The Ides Of March may not have garnered the commercial success of Blood, Sweet, & Tears or Chicago but back in the early 1970s, they were one of the leading practitioners of the brass\/rock sound that was so popular at the time. <\/p>\n
Guitarist\/vocalist Jim Peterik, guitarist\/keyboardist Larry Milas, bassist Ray Herr, and drummer Michael Borch began in the Chicago area as the Shon-Dels in 1964 before changing their name in 1966. They were a garage type band who managed to have a huge local hit single with \u201cYou Wouldn\u2019t Listen\u201d that went on to become a moderate national hit. <\/p>\n
The band added a brass section \u2013 consisting of Bob Bergland, Chuck Soumar, and John Larson \u2013 in the late 1960s and that made all the difference.\u00a0 They signed a contract with Warner Brothers and their first song \u201cVehicle\u201d became the fastest selling single in the company\u2019s history to date. They quickly released their first album, which was also commercially successful, which has now been reissued with bonus tracks. <\/p>\n
The album was patterned on the sound of Blood, Sweat & Tears but veered from that style on several extended tracks, which were a little grittier and more improvisational than the slick pop of Blood, Sweat & Tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cVehicle\u201d was a perfect radio song.\u00a0 It has an opening blast of brass, a passionate vocal by the 20-year-old Peterik, and a melody that grabbed your attention. They traveled in a very different direction with \u201cHome\u201d and \u201cOne Woman Band,\u201d which were delicate ballads. They ramp the energy back up with \u201cFactory Band,\u201d which could have been right out the Creedence Clearwater catalogue. <\/p>\n
The seven-minute cover of \u201cWooden Ships\/Dhama For One\u201d and the almost ten-minute \u201cSymphony For Eleanor (Eleanor Rigby)\u201d are symbolic of their stage act, which relied more on improvisation. <\/p>\n
The album was reissued a decade or so ago with a less than adequate sound. That problem has been corrected as the sound is now clear and crisp. A booklet gives a fine history of the band and album. <\/p>\n
Sometimes bonus tracks add little to an album, but the four extra tracks here not only fit in well with the original release but enhance the overall experience.\u00a0 The single version of \u201cVehicle\u201d is required listening for any fan of the era. The non-album single \u201cMelody\u201d is almost as good and why it failed to receive any chart action remains a mystery. Add in two Jim Peterik compositions, \u201cHigh On A Hillside\u201d and \u201cLead Me Home Gently,\u201d and you have a much stronger album. <\/p>\n
The Ides Of Match split in 1973. Peterik went on to become a member of Survivor, penning and singing such tunes as \u201cEye Of The Tiger,\u201d \u201cThe Search Is Over,\u201d and \u201cHigh On You.\u201d In 1990, all seven original members reunited and continued together until the deaths of Herr and Larson in 2011 from cancer.\u00a0 Peterik, Milas, Bergland, and Borsh \u2013 along with some new additions \u2013 are still on the road today.<\/p>\n
Vehicle <\/i>remains one of the great lost albums of the early 1970s. The music has held up well and remains fresh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":32105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7607],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-43852","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-ides-of-march","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43852"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}