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Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes w/ The Gary Douglas Band with The Gary Douglas Band

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Long considered by Bruce Springsteen to be the Grandfather of “The New Jersey Sound”, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes have been recording great albums and bringing their high-energy performance to shows all over the world for almost 40 years.  Come experience the singer that Bon Jovi has acknowledged as his “reason for singing” and the electrifying band that was co-founded by Steve Van Zandt.

Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

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www.southsidejohnny.com

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Artist Bio

For Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - ‘comfortable’ has never been a word associated with their brand of raucous, roots-tinged rock and bluesy reverie. The Jukes have more than 30 albums on their resume, thousands of acclaimed live performances across the globe, and a vibrant legacy of classic songs that have become "hits" to their large and famously-dedicated fan base. 

The iconic Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes have now released the much anticipated SOULTIME!, their first new studio CD of all original material in five years, on Leroy Records in September 2015. SOULTIME! celebrates the transformative power of ‘70s soul music and represents a return to - as Southside sings - “just letting the music take us away”. This new release encapsulates everything that fans cherish about Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The pattern of horns plus rhythm - each song painted with catchy choruses, top-notch string arrangements and gospel charged vocals - keeps on coming. 

The new CD was written and produced by Jeff Kazee and John Lyon, and was recorded at Lakehouse Recording Studios in the Jukes’ hometown of Asbury Park, NJ. SOULTIME! features Southside Johnny on vocals and harmonica, Jeff Kazee on keyboards and vocals, Glenn Alexander on guitar, bassist John Conte, Chris Anderson on trumpet, John Isley on saxophone, Neal Pawley on trombone and drummer Tom Seguso. The band will continue to tour steadily throughout the U.S. and overseas. 

The Jukes’ last CD release was 2012’s Men Without Women: Live 7-2-11, recorded live on July 2nd, 2011 at the Stone Pony’s Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes performance with Little Steven Van Zandt. The disc featured live versions of the songs from the Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul 1994 album of the same name, along with three Asbury Jukes bonus tracks. 

2010’s “Pills and Ammo” was The Jukes last studio CD, with other recording highlights being the critically acclaimed "Hearts of Stone" and “Better Days” albums. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes first achieved prominence in the mid-1970s, emerging from the same New Jersey Shore music scene as now legendary contemporary and pal Bruce Springsteen. 

Southside’s first three albums, I Don’t Want To Go Home, This Time It’s for Real, and Hearts of Stone were produced by Steven Van Zandt (E Street Band, The Sopranos) and featured songs written by Van Zandt and Springsteen. “I Don’t Want To Go Home” became Southside’s signature song, an evocative mixture of horn-based melodic riffs and soul-searching lyrics. Rolling Stone Magazine voted Hearts of Stone among the top 100 albums of the 1970s & 1980s. 

With a decades-long successful career, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes continue to deliver their soul-searing brand of raucous blues and R&B, with material mined from their many albums, featuring hits like “I Don't Want To Go Home”, “Love On The Wrong Side Of Town”, “The Fever”, “This Time It's For Real”, “Talk To Me” and their definitive fun-time cover of “We’re Having A Party”. The Jukes’ legendary high-energy live performances always satisfy with their classic blend of Stax-influenced R&B and gritty, Stonesy rock and roll.

The Gary Douglas Band

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garydouglasband.com

There are really only two kinds of music. THE GARY DOUGLAS BAND does the second kind.

Music No. 1 aspires to be well crafted, with sophisticated lyrics, nice melodies, maybe some polished orchestral arrangements.

Then there’s rock ‘n’ roll, Music No. 2, which kicks that chair out from under you, cranks up the volume, slams out a beat like punches to the gut and dredges its message from the deepest passions singers and listeners can bear.

Sweeten it from the wells of Americana, country music and blues, and you get the music that drives GARY DOUGLAS. He drank it up in the streets of Brooklyn as a kid, where, in his words, “everybody knew everybody’s business. Everybody was hot-wired about whatever was on their minds.”

It became even more critical when his family moved with him to more placid surroundings on Long Island. There, he recalls, “It became a religion to me, profound and meaningful. Music gave me a way to channel my feelings, whether I understood them or not. I always found an outlet for feelings I couldn’t resolve, figure out or handle by playing music. It was indispensable.”

Nothing unusual there–for millions of kids around the world, rock ‘n’ roll is an essential rite of passage. But what happens when the passage is completed? Usually, they settle down, get a job … and start listening to Music No. 1 instead.

