Be Proactive. I had to if there was any chance of me keeping my sanity. The albums appealed to the Jukes' fan base and "I'm So Anxious" from The Jukes became a minor hit, but they didn't expand their audience, and after cutting an excellent live album, 1981's Reach Up and Touch the Sky, Mercury and Southside Johnny parted ways. 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 dont look back that much, but when I do I think: How lucky can anybody be? Do you agree that it takes a lot of courage? I was out here on tour (in late 1988) and I played the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, and I said, This looks nice, lets move here. And we did.. As the Asbury Jukes were becoming one of New Jersey's most popular acts, Bruce Springsteen grew out of his local following into a respected journeyman rock & roller after he landed a deal with Columbia Records in 1973, and his third album, 1975's Born to Run, transformed him into a legitimate star, a critical favorite who finally connected with a mass audience. I always say this. There were times when you needed a record company to get international recognition, but unless you're the top priority for the record company, you might as well do it yourself because you're not going to get that much out of them. But I don't worry about things I can't control. The band also found time to make an appearance in Joan Micklin Silver's 1977 movie Between the Lines. SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY: They have such confidence onstage and such delight, and I was always impressed by people like that, like James Brown and Jackie Wilson, Sam & Dave. The newly-formed 1982 lineup of The Asbury Jukes (with former E Street Band member Ernest "Boom" Carter on drums) provided the musical entertainment at the reception, along with "special guest" Bruce Springsteen. They don't want us to be the same set list every night. View/set parent page (used for creating breadcrumbs and structured layout). Scialfa noted in 2004, "I was always friends with a lot of guys, maybe because their girlfriends were girly-girls and they felt safe with me. A. Southside Johnny & Jill Glasner Wedding Reception. Physically, it's a little bit more challenging for me now; my shows tend to be very energetic. A. I don't know if I have one strategy. Q. For better or for worse, playing in a band is never the same. "I like where I am,'' confides the genial vocalist, content to follow his own muse and, on occasion, tour to places like Kitchener, where he'll play an "acoustic-esque" show of hits and covers with a pared-down version of the Jukes, dubbed The Poor Fools. He believes every musician has his or her unique sound. expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto ", Things You Didn't Know About Bruce Springsteen's Wife Patti Scialfa, Racing In The Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader. New Jersey music icon Southside Johnny Lyon is doing "fine" during the coronavirus outbreak and he has plenty of toilet paper, too. You somehow scrounged your way through and if you werent starving to death you got to play on Friday and Saturday night. 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. The Jukes have had a number of personnel changes over the years. This is the official Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes Facebook Page. Has it been difficult to maintain the same sound with so many changes in personnel? I think that would be boring. Low 49F. In 1995, Southside Johnny recorded the title song for a low-budget movie called Tuff Turf, and the tune was issued as a 12" single by Rhino Records, becoming his first solo release. It's just the perfect stage for us in some ways. Why not? I have more toilet paper than I need for a year. I wish I could have gone out and played live after it came out. '", In 1993, Scialfa finally released her first solo album, "Rumble Doll." ", Event has been relocated to the Wax Nightclub,125 King St. W., Kitchener, Tickets $45. Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Southside Johnny Lyon. We werent old enough to drink, but because we knew Garry we could get in. "Sometimes there's got to be a good reason to go down a different path.". "And he just was riveting, and I thought 'Wow, who is this guy?' Maybe I'm not old enough. We reinforced our belief in ourselves. It's one of my favorite places to play. 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. By the summer of 1988, their relationship was out in the open and they were seen together constantly in New York and New Jersey. Event has been relocated to the Wax Nightclub,125 King St. W., Kitchener Tickets $45. Real music Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives, the Hot Sevens. 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But as he commuted in from New Jersey to work in a Manhattan studio with co-producer Steve Skinner, the scene that confronted him each day at the New York Port Authority bus terminal demanded commentary. There are times when I feel, What am I--chopped liver? Lyon acknowledged. Still, the music I make isn't really like the music he makes. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, Even though his friends Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi achieved more fame, Southside Johnny's unmatched dedication will be remembered forever. The connection continues on Slow Dance with Walking Through Midnight, a fine ballad of inner turmoil and frustrated yearning that Lyon and Springsteen wrote 10 years ago. 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. Put a guitar part on it," and you can do it with anybody around the world. It leaves you with a strong feeling of respect. I don't know if it's courage so much as it's just stubbornness. It was such a great time. Springsteen, working on his own album, took time to contribute a song, All the Way Home, on which he plays guitar. Mike Boehm is a former arts reporter and pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times. After the 1988 release of Slow Dance, a solo album of ballads that he says was recorded for his wife, Lyon began playing the Los Angeles region in a band called Blues Deluxe and making plans for a blues album featuring material co-written by him and his guitarist, Bobby Bandiera. Southside Johnny's rare solo efforts gave him a chance to explore other musical directions, as he embraced adult contemporary pop on 1988's Slow Dance and jazz on 2008's Grapefruit Moon: The Songs of Tom Waits and 2017's Detour Ahead: The Music of Billie Holiday. A. Time to find out. ", New Jersey Q & A: Johnny Lyon; Very much so. To dream a dream of making music. I've always respected women. The club often featured open jams, and Lyon, like many other aspiring musicians, would stop by regularly to hear music, meet other players, and hopefully take the stage for a few tunes. "He had long hair, a great grin and chicks just loved the s*** out of him. We rode up this hill, and right there was this big 8-ball on a pillar. Pal to Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt, longtime veteran of late-night jams at such legendary Joizy clubs as the Upstage and the Stone Pony, possessor of a classic R&B; growl, Lyon even named his band the Asbury Jukes after Asbury Park, the decaying resort town and center of the states productive 70s musical scene. When you watch old clips on YouTube, it's uncanny how closely aligned Springsteen and Southside are musically - both representative of the Jersey Shore sound of the '70s, with its big band rock spiked with romanticism and a rootsy, heartland ethos. 