Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
Through their first three albums, the boys were playing mostly to the Garden State rock cult that has produced talents like Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. But the Jukes deserve wider attention. Their music is elemental rock, gritty and thoroughly unromantic; "You're drunk with love but you gotta sober up sometime, don't ya?" goes a lyric in Security, written (and effectively sung here) by guitarist Billy Rush. The regular lead vocalist, Southside Johnny Lyon—who has a gutsy, I've-been-there style reminiscent of Eric Clapton—is urged on by a five-man brass and reed section that would have been funky enough to back Ike and Tina Turner. The overall effect of such tunes on this LP as Paris and I Remember Last Night is very contagious. Southside Johnny, 30, comes from Ocean Grove, N.J., but the younger Jukes themselves were created in the town that gave them their name, Asbury Park.
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