Pete Jive Bio

Biography

When Pete Jive sings, charisma glides out of him and hugs you. Jive's gyrating, crazy legs maneuvers, turn-on-a-dime leaving two nickels syncopated rhythms, and punchy lyrics will heart-imprint you. A Pete Jive performance is an all-in, no one left seated affair, where Jive locks eyes, ears, legs, voice, fingers, and rapt attention around his audience. You don't hear a Pete Jive set; you and Pete live through it, together—that's the attuned intimacy Pete delivers to audiences.

In March 2020, Jive released "Live at the Roundhouse," a solo live recording at the historic Aurora nightclub. It is raw, energetic, charismatic Jive in his element—crowd sounds and a bare-naked mix bring the Roundhouse into our living rooms. You hear love in the hearts, sense sway in the girls, and feel grit on the floor—Half-drank beers in tall glasses paired to smiling faces and wiggling asses. Recorded just twelve days before America shut down, it's a chi-ful reminder of just how carefree we could be on February 28, 2020, and how we will feel again.

Jive's hauntingly charming early-career song "All I See," was given new life in 2019. Grammy-winning Producer Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Show), hired to produce JDR's seven-song "No Winning Hands" album, chose the vintage track, adding the signature Hutt punch and JDR breadth.

>No Sign of Regret, Jive's first album, released in 2011, is a powerful collection of ballads combining complex rhythms with uplifting, empowering messages of self-reliance and resilience. Jive's second album, released in 2013, "Sleep When I Die," delivers a title track so catchy you will swear you already heard it. In 2018 Jive's childhood collaborator John D. Rowland invited Jive to join JDR & the Broadcast. Cinnamon, JDR's 2018 LP, features the rousing Jive tune "Hurts as it Heals."

While it has been nearly two decades since Pete Jive shows were flash-mob, parking lot gigs featuring Naperville's finest as the encore, his passion-dripped heartfelt swagger continues. Pete once met and chatted for a few minutes with former Black Crows keyboardist Adam MacDougall. Months later, MacDougall's band Circles Around the Sun published an uber-trippy instrumental song titled Pete Jive. That is the charisma-colored coolness Pete brings to every performance. Do your soul a solid, lace up your dance shoes, boogie on over, and experience an American flat-picking classic crooner.

"I love the songs"
Ted Hutt (GRAMMY award winning producer)

"Honest Americana that takes me back to the mid to late 70s"
Chris Demakes (Less than Jake, Chris Demakes a Podcast)