Bonus Quote of the Day (‘Southside Johnny’ Lyon, on the Working-Class ‘Jersey Sound’)

“We really all do come from working-class backgrounds. It’s not something you forget. Even if you make hundreds of millions of dollars like Bruce [Springsteen] or Jon [Bon Jovi], you don’t forget what it’s like to work. I’ve been working since I was 15. And I kept my day job right up until the time we made our first album. Everybody’s fathers and mothers worked, usually both. So when our fans, working people, come to see us on a weekend, I’m very mindful they’re taking three hours — including travel — out of their time to really enjoy themselves after working hard all week. They have to hire baby sitters, drive, spend money, and they deserve the best show they can possibly get. It isn’t about me at that point. It’s about them enjoying themselves. And after all the damage from Hurricane Sandy, and all the terrible events that happened in 2012, believe me, I know, way down deep, it is totally about them having a good time. It’s not about me making money, or me getting off. It’s about giving them two hours of pure enjoyment.”—“Southside Johnny” Lyon, lead singer of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, quoted in Mike Greenblatt, “Southside Johnny Relishes Role as a Working-Class Musician,” Goldmine Magazine, July 11, 2013

Eric Carmen remembered his power-pop zenith as lead singer of the Raspberries ruefully in “No Hard Feelings,” from his first solo LP: “Critics ravin' 'bout our album/But we're makin' fifty cents.” The same fate befell, to an even more pronounced degree, “Southside Johnny” Lyon, born on this date 65 years ago in Neptune Township, NJ.

Lead singer and co-founder of the Asbury Jukes, Southside might have felt even more frustration than Carmen. It wasn’t only that his own work was so good (Rolling Stone named the group’s Hearts of Stone one of the top 100 albums of the Seventies and Eighties), but that, as the above quote indicated, friends from the Jersey Shore making it big at the same time must have convinced him that if he tried a bit harder, stuck it out a bit longer…

The two friends exerting the most gravitational pull, of course, were Bruce Springsteen and his sidekick, “Miami Steve” Van Zandt. Van Zandt co-founded the Jukes and helped produce their first few albums in the Seventies, while “The Boss” not only contributed songs that have remained part of the group’s repertoire over the years, but helped bring about his moniker. (According to Peter Ames Carlin’s Bruce, Springsteen got a look at Lyon’s planned stage apparel for their short-lived band, Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom—a pinstripe suit and fedora of a bluesman—and cracked, “Hey, it’s Johnny Chicago!” No, Lyon protested: “Don’t just call me Chicago, man—I’m from the south side.”)

What made it all worthwhile, of course, was the music—not so much the studio product (though I promptly bought all of their LPs until their ill-fated, disco-influenced Trash It Up in 1983), but the live experience, when Lyon poured his heart and soul out for the working class, as the frontman for the bar band par excellence of the Jersey Shore, all the way to New York venues such as Central Park’s Schaefer Music Festival, where I saw him several times in the 1970s.

(The image accompanying this post shows Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes  live in Amsterdam, October 14, 2006.)

Song Lyric of the Day (Sam Cooke, Celebrating His “Party” Before It Ended)

“We're havin' a party
Everybody's swingin'

Dancin' to the music

On the radio...”—“We’re Havin’ a Party,” words and music by Sam Cooke

At age 33, following eight years filled with 34 top 40 R&B hits, Sam Cooke came to the end of his party on this date in 1964 when he was shot to death in South Los Angeles by a motel manager during an altercation.

The soul singer, wearing just a jacket and shoe, had been drunkenly bellowing at the manager of the $3-a-night Hacienda Motel, following an assignation with a woman who ran off with his clothes and money. That’s where the questions begin.

Was the woman a hooker? Was she fleeing an attempted rape, or robbing him?

The police verdict—“justifiable homicide”—did nothing to solve the enigmas of that night. The questions not only lingered but multiplied across the decades, as reporters and biographers sought to make sense of the circumstances surrounding his passing.

No such ambiguity exists about Cooke’s enduring legacy as performer, composer, producer, businessman, and even political force. His tawdry ending should not obscure his transcendent achievements.

“A Change is Gonna Come,” inspired by Cooke’s desire to create an African-American protest song on the order of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” became one of the anthems of the civil-rights movement, covered by such figures as Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville, Terence Trent Darby, Patti Labelle, Elvin Bishop, Van Morrison, and James Taylor. Additionally, Cooke refused to sing before segregated audiences, and pitched his songs so that they could be marketed to blacks and whites.

There would be no artificial barriers, as far as Cooke was concerned, between the races. He wanted everyone to enjoy his music—and increasingly, by the time of his death, they were.

As canny a businessman as he was inspired a performer, Cooke also blazed trails for artists of all races by gaining ownership of his career. His groundbreaking 1960 deal with RCA allowed him to retain control of his copyrights, at a time when many African-American musicians were left penniless or, like Duke Ellington, seriously shortchanged of what was rightfully theirs. Owning his own record label, he also formed management and music publishing companies.

In the 1970s, one of my favorite concert thrills was seeing Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes perform Cooke’s “Havin’ A Party.” I think the grand master of soul would have been delighted to see the ebullient Southside Johnny whip the audience into a frenzy with one of Cooke’s songs.