Songs of the Day: Jim Peterik, Survivor, Pt. 2

When Jim Peterik was not writing hits for Survivor, he was writing them for .38 Special.  Peterik's moonlighting for .38 Special is one of the more overlooked fun facts of the 80's.  Here is some of his work:

"Caught Up In You"


"Hold On Loosely"


"Fantasy Girl"

Songs of the Day: Survivor

Best known for their contributions to the soundtracks to the "Rocky" series, Chicago rockers Survivor were actually born from the ashes of another Chicago rock group, the Ides of March.

Ides of March leader Jim Peterik met guitarist Frankie Sullivan and singer Dave Bickle while working on a solo album.  They decided to form a band and, with a drummer and bassist, became "Survivor".  After hitting it big with "Eye of the Tiger" and touring almost non-stop, Bickle developed throat problems and dropped out of the band.  He later became the singer in the Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" commercials.

Survivor, uh, survived with a new singer, Jimi Jamison.  Jamison was one of those singers with naturally clear and powerful voice.  He could have sang the phone book and killed.  Although their material with Jamison became more and more like mainstream pop toward the end of the 80's, it is still some of their best stuff.  Peterik plays a few of them to this day in his live shows with the reconstituted Ides of March.

"Is This Love"


"I Can't Hold Back"


"High On You"


Bonus


Here are Jim Peterik (and friends) performing "Eye of the Tiger" live and acoustic in Valparaiso Indiana, 2007

Songs of the Day

Here are three great songs from the late 60's/early 70's.


"Expressway To Your Heart" by the Soul Survivors

The Ides of March started as a group of neighborhood kids from Berwyn Illinois.  They worked their way up through Chicago and the region before hitting it big.  After the Ides broke up in the early 70's, lead singer/songwriter Jim Peterik wrote and played in the Chicago area before forming his next group, Survivor.  Even while writing songs for Survivor ("Eye of the Tiger", "I Can't Hold Back", "The Search Is Over", "Burning Heart", "Is This Love") he wrote hits for .38 Special ("Hold On Loosely", "Caught Up In You", "Fantasy Girl").  Like the Blues Brothers, he "got the band back together" and now plays with the original Ides of March.  Here they are performing "Vehicle".




Finally we have the Phil Spector song that isn't.  After Phil Spector's run of hits ("Da Doo Run Run", "Be My Baby", "Then He Kissed Me", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'") in the early/mid 60's, a spate of "Wall of Sound" imitators cropped up.  Some learned at the hand of the master (Bill Medley, of The Righteous Brothers, produced their soundalike hit "Soul and Inspiration"), others succeeded by trial and error.  So many tried, in fact, that a series of cds was later released that consisted only of Phil Spector soundalikes (called "Phil's Spectre" One, Two, and Three).  The most famous Spector soundalike, however, does not appear on any of those compilations.  It is The Walker Brothers hit, "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore".