Notify administrators if there is objectionable content in this page. . To order copies of SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY: Yeah, I love The Birchmere. That's hard to say, of course. Do you feel that you understand women? If they came up with a prototype for the hard-working Jersey Shore bar-band rocker, it would probably come pretty close to the real-life Southside Johnny Lyon. I thought this is what people do. It is a unique moment in time. Meanwhile, Lyon has landed appearances on The Tonight Show and Late Night With David Letterman. And theres a video of Its Been a Long Time, the shooting of which picked up national media attention. It's a very satisfying thing to do, so I started playing with a lot of different people and writing songs and just got back into the business. They come home from work, have a couple of beers, and put on [Wynonie Harris] Dont Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes at Me.. King play his guitar through the cracked window. ", He laughs. Im very happy in my life, Im very happily married, I love the band I play with, I love the material I get to play on stage. But Epic Records were disappointed with their sales, and in 1979 they dropped the band. Did you have this kind of connection that is not superficial? All the facilities are there, but the internet makes it so that you can disseminate your music. "And I've always wanted to be as free and odd and eccentric as I wanted, because I'm just naturally that way - and I can. Some Jukes fans have wondered why you've never made a blues album, given your love of the music. I honestly dont try to keep up with all that (sales) stuff because it can make you completely neurotic, and Ive got lots of other things to keep me neurotic.. One of the things I'm most proud of is that the Jukes haven't lost their edge on stage. In a 2004 interview with the Washington Post, Scialfa said of the album "I was happy with the way it was received, and I've met a lot of nice people who seem to know it. "And Bruce would come over all the time and we'd listen to each other's records and play poker and monopoly. I don't look at it so externally. And God knows Ive been in enough of them.. It was crazy. They treat us great. Other albums, like "Love is a Sacrifice," "At Least We Got Shoes" and a Southside Johnny solo album, "Slow Dance," followed in the 1980's. Steve Van Zandt was the songwriter-producer and Springsteen sidekick and consigliere who would go on to The Sopranos and Underground Garage satellite radio notoriety. While a video of the title tune earned some scattered MTV airplay, the album wasn't a hit, and they returned to something closer to their signature sound on 1984's In the Heat. "Sometimes there's got to be a good reason to go down a different path.". But I also want to hear a backbeat and a lot of horns. While the group's membership has gone through dozens of changes since the mid-'70s, with Southside at the vocal mike their sound has remained remarkably consistent from their '70s efforts (1976's I Don't Want to Go Home, 1978's Hearts of Stone) to their 21st century sessions (2002's Going to Jukesville, 2010's Pills and Ammo), though the group did detour into dance music on 1983's Trash It Up (produced by Nile Rodgers). New Jersey music iconSouthside Johnny Lyon is doing fine during the coronavirus outbreak and he has plenty of toilet paper, too. Lyon developed a taste for harder blues and R&B from listening to the radio late at night, and in his early teens, he began learning to play harmonica after "borrowing" one from his brother, who had bought a guitar and fancied himself the next Bob Dylan. A lot of those, Steven and Bruce and those people, had not heard a lot of Chicago blues, some, but not a lot of them. She once again explained how she always had to balance her solo work with her duties to the E Street Band as well as to her family, noting she had just taken two days off from touring to get her son Evan ready for college. They both worked, and when she had the day shift, she worked at a telephone company as an operator back in the day when they used to have them. I always say this. And Garry wound up playing with Little Melvin & the Invaders. Live recording -- "Reach Up and Touch the Sky. And if you're looking for that, you're going to be disappointed." I think he started to remember how much fun it was to make that kind of music, just the heartfelt R&B; style, whether it be up-tempo or slow.. Their son, Evan James Springsteen, was born on July 25, 1990. But I don't worry about things I can't control. It's a friendship that has held fast more than four decades. I said, Great--any towns got a pool hall cant be so bad. Well, of course, as soon as I move in there they close it down and make a Volkswagen parts joint out of it. By the summer of 1988, their relationship was out in the open and they were seen together constantly in New York and New Jersey. That was our college. ", Things You Didn't Know About Bruce Springsteen's Wife Patti Scialfa, Racing In The Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader. B. John Lyon (born December 4, 1948), [1] better known by his stage name Southside Johnny, is an American singer-songwriter who usually fronts his band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes . director Tom Jones documentary about the rise, fall, and revival of the central Jersey boardwalk town showing in theaters May 22 and 29. I felt I was in a rut, and I had a big crisis, Lyon said over the phone last week from his home in Montclair, N.J., taking time out from making pumpkin pies that he and his wife, Jill, would serve for Thanksgiving dinner the next day at a soup kitchen in Newark. All A. I think that the main thing about being from New Jersey is that it's so blue collar that if you don't work hard onstage, they won't respect you. You're always with men, and we've had women in the band and all, but I just like when I'm not with the guys, I like sometimes to hear somebody else talk. Getting some traction is the hardest thing for me. It wasnt a mid-life crisis, said Lyon, who will turn 40 Sunday. So the label agreed to an alternative plan. