subway sandwiches. Leahey says recording with DeYoung was a “thrill.”

Several months later, Leahey got another call from DeYoung. He asked if Leahey would play guitar in his band for a few gigs. Leahey eventually shifted from Waite’s band to DeYoung’s.

Although Leahey mostly listened to jazz in high school, Styx’s music still conjures feelings of nostalgia in him. He says he remembers dancing to “Best of Times” with his girlfriend during his junior prom.

Leahey had a solid background as a musician before joining DeYoung, but he says he needed to work on his stage presence. For most of his life, Leahey had performed in small venues. There was no room to jump around and act like a rock star.

“All my life that I stood in a corner of a bar and never moved,” he says. “Now, I’m expected to run around the stage.”

Originally Published: March 22, 2018 at 6:35 PM EST