I've noticed there are many longtime Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes fans. Not only from New Jersey (pilgrimage state for Europeans who love great music) but also at this side of the Atlantic. Even though I'm a big SSJ/Jukes fan, I'm not a longtime fan. But I think I can say I'm a longtime Ed Manion fan. Does that count?

So how did I become a Jukes fan? Well I guess the story starts when Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' came out. Not that I was a Bruce fan. Bruce was very popular in the Netherlands. In Europe. Okay, worldwide. My sister became a big fan of Bruce like almost everybody else here in the Netherlands. Since we were young my sister and I didn't like each others' taste in music, clothes, food, boyfriends or anything else. Back then we only had a few TV channels. There was nothing on or Bruce was on. Somehow my sister always decided what to watch on TV, so I had to watch Bruce videos as well. I only knew the song 'Dancing in the dark' and I didn't like it at all. Did like 'Glory days' though, but maybe it was the guitarist, Steve van Zandt that I liked more. Had a little crush on this guy - well hey; I was only 11 years old!!!

But Steve wasn't in the band anymore. I was happy knowing Steve had his own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. The very same night a radio channel played an older gig of this band. Turned out this band had hornplayers. Secretly (had to be in bed) I listened to the show and liked what I heard very much. After almost 25 years I still remember how very much I liked one particular song. It took me many years to find out the name of this song.

First Steve introduced the band. Some had funny names. There was a Labamba and a Loveman. And some guy named Eddie Kingfish Manion from New Jersey was on baritone (I remember thinking, what's a baritone? Must be my lack of English.) After the drummer was introduced they started to play this song. It started with a bass. Halfway through the song that bass again, then Steve screaming "Eddieeeeee!!!" And then came a solo, not only the coolest solo with the fullest sound I've ever heard, but with a saxophone which sounded different from other saxes! Next day I went to the record shop, found Little Steven's album 'Men without women', bought it, but was a little bit disappointed because the song I liked most wasn't on it.

Meanwhile hoping to get to know more about Steven's band, I saw a lot of TV shows / documents about Bruce or with Bruce in it. But seeing some older gigs and hearing some older songs of Bruce, especially 'Thunder road', made me a huge fan of Bruce. And of course my sister didn't like Bruce anymore. She gave me her Bruce collection, including a magazine with discography lists of every E-street Band member. Apparently Steve had something to do with a band called Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Read it, but at the time didn't do anything with this information. I was more a Bruce fan now and there weren't any hornplayers anymore on Steven's other albums.

Couple of years went by and I went to my first Bruce gig. I was very excited because I heard there were hornplayers also. And I found out, these guys were THE hornplayers with the funny names! Shortly after this gig I bought Bruce's 'Live Box'. These hornplayers were mentioned again. This time I wanted to know more about them, especially the baritone sax player and still wanted to know the name of the song I liked so much. The only information I
could get was 'Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes'. So I started searching for SSJ records. Well, records turned into cd's, but I couldn't find anything about SSJ.

Again a couple of years went by and suddenly Dutch radio stations played the SSJ song 'It's been a long time'. Again I liked a lot what I heard: all of my favourite musicians including this singer with such a fantastic voice! And this time there was a new cd out, so I went to the store again. Now they also had some older cd's of the Jukes, the first three and a compilation. Bought all of them, hoping the song I liked was on it. Listened to them, heard a lot of other great songs too and started to like this band. A lot.

Then I wanted to see them live. Unfortunately that only happened after the millennium! The Jukes played at the Amsterdam Paradiso on my birthday and my boyfriend bought me tickets for the gig. This band was a band I wanted to hear and see them over and over and over again. Bought more cd's, dvd's, merchandise stuff, learned to know all the band members (there's another wonderful sax player) and went to enjoy more gigs to get blown away by the horns. And before I knew it, I started to know other people around the world
who just like me can't stop loving this band. Turned into a freaking' boarder, became friends and went on Euro tour with some other freaking' boarders.

And Kingfish? Can still hear the solo I heard him play, that got me the first time. And when I saw him on the Seeger Sessions tour, he played the tenor, but got me again.

It's so nice to hear his enthusiasm in his sax playing, which made me want to learn to play the saxophone too. I'll never be as good as Ed or even the guy next door, but playing saxophone is a lot of fun! Meanwhile I heard Ed's sax playing many more times, on baritone, on tenor and once on alt sax. With the Jukes or with other musicians and playing different kind of music styles. One day I hope to hear Ed singing live. I know he does that
sometimes, but somehow not at gigs where I go...

So Kingfish is still my favourite saxophone player and therefore my favourite Juke. The baritone saxophone is still my favourite musical instrument and the song I was searching for so many years, 'Played the fool', is still my favourite Jukes song. And Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes is one of my favourite bands!

Greetings from Amsterdam,
Sally