By Joel Rubinoff, Record staff — “I’d seen James Brown and Ray Charles,’’ Southside Johnny, a.k.a. Johnny Lyon, is telling me over the phone from somewhere on the New Jersey Shore.“But I walked into the place I used to hang out, the Upstage Club, and this long-haired guy was onstage telling a story about how the nuns taught him the blues by bringing in a B.B. King album one day. “And he just was riveting, and I thought ‘Wow, who is this guy?’ ’’His name, of course, was Bruce Springsteen, though at the time he was just another up and coming nobody trying to get a break.
And when he and Lyon struck up a friendship, it changed the course of Lyon’s life…
Southside Johnny dishes on The Boss
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Southside Johnny began a new performance project late last year, dubbed Southside Johnny and The Poor Fools. They’ve played ten shows now; more are scheduled in between Jukes gigs. The new venture delves into the sort of acoustic-electric roots rock / Americana that one might associate with The Band, Bob Dylan, latter-day Hot Tuna, and various Brothers acts (Wood Brothers, Felice Brothers). It’s both a departure from Jukes music and a natural extension of Johnny’s catalog.
There are dozens of songs out there with the word “fool” in the lyrics … one of which we Jukes fans know pretty well. But, when sitting down to write my thoughts about the recent Southside Johnny and the Poor Fools shows, that old tune by Ricky Nelson kept coming to mind — the one with the lines “fools rush in where angels fear to tread … fools rush in where wise men never, never go.” It just seemed to fit this project perfectly. 
