Jimi Jamison - Further Biography

Further Biography

Born in rural Mississippi, Jamison moved with his mother to Memphis, Tennessee, at a very young age, and he considers himself a Memphis native. In addition to honing his vocal abilities, Jamison dabbled in guitar growing up. By middle school, he was playing in a band.

He would later sing for the bands Target and Cobra and provided background vocals for other bands including ZZ Top. After the demise of Cobra in 1983/84, he was invited to audition for Survivor, whose success had been on the wane since their number-one hit, "Eye of the Tiger." Although he was initially not adamant about fronting what he considered more of a "pop rock" band, which would contrast significantly with the heavy metal stylings of Cobra to which he had become accustomed, Jamison ultimately got the job and became Survivor's new frontman.

Jamison provided an instant spark for Survivor, as his first album with the band, Vital Signs included several massively successful singles, catapulting them back to superstardom. The second album, When Seconds Count, contained a Top 10 hit, "Is This Love?" This album also found Jamison making more songwriting contributions to the band's output, as he co-wrote four of the songs on When Seconds Count. One of the biggest adjustments he had to make performing with Survivor was giving up the right to perform hits by other artists. "Sometimes we'll start to do an encore and somebody will say, 'Let's do a Led Zeppelin song!'" he told Nine-O-One Network Magazine in 1987. "You wanna say 'Yeah. Yeah!' And then right at the very last minute you say, 'Nah, we better do this.'"

Among his best known performances are "Burning Heart," from the Rocky IV movie with Sylvester Stallone, which hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, "High On You" (#8 US), and "The Search Is Over" (#4 US).

In 1989, Jamison was briefly considered as the lead vocal replacement for Deep Purple, who had just fired Ian Gillan. Said Purple organist Jon Lord of Jamison in a 1993 interview, "He was an enormous Deep Purple fan and he would happily have taken over the job. But at the time he was afraid of his managers. They didn't want him to leave and he didn't dare to get into a fight with them." Deep Purple instead hired former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. Ironically, Survivor would go on hiatus not long thereafter.

During Survivor's "down period," Jamison recorded a solo album, When Love Comes Down, which was released in 1991. With little promotion, the album was not very successful commercially. Jamison also co-wrote and sang "I'm Always Here," the theme from the hit TV show Baywatch during this time and later released another solo album, Empires under the name Jimi Jamison's Survivor.

Jamison would later reunite with Survivor in 2000, and he ended up remaining with the band up through the release of their new album in 2006. In 2005, Jamison was featured with the band in the Emmy-nominated Starbucks commercial which parodied Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." Also in 2005, Jamison performed a duet on "It Takes Two" with teen singer Whitney Wolanin.

In 2008 Jamison released a new CD in Europe Crossroads Moment, which was also released in the United States in 2009. This album featured contributions from his former Survivor bandmate, Jim Peterik, as well as Dave Bickler, who Jamison had originally replaced in Survivor.

Jamison is known for his contributions to charities, and has been a participant in the annual Rockin Christmas Fund charity fundraiser event among others. He participates with the Make-a-Wish Foundation and benefits for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital annually.

On November 12, 2011, Jamison performed "Eye on the Tiger" during boxer Manny Pacquiao's entrance into the ring for his bout against Juan Manuel Marquez at MGM Grand Las Vegas.

In October 2011, Jamison released an album with Bobby Kimball (former lead singer of Toto) titled Kimball/Jamison.

On November 15, 2011, Jamison announced his return to Survivor.