John Lyon was born in Neptune, New Jersey on December 4, 1948 and grew up in nearby Ocean Gove. Lyon’s parents were music fans with a taste for jazz (his father played bass in a jazz combo before landing a steady job with the post office), and he grew up with the sounds of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington filling the house. Lyon developed a taste for harder blues and R&B from listening to the radio late at night, and in his early teens, he began learning to play harmonica after “borrowing” one from his brother, who had bought a guitar and fancied himself the next Bob Dylan.
As Lyon honed his chops on the blues harp and learned lyrics to some of his favorite songs, he would occasionally perform a few songs with friends who had formed bands. When Lyon was 16, he was asked by Sonny Kenn, leader of a popular Asbury Park band called Sonny and the Starfires, to join a new blues-oriented combo he formed, earning Lyon his first paying gig.
By 1967, the center of the Jersey Shore rock scene had become an Asbury Park nightspot called the Upstage Club, a booze-free venue that allowed local musicians to play original music and teenagers to hang out until the wee hours of the morning. The club often featured open jams, and Lyon, like many other aspiring musicians, would stop by regularly to hear music, meet other players, and hopefully take the stage for a few tunes.
By 1971, Lyon had formed a group called the Sundance Blues Band, which featured Lyon on lead vocals and harp, as well his high school friend Garry Tallent and other future stars such as Steven Van Zandt, Vini Lopez, David Sancious, and a promising guitarist named Bruce Springsteen.
Lyon started using the stage name Southside Johnny, a nickname given him for his love of Chicago blues and the extensive collection of rare blues and R&B sides he owned in tandem with Tallent As the Sundance Blues Band and its offshoots became frequent attractions at the Upstage, Southside was playing several sets a night, four or five nights a week, and he began seriously considering a career as a professional musician.
No band embodies the hardworking, R&B revue-like tradition of New Jersey rock ’n’ roll more than Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, also known as “The World’s Greatest Bar Band.”
SOURCE: AllMusic.com; NJ.com
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