THE ASBURY PARK PRESS – BY CHRIS JORDAN – JUNE 04, 1999
With Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Whitney Houston touring the country, the Smithereens and Bon Jovi working on new albums, Lauryn Hill gathering her Grammys and Southside Johnny Lyon back on the road, 1999 is shaping up to be the year of New Jersey.
“This is the year of New Jersey?” Lyon asked over the phone from his home in Nashville. “Poor world.” That’s Johnny. Always quick to display his acerbic wit.
Despite his self-deprecating humor, Lyon’s been the one performer of the big three to come out of the Jersey Shore in the 1970s and ’80s — Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi are the others — to consistently perform live. A New Year’s Eve at the Jersey Shore almost always includes a Southside show.
And if there’s one performer whose sound typifies the Shore’s classic, souped-up R & B sound, it’s the Ocean Grove-bred Lyon.
He’s respected for it, too.
“Growing up, the only thing I wanted to be was a member of the Asbury Jukes,” Bon Jovi told this reporter in 1995.
There are two things that typify Jersey Shore musicians from that era: chops and community. At the time, the Shore was considered far removed from the bright lights of New York City, and to stand out, its players worked hard to hone their musicianship.
“A lot of bands back then had a lot of good players,” Lyon said. “Whenever industry people came down from New York City to see us, we had to blow them away. It wasn’t the attitude, and it certainly wasn’t the look that we were selling.”
That’s why an Asbury Juke like Richie “La Bamba” Rosenberg shines on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” or Miami Steve Van Zandt is adept at so many different styles of music.
But beyond the music, there’s also a togetherness among the musicians that is rare. They readily will assemble to perform a benefit show if someone is in need. Last year’s benefit concert for slain Long Branch officer Patrick King, in which Lyon, Springsteen and Bon Jovi performed, was just one example of this.
“We would play in each other’s bands,” said Lyon of the old days. “Whenever someone had a gig, they would give us two weeks to get a band together. So we would round up the musicians we knew. For instance, Bruce (Springsteen) would play rhythm guitar. We all liked the same music with the experimental things and Cream and stuff like that.”
But there’s perhaps an even stronger bond that’s at work. The late ’60 and early ’70s were a tumultuous and tense time at the Shore. Eventually, race riots erupted on the streets of Asbury Park in 1971.
“Things were pretty tense before they burned it down.” said Lyon, whose mother was active in the area’s civil rights movement in the ’50s. “Asbury Park was really an adventure. When the riots happened, I thought, why are they burning it down? But then later I realized that the reason they were rioting is because their life was (blank) and they were p—– off.”
The multiracial musicians of the Asbury Park area assumed something resembling a siege mentality, which translated into a tough, streetwise image.
“Living in Asbury Park wasn’t all sweetness and light,” Lyon said. “It wasn’t really a nice, sweet idyllic existence. Asbury Park was a tough, down and dirty city.
“We weren’t interested in peace, love and happiness, we were more into sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, dammit!”
Southside Johnny is coming back to a much calmer New Jersey for the New Jersey Arts and Music Festival, which takes place tomorrow and Sunday in Newark. There’s no promise of drugs or sex, but there will be plenty of rock ‘n’ roll.
The festival features American roots music with a Jersey twist, according to John Scher, the festival’s promoter. Among the highlights over the two days will be sets from the classic Motown band The Temptations, folk super-group Cry Cry Cry, soul instrumental group Booker T and the MG’s and folk-punks the Violent Femmes. Gospel music, children activities, arts and crafts and food vendors will help make the event a festival. Lyon and the Asbury Jukes take the stage at 4:30 tomorrow.
“They’re the greatest party band in the world,” Scher said.
When he’s not performing, Lyon is working on material for an upcoming album with Shore guitarist Bobby Bandiera and the rest of the Jukes. E Street keyboardist Garry Tallent will produce the record.
So what’s the quintessential Jersey Shore musician doing in Nashville?
He moved there to work with Tallent, and he found a place for “800 bucks a month, so why not?” he said.
Asbury Park Press and the Home News Tribune
Published: June 04, 1999 – Copyright 1997-1999 IN Jersey.
