Seaside Bar Song
Greetings From Asbury Park Part 3
Sunday, April 2, 2023 Entry #63
I’m continuing my report and reflections on the tour I took of Bruce Springsteen related sites on the New Jersey Shore.
II. “Springsteen and Music”
Compared to all the sites of the school auditoriums, dance-halls, bars, clubs, beach stages, coffeehouses, arenas, and other venues where Springsteen has appeared over the years in and near the place where he grew up, we only saw a tiny sliver. However, each music site we did see on the tour told of such a rich history and elicited deep emotional responses that those relatively few places seemed to represent all of them.
The first of these that I will relay are presented in tandem because together they are a huge part of Springsteen lore, the Wonder Bar and the building that once housed the Student Prince.
The Wonder Bar sits just off the Asbury Park beach boardwalk and still has an active performance schedule. Springsteen has a strong connection to this venue. It was there that he performed live for the first time following the 2011 death of Clarence Clemons, at a tribute show for his longtime friend and bandmate. The Student Prince, on Asbury’s south end, ceased being a music venue in 1984, and is now Porta, an artisanal pizzeria and bar. The backstory of the Student Prince and its importance in Bruce Springsteen’s musical evolution starts at another legendary Asbury Park music venue, the Upstage.
The Upstage (the building still exists but I don’t remember it being pointed out on the tour) has been described as a “musical college”, a “rock ‘n’ roll high school,” and the site of the true birth of the unique Asbury Park music scene. In the late 1960’s and early 70’s it was a hippie hangout, the place where Springsteen cultivated friendships with fellow musicians who eventually became past and present members of the E Street Band and others who are still part of Springsteen’s extended musical family. We’re talking Steve Van Zandt, Danny Federici, Southside Johnny Lyon, David Sancious, Vini Lopez, Gary Tallent and more. In addition to hosting regular scheduled gigs, the club held weekend mix and match sign-up jam sessions that would last until 5 a.m. Steel Mill, one of Springsteen’s early successful bands, was formed through the community that bonded at the Upstage.
When the Upstage closed, the heart of the Asbury Park scene migrated to the Student Prince (and would later move over to the Stone Pony). Steel Mill morphed into the Bruce Springsteen Band, and Springsteen’s sound was changing too. As the Boss describes it, “No more guitar histrionics, the new sound I was pursuing, an amalgam of good songwriting mixed with soul-and-R & B-influenced rock music was the basis of the soon to be crystallized E Street Band.”
Anyways, the incredible situation that connected the Wonder Bar and the Student Prince in dramatic fashion occurred in 1971, when a saxophone player named Clarence Clemons was performing with his band The Joyful Noyze at The Wonder Bar. After their gig, Clemons decided to to walk down to Kingsley Street (a roadway later name-checked in the Springsteen song “Something In The Night”) with his sax in tow to the Student Prince, where he heard that a hotshot guitar player named Springsteen was playing with his eponymously titled band. Springsteen had heard about Clemons as well, the word being that the rock ‘n’ roll sax player was “magic” but hard to track down. Springsteen tells the story of their fortuitous first encounter often, almost as mythology, including this version from his autobiography:
“It was a dark and stormy night…As the Big Man approached the front of the Prince, a mighty gale blew down Ocean Avenue, ripping the club door off its hinges and down the street…There he was, King Curtis, Junior Walker, and all my rock ‘n’ roll fantasies rolled into one. He approached the stage and asked if he could sit in…and let loose with a tone that sounded like a force of nature pouring out of his horn….This was the sound I’d been looking for. More than that, there was something in the chemistry between the two of us, side by side, that felt like the future being written.”
Here’s another description of the same scene, this time from the perspective of Clarence Clemons:
“A rainy, windy night it was, and when I opened the door the whole thing flew off its hinges, blew the whole thing off and away down the street…The first song we did was an early version of “Spirit in the Night”. Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.”
Yes, it was truly a powerful thing to see those two buildings, the origin sites behind the stirring moment also famously recorded in Springsteen’s rousing “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” song: “When the change was made uptown and the Big Man (Clemons) joined the band. From the coastline to the city, all the little pretties raise their hands. I’m gonna sit back right easy and laugh when Scooter (Bruce) and the Big Man bust this city in half.”