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I dont like making videos, Lyon confessed. We honed our crafts. Let me ask you about Nashville. You somehow scrounged your way through and if you werent starving to death you got to play on Friday and Saturday night. The band developed a large following in Richmond, Virginia, and when Springsteen invited Southside to tag along and sing a few songs at a Richmond gig, Johnny quickly acquired a new girlfriend and was invited to join a band called Studio B. And Southside Johnny Lyon was the blues and R&B vocalist and bandleader who could outsing both of them. Southside Johnny has long been considered the Grandfather of "the New Jersey Sound ." Jon Bon Jovi has acknowledged Southside Johnny as his "reason for singing." There's not just one thing, and I think that's reflected in all of our music. He is back fronting the nine-piece Jukes and resuming a heavy performing schedule that includes shows tonight and Wednesday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Thursday at the Roxy in West Hollywood, and Friday and Saturday at the Strand in Redondo Beach. Mostly retired people. I agree. I had to replace the horn section when they went out with Diana Ross. Southside Johnny: To me, the spontaneity of making music is the beauty of it, instead of this idea that you're going to program everything and everything's going to work out right --really just let it go and see where the night takes you.. I definitely wasn't a model student. In the song, Lyon channels his anger over the citys neglect of homeless people into sassy, edgy ironic humor that fits into an old blues tradition of laughing when it hurts too much to cry: You pray to God, but he never seems to hear/Youre in the mayors prayers, Lord, make them disappear, Lyon sings in a voice that is half biting, half bemused. There's some really nice people down here," so I did. Republication or distribution of this content is By 1967, the center of the Jersey Shore rock scene had become an Asbury Park nightspot called the Upstage Club, a booze-free venue that allowed local musicians to play original music and teenagers to hang out until the wee hours of the morning. But I can tell you this. You can do that at home or you can go to a studio and do it quickly. So, out of luck.. Let's do it this way," but it's the same thing onstage. 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 I always feel self-conscious. 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 Call 519-635-6257 or purchase online at. Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. The new album, "Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes: Live In Cleveland '77," recorded at the band's May 2, 1977, show at the Agora Theater in Cleveland, is a testament to the group's outsider . If you made a friend in Germany who's a guitar player and you got this song, you can send it to him and say, "What do you think? Most E Street Band and Asbury Jukes members (past and present) were in attendance. Threats of harming another We reinforced our belief in ourselves. Southside Johnny Rock Singer #131416 Most Popular Boost Birthday December 4, 1948 Birthplace Ocean Grove, NJ Age 74 years old Birth Sign Sagittarius About Rock and blues singer who was a member of the band Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, the group that released the album I Don't Want to Go Home in 1976. One of the seminal figures on the New Jersey rock scene and a gifted, charismatic singer steeped in soul, blues, and R&B. I dont look back that much, but when I do I think: How lucky can anybody be? Im not a nostalgist. Its a fact of life. That was Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom. We rode up this hill, and right there was this big 8-ball on a pillar. I dont always remember what Im supposed to do.. If I'd gone out and played it live, it would've made the record more accessible to people. Low 49F. She studied jazz at the University of Miami before moving to New York and starting busking on street corners, singing in clubs, and doing session work in studios. Eager to record again but not excited about signing another record deal, Southside Johnny devised a new strategy and formed his own label, Leroy Records, to release his music when and how he wanted, and giving him full creative freedom. You have permission to edit this article. Recording Sessions Sales were modest but respectable, and the band toured hard in support, eventually taking a break to cut their second LP, 1977's This Time It's for Real, which featured more guest appearances from R&B heroes (vocal groups the Coasters, the Drifters, and the Five Satins) and songwriting contributions from Springsteen. But I can't imagine not being in music. A. I went to Monmouth College for two and a half years and majored in English literature. Q. They're both in love. 