![]() ![]() ![]() In the following decade, legal troubles divided the Survivor members: the group re-formed in 1993 with Bickler on vocals, while Jamison toured under the Survivor name. "I had just finished my first solo record, and they wanted me to go out and promote it … I had to tell Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord that I couldn't join." It was an honour just to be asked," he recalled. While Survivor was his biggest-selling band, Jamison might well have gone still further had he accepted an offer to join Deep Purple the same year. In his first, four-year stint with Survivor, Jamison sang on three albums with the group, embarking on a solo career after a split in 1989. I even learned to play trumpet, because what's a soul band without a trumpet and sax?" After stints with local bands, Jamison became the singer of the heavy rock band Cobra and supplied backing vocals for well-known artists such as ZZ Top and Joe Walsh. "We were surrounded with rhythm and blues and soul music," recalled Jamison, "so naturally I was influenced by the sounds of Stax Records and soul music. Raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Jamison learned to sing and play the guitar and piano by his early teens and formed his first band, the Brutes, at school. Other hits featuring Jamison included Is This Love?, Man Against the World (which he co-wrote) and The Moment of Truth, which appeared on the soundtrack to The Karate Kid (1984). One of his best-known vocal performances came in 1985 with Survivor's Burning Heart, which appeared on the soundtrack of Rocky IV. As the group's guitarist, Jim Peterik, said: "Very few bands can survive a lead singer transplant Jimi had the most magical voice I'd ever heard." His powerful vocal style was a perfect fit for Survivor's brash, often overblown songs. Bickler was forced to leave the band due to polyps on his vocal cords, and Jamison replaced him. The group was formed in Chicago in 1978 and enjoyed a huge international hit in 1982 with Eye of the Tiger, which appeared on the soundtrack to Sylvester Stallone's boxing movie Rocky III and featured vocals by David Bickler. Jimi Jamison, who has died aged 63 of a heart attack, was the lead singer of the US rock band Survivor from 1984 to 1988, again from 2000 to 2006, and then from 2011 until his death. ![]()
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