Jim Peterik & World Stage 'Tigress- Women Who Rock the World'

The title track opens the album on an African jungle drum beat (yes, The Serengeti gets a mention again) and it’s very much the eye of the tigress, but with some splendidly fluid guitar playing from the incomparable Jennifer Batten. Jennifer has done great work with Jim before on the Scherer / Batten album and she features heavily throughout this opus with several great performances. The song also showcases a powerful but controlled vocal from Kate French, the metal singer from Chastain and Vainglory, and she does a great job on this and the brooding “Strong Against the Wind”.

The lead single, “Prom Night in Pontiac”, is one of those delicious coming of age tales of kids that were born to run the hell out of their town and it comes with a side-portion of sex in cars. Chloe Lowery takes the lead on this one and she’s very likeable in the promo video too. Chloe features on a couple of songs and has a really interesting musical history, including TSO and Yanni, plus she must be one of the few singers who have performed for both the New York City Ballet and the New York Mets.

Maestro Jimbo has conjured up yet another gem in “A Capella”. It’s not sung in that style as there’s full instrumentation, but what a song – one of his best! Most of the ladies on the album are American but this song belongs to our very own Chez Kane. Most of us UK rock fans know and love Chez having watched her grow up with her sisters in the family band, Kane’d. She’s starting to fully realise her potential now and it’s so good to see her flourish as a solo artist with a second album in the works under Danny Rexon. The vocal performance here is a stunning and nuanced one, full of character, personality and power and her voice absolutely soars on the swelling chorus that Jim has provided for her. It’s her only song on the album but she absolutely smashes. Mic drop!

It’s not a total sausage-free fest on the album as quality guys like Mike Aquino and Joel Hoekstra add some guitars and a few others, including Jim’s son, Colin, make valuable contributions. Jim’s also happy to share some co-writing credits, such as “Full Moon Crazy” which was written with Tommy Yankston from Nashville and is brought to life by Batten and long-time Jimbo collaborator Cathy Richardson from Jefferson Starship. Cathy’s on about 4 songs and does a terrific job on them all, but especially on the hard-rocking “Sin to Believe a Lie”.

The spotlight is firmly on the ladies though. If you’ve read Jim’s biography ‘Through The Eye Of The Tiger’ you’ll know that his two older sisters had a massive, positive influence on his early life and that might be why he can write so convincingly for a female perspective and why he has a long history of mentoring and championing young ladies with talent, particularly in the Illinois area. Here, that includes Leslie Hunt on the brilliant “Taller”, plus Kimi Hayes who shares the vocal with young

Lindsay Kent on “Dear Life” (you could imagine Stevie Nicks singing this one) and shines on her own with the fabulously show-tuney “Walk Like Royalty”.

Another big-name contributor is Janet Gardner from Vixen who performs “Lazarus Heart” admirably, whilst Canada is represented by the experienced Marine Lacoste, the keyboard player from Unkle Cracker’s band, and Rosa Laricchiuta who we know from Black Rose Maze. Both ladies do their country proud and do justice to the songs.

With 16 songs, this is a long album and I believe they are planning to issue a double album version on orange vinyl in due course. You won’t want to wait for that and you won’t want this collection to end, but it falls to Leslie Hunt to wrap things up in style with the stirring “Brave is Beautiful”, on which she is partnered by the brilliant Mindi Abair on the saxophone and the end result is marvelous.

I’ve been looking forward to this release since Jim explained the project to me last year and, for sure, it does deliver exactly what I was hoping for – but how could it not with this level of talent? It’s another masterclass from the maestro and it includes some gems that will take their place in the Peterik Pantheon of top songs. More than that, it’s a vital platform for some stunning female talent and I hope at least some of them can use Jim’s support as a stepping stone to achieve greater things. That would surely make an old man with purple hair happy.