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.. It was crazy. Discover Southside Johnny Lyon's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Its a fact of life. After three years, Southside was disenchanted with the Richmond rock scene, and he returned to New Jersey. That year, Springsteen married model Julianne Phillips; Scialfa had reportedly told people that she had feelings for her boss, but she didn't sit around pining for him, even briefly dating actor Tom Cruise as well as various New York musicians. Tell me about the women in your life. I dont like making videos, Lyon confessed. When Soozie Tyrell played violin for the Jukes back in the 70's, early 80's, I thought that was a great sound for the band. Per Acoustic Storm, Scialfa contrasted the record with the intimacy of her first one, saying, "There are some songs with the same theme of closeness; how to be close, love songs. Wedding reception for Southside Johnny and his bride, Jill Glasner. That musical meeting led to a renewed partnership on the new album. 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. In a 2004 interview with Acoustic Storm, Scialfa said of her first record, "It was a very honest record for me and I was very happy with it because I can put that record on and it really expresses a very specific time in my life honestly and creatively. A. It's like being an athlete. For nearly 20 years, Johnny Lyon and his band, the Asbury Jukes, have carried on a music tradition steeped in rhythm-and-blues and blue-collar rock-and-roll that has made them one of the state's most enduring pop-music groups. Q. Going to Jukesville followed in 2002, and the tough, eclectic Into the Harbour was issued in 2006. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes are an American musical group from the Jersey Shore led by Southside Johnny. "It's tough in the music business to stay close in the sense of seeing each other,'' says Southside of the enduring bond between him, Van Zandt, Springsteen and the rest of the Jersey crew. Can I ask you about your mother and your connection to her? Their onstage interactions got steamier and more suggestive, and in June they were spotted kissing in Rome, Italy. 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. The Upstage Club. Two other E Streeters, drummer Max Weinberg and bassist Garry Tallent, appear on the album. Chance of rain 70%.. "Steven (Van Zandt) always wanted to be active politically and to play music and now he's an actor as well (on The Sopranos). The best performance is always when the audience explores them with you. Worrying about album sales and things like that would just make me more neurotic than I already am. But I'm not anywhere near ready to give it all up. A more extensive tour, including West Coast dates, probably will come next year. Johnny Lyon, is telling me over the phone from somewhere on the New Jersey Shore. It wasnt a mid-life crisis, said Lyon, who will turn 40 Sunday. We never made any money. SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY: I think it's a great time to be a musician because you don't have to pay $1 million to go into a studio to record. Steve was Miami Steve, and I became Southside Johnny because of my love of Chicago blues. . Republication or distribution of this content is That's the common thread of almost all of the bands, even the younger bands that are coming up. 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. He is an American singer-songwriter who fronts the band Southside Johnny & . So I had very little time to devote to studying. The band's most recent album, "Better Days," was released in 1991 on the Impact label. When New Jerseys Asbury Park music scene rose up in the 1970s, there were three bright lights on its rock-and-soul triangle. To order "Change for the sake of change is not always a good thing," said Mr. Lyon, who is 45. You care very much because you know that if you don't make music, you're going to have to get a real job, and who wants that? The article noted that the album had ended up bringing Scialfa into the spotlight, and while it had kickstarted her career, it hadn't led to a large body of solo work, as she had originally hoped it would. . Southside Johnny (Lyon), good friend and one time band mate of Steve Van Zandt was listed in the credits as "himself" yet definitely not in the ep. All the facilities are there, but the internet makes it so that you can disseminate your music. Do you view rock-and-roll and performing today with the same enthusiasm and intensity you did 20 years ago? And then there were girls that would look at us, for once. 1976's I Don't Want to Go Home was their debut album, and documented the band's tight, muscular attack; it also included guest appearances from Ronnie Spector and Lee Dorsey, and Springsteen contributed two songs for the sessions, "The Fever" and "You Mean So Much to Me." Jersey gal Gloria Gaynor's hand-washing 'I Will Survive' video a viral hit, Bon Jovi says son Jake is '100 percent' recovered from COVID-19 scare, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Its not a case of feuding between old friends, he explained, but of being caught up in careers and personal lives that dont often intersect. The three of you influenced each other, so how did Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi influence you? permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com. 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 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. Thats where I met Bruce and Steve. 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