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Most E Street Band and Asbury Jukes members (past and present) were in attendance. 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 There's a fascination with the other gender in that you just see the world differently than men do, and I'm always fascinated by that. What about the "New Jersey magic" that transforms musicians into stars? expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto A. Q. For better or for worse, playing in a band is never the same. ", A 2004 interview with the Washington Post noted that "21st Street Lullaby" came out almost exactly 20 years after Springsteen's iconic 1984 album "Born In The USA." Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. Even though his friends Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi achieved more fame, Southside Johnny's unmatched dedication will be remembered forever. The band's most recent album, "Better Days," was released in 1991 on the Impact label. But I'm not anywhere near ready to give it all up. 1,083 talking about this. One of the first drives my wife and I took in San Clemente (was) when I was trying to think, Well, do I really want to live in one of these little California beach towns? Lyon recalled. Relations (People / Bands) . In a 1996 interview with The Advocate, reprinted on the site Greasy Lake, when asked about the negative reaction some people had to Scialfa and Springsteen falling in love, Springsteen replied, "It's a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn't. I said, 'Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going here in some fashion, but that's life. T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner. Do you view rock-and-roll and performing today with the same enthusiasm and intensity you did 20 years ago? Location: 913 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park, NJ 07712 Contact: 732-502-0600 Hold Fast Records "If you want old vinyl, there is a record shop on Cookman Avenue,'' Lyon says. I already knew Garry Tallent and Vini Lopez. It seems too easy. Wedding reception for Southside Johnny and his bride, Jill Glasner. A. As the Sundance Blues Band and its offshoots became frequent attractions at the Upstage, Southside was playing several sets a night, four or five nights a week, and he began seriously considering a career as a professional musician. He had a gold top Les Paul, and he wrote songs and sang and put together bands and was a great guy to know.". It went on like that for years--first in a succession of bands that included such fellow aspiring Jersey rockers as Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt, then by more than a decade of touring and recording as the leader of Southside Johnny & the Jukes. I actually started singing in front of people when I was 16 years old. It's just the perfect stage for us in some ways. Thats the nature of this kind of long-lived horn band. My wife, Jill, keeps wondering the same thing. While Lyon remains the same throaty-sounding romantic with classic soul influences, the music is tailored to the late 80s, with programmed rhythms and smooth synthesizer textures. The Boss, of course, went on to write songs for early albums by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - including '78's seminal Hearts of Stone - traded off band members with them and occasionally appeared with them in concert. The Jukes landed a once-a-week gig at an Asbury Park club that had seen better days, the Stone Pony, playing off nights for the door. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. They weret really written for me. A. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Gary Tallent would play rockabilly, so we absorbed all those different influences and they all come out in the music. "Garry Tallent (Springsteen's bassist and Southside's best friend) and I were talking a couple of years ago and realized everybody pretty much got what they wanted. Anyone have insght as to his scene that was cut? His name, of course, was Bruce Springsteen, though at the time he was just another up and coming nobody trying to get a break. Can I ask you about your mother and your connection to her? Maybe you could make a go out of it. The singer-songwriter and the frontman of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes is known for influencing what critics call the "New Jersey sound," but if you ask him about it as I did, he would tell you that this sound does not exist. He's not rationalizing - he really is content. A powerful vocalist whose style is steeped in vintage blues, R&B, and soul, Johnny was the leader and frontman for the group the Asbury Jukes, whose tough bar band sound married the impact of hard rock with the swing and horn-fueled punch of blues and deep soul. Thats where I met Bruce and Steve. . They're together a lot and they seem very affectionate. CLEVELAND, Ohio - Go to any Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes show these days (the band still plays regularly up and down the East Coast) and you'll find a new, coveted item amongst fans. The year was 1967, says Southside, or maybe '68, and New Jersey was alive with the sounds of the primitive, pre-Beatles rock and Stax soul that would infuse both his and Springsteen's work.