Another of our stops was at the Convention Hall and Paramount Theatre, the two buildings connected to one another on the Asbury Park boardwalk by an arcade. Bruce has talked about the Convention Hall as the place where as a teen he saw life-changing concerts by the Doors and the Who. Both venues have been the sites for many Springsteen tour rehearsals and special hometown performances over the decades. Even when rehearsal sessions were closed to the public, thousands of fans would gather on the beach to listen in and they quite often often would receive a wave and a word from Bruce when he would go out on the Convention Hall’s ocean overlook deck for a break.
We saw the Vogel in the community of Red Bank, the venue where Springsteen and the E Street Band rehearsed just a few months ago for their current, first post-COVID tour. According to The Asbury Park Press, Springsteen fans listening outside the venue remarked that the sound was muffled but the songs were identifiable. Also in Red Bank, we checked out the Count Basie Theatre (the famous bandleader was born in the town), which seats only 1400 people, but is known as one of the most important Jersey Shore venues for Springsteen. He played a number of landmark concerts there through the 1970’s and has continued to perform at benefit shows for charities (including one to help preserve the theater itself) through the present era.
Although Springsteen never played at The Turf Club on the West Side of Asbury Park, it was a really fascinating part our tour, and months later this very place appeared in the news because of a generous gesture from Bruce Springsteen himself.
The West Side is a historically African-American neighborhood, anchored by Springwood Avenue, a once thriving business district with a number of nightclubs that housed a vibrant Black music scene. Around the same time frame of his aforementioned meeting with Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons played at the Turf Club often (note his painted image on the wall). Tragically, racial disturbances that had been long simmering in Asbury Park (referenced as “There were a lot of fights between the black and white” by Springsteen in “My Hometown”) boiled over in 1970. As the Asbury Park Press reported, “Blocks of Springwood that were not burned down were later bulldozed in a failed attempt at revitalization. The Turf Club is one of the last great clubs on the West Side of the city that still stands.”
However, the venue is in serious disrepair. Recently, an organization called The Asbury Park African-American Music Project has been working on its restoration, even hosting shows there despite the lack of plumbing, electricity and a roof! In December, 2023, it was reported that Bruce Springsteen had donated $100.000 to aid in the effort to save the club. A representative of the group relayed that she had gotten a call from Springsteen who told her he wanted to contribute because music from the West Side is so important to him. She said that Springsteen was audibly excited about the cause and the group’s goal to use the Turf Club as a functioning performance space and community center.
Clarence Clemons actually once owned a bar and live music nightclub in Red Bank called Big Man’s West. Bruce Springsteen joined Clemons onstage for a set on its opening night in 1981. Springsteen went on to make eighteen appearances at Big Man’s in support of his saxophone player and dear friend’s endeavor. Although Clemons closed the place two years later, Springsteen and the E Street Band still used the by then defunct club to rehearse for 1985’s “Born In The USA” world tour.
When we arrived at the storefront that once housed Big Man’s West (now a “temporarily closed” workout facility), we discovered that our tour guides had arranged for the former manager of the club, George McMorrow, to meet us out front.
George told us a number of amusing stories from when he worked at the venue, including the time Springsteen hung out at the club with crooner Tony Bennett. My favorite anecdote he shared was about Springsteen leaving Big Man’s after a long day of tour rehearsal. A young fan who had been standing outside listening to the music saw Bruce leaving and actually asked him if he could have a ride home. Springsteen replied. “Yeah, hop in,” and the two drove off in Springsteen’s black convertible!”
I have a few more tour stops and photos to share from the music aspects of my Jersey Shore tour, including going inside the Stone Pony, but I will leave those for the next entry. Although it was short-lived, Big Man’s West was said to have played a key role in the revival of the Jersey Shore music scene in the 1980’s. Besides local artists and Springsteen, the venue hosted a number of nationally recognized artists including Jon Bon Jovi, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Edmunds, Gary U.S. Bonds and Marshall Crenshaw. Let’s let Clarence Clemons and the sign that hung above the club he proudly owned close out this post.
Love the addition of the cartoon, the quotes and the photos...you brought the whole experience to life! Thank you!!!