That’s not exactly what happened with DOUGLAS. He played in bands all the way through college and beyond. Then, in his words, “I had to make a living.” So he hung up his shingle and became a lawyer — a rock ‘n’ roll lawyer, actually.

“I’d walk into court with my suit on and my hair long below my shoulders,” he recalls. “I always fought for the little guy. Judges hated me because I hated authority. I was unorthodox and unconventional — and successful.”

And also, he adds, “completely unfulfilled. I kept telling myself, ‘I should be fucking happy but I’m not.’ Something was missing. It was always this.”

“This” was the rock ‘n’ roll, its whiff of danger and ability to mission past comfort zones toward extremes. “It’s that feeling you get when you’re listening to the lyrics of a really great Springsteen song and it’s like, ‘Fuck, yeah! Thank God somebody out there feels like I do.'”

See, DOUGLAS never let go of that music that gave meaning to his life. He never sank into the easy chair of Music No. 1. Maybe it’s because for all that he achieved as an “adult,” he remained a person governed as much by emotion as ideas. His peers sublimated those feelings or forgot they’d ever had them. Not DOUGLAS. He always kept a guitar in view at home, kind of like a talisman just waiting to be picked up.

Finally, one day, DOUGLAS did pick it up. And everything changed. His chops came back. His singing voice toughened to the point it could convey everything that he had to express — ecstasy, heartbreak and all points between — at full power and all night long.

Just as important, new songs started coming together. “Writing became my catharsis,” he says. “I might not even feel like I’m in the mood to write, but I’ll go to the piano or guitar and if I’m lucky I’ll channel something I can put into a song. Sometimes it’s a good feeling; more often it’s uncomfortable. But in the end I’ll feel better and I’ll have something I can share with the world.”

Backed by a ferocious new band, DOUGLAS took to the road. They opened on a 28-city “Guitar Gods” tour that featured Yngwie Malmsteen, Bumblefoot from Guns N’ Roses, Gary Hoey and other monster pickers. When back in New York, they tightened further through local club gigs. And there, DOUGLAS felt he had found again what he was looking for.

You can feel that magic on KEEPIN’ FAITH. Finished in the spring of 2015 and available now, the album taps into the energy that empowered Springsteen, Seger and other classic rockers. The urgency of “My Desire,” restless summons to seek a better life “Out on the Highway,” explosive anger of “Lord I Try,” screaming release of “Stop Bringing Me Down,” broken romance of “Goodbye Marie” — every shred of feeling throughout KEEPIN’ FAITH comes straight from the now liberated heart of GARY DOUGLAS.

Of course he had help on this mission, from the flawless support of THE GARY DOUGLAS BAND (guitarists Jeremy Goldsmith and Mark Marshall, keyboardist Scott Chasolen, bassist Dan Asher, drummer Stefano Baldasseroni, horn player Nick Biello and backup vocalists Yula Beeri and Clara Lofaro.

Producer Anthony Resta’s (Elton John, Needtobreathe, Collective Soul, Guster, Perry Farrell, Nuno Bettencourt, Shawn Mullins, Sarah Evans) creative input was also critical. “If I sing it some way but he knows I’m wrong, he has a great way of getting you to see the light,” DOUGLAS explains. “And I would go, Yeah! Got it!’ Next time I write a song, there’s not gonna be anything extraneous to it, thanks to what I’ve learned from working with Anthony.”

This is music that could tempt the sedate back into the fire of Music No. 2. The hooks, the blazing guitar solos, and muscle of the old-school Hammond organ, above all the redemptive power of GARY DOUGLAS, tell a story that won’t be denied.

Maybe it’ll change a few lives too. Just ask GARY.

“We played this club two nights ago in a small venue where the whole place was jumping. It was fucking awesome. I don’t need to be a superstar. I don’t need to play Madison Square Garden — although,” he adds, with a smile, “I wouldn’t turn it down. But when it’s right, when the place is packed and rocking, that’s it. That’s all I want.

I always feel best at these clubs where people the whole place is jumping. When we have those nights, that’s it. That’s what it’s about for me.”

Sometimes that’s all any of us need.

 

THE GARY DOUGLAS BAND

Gary Douglas (Guitar/Lead Vocals)
Jeremy Goldsmith (Electric Guitar)
Nicolas Biello (Reeds and Keys)
Dan Asher (Bass)
Paul Amorese (Drums)
Sebastien Ammann (Keys)
Jessica Antonette (Backing Vocals)

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