{"id":1039,"date":"2019-07-21T12:53:43","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T16:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2019-10-30T20:15:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T00:15:38","slug":"stories-from-the-front-row-with-little-steven-and-the-disciples-of-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/stories-from-the-front-row-with-little-steven-and-the-disciples-of-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories from the front row with Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stevie<\/a>

Stevie Van Zandt, a member of Bruce Springsteen’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group the E Street Band, brought his Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul show to the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, Saturday, July 20.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

If you\u2019ve got a favorite band who you\u2019d like to see live, do yourself a favor and spend the money to sit in the front row. And if Stevie Van Zandt sticks a microphone in your face, make sure you know the words to the song he wants you to help sing.<\/p>\n

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul were at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, Saturday, July 20. I had been carrying around a gift card from Christmas and was looking for the right concert on which to spend it. And I wanted to see Little Steven.<\/p>\n

Front row tickets aren\u2019t always affordable, but for this show, they were. Only $81.50, which is a bargain for a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. It seemed like the perfect way to treat myself with the gift card that was suddenly burning a hole in my wallet. I could hear my wallet screaming at me: \u201cIt\u2019s Little Steven, you idiot! Jersey Shore sound. E Street Band. It\u2019s a no-brainer!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes it was. Means, motive, opportunity. Front row, baby.<\/p>\n

Sitting that close provides the chance to interact a bit with the artist, and I got my opportunity late in the show during an audience participation song. <\/span><\/p>\n

Stevie walked right up to me at the edge of the stage and stuck the mic out. Now, I had just perfectly executed a singalong at a bar in Sea Isle, N.J., the week before when the artist held the mic out to me to sing the chorus of \u201cBuild Me Up Buttercup,\u201d the hit single from The Foundations in 1968.<\/p>\n

But when Stevie looked down and pointed the microphone at me, we weren\u2019t singing \u201cBuild Me Up Buttercup.\u201d I know the words to that song. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Little<\/a>

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul performed a rockin’ two-and-a-half-hour set Saturday night.
(Photo bu Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

I not only didn\u2019t know the words to the song Stevie was singing, I didn\u2019t even know the song. Of course, my first reaction was to fake it. \u201cNah, nah, nah, yeah, yeah. Harumpf, grumble, groan, growl, baby-baby,\u201d I spewed into the open mic in front of hundreds of people who apparently did know the words to the song and were singing along perfectly in union.<\/p>\n

Oh, fer crissakes (face palm). How embarrassing. I finally got my 15 seconds of fame and turned it into five seconds of shitmouth. I\u2019m pretty sure Stevie was thinking, \u201cMan, you really fucked that up Mikey. Why don\u2019t you and me take a little ride. I hear the Pine Barrens are pretty this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ok, I\u2019ll sit down and shut up for the rest of the concert. <\/span><\/p>\n

But Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul put on a great show. Stevie had been upset on Twitter at a recent review of the show where the reviewer thought the band had mailed it in. But I didn\u2019t see any of that. There was a seemingly endless energy from everybody on stage for two and a half hours. And we even got to see Stevie\u2019s wife, Maureen Van Zandt (who also played the wife of his character Silvio Dante in \u201cThe Sopranos\u201d), who came out to dance with him on \u201cSoul Power Twist,\u201d one of the fabulous songs \u2014 along with my other favorites \u201cLove Again\u201d and \u201cA World of Our Own\u201d \u2014 on his new album \u201cSummer of Sorcery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stevie's<\/a>

Stevie’s wife, Maureen Van Zandt, joined him onstage to dance the “Soul Power Twist.”
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m not only a fan of his music, but I\u2019ve been a fan of Stevie\u2019s persona for a while now. What a wonderfully pleasant guy to talk to. He\u2019s a walking history book of music knowledge. I\u2019ve gotten to interview him twice for advance stories that I was doing, once when he was producing a series of reunion shows for The Rascals several years ago, and more recently to advance a show he was doing a couple of years ago at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, N.J., kind of his home turf venue. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I really enjoy taking to him about though is his role \u2014 along with Bruce Springsteen (more than 600 words in this piece and this is the first mention of Springsteen) and Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes \u2014 in the development of what we now know as the \u201cJersey Shore sound.\u201d His interview, along with an interview I did with Southside Johnny Lyon, will appear in a chapter about Southside\u2019s first three albums in \u201cThe Vinyl Dialogues\u2019 Greatest Hits: Volume V,\u201d which I\u2019m working on now.<\/p>\n

\"Stevie<\/a>

Stevie Van Zandt \u2014 along with Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny Lyon \u2014 were instrumental in the development of the “Jersey Shore sound.”
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Here\u2019s a sample of what Stevie said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bar bands\u2019 configuration, the bar bands\u2019 sound, the bar bands\u2019 music, literally changed its definition with Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes,\u201d said Van Zandt. \u201cBefore that, bar bands were strictly Top 40. And only with the Jukes did they become synonymous with soul music and rhythm and blues, which is what all bar bands are considered to be now \u2014 their standard format. That wasn\u2019t the case before the Jukes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really did help to integrate the \u2018Jersey Shore sound\u2019 and at the time, really start to flesh out that sound. When there is more than one artist working, it starts to make the whole context more interesting,\u201d said Van Zandt, who produced the first three Southside albums in the 1970s and wrote or co-wrote several songs for this albums, including \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Go Home,\u201d \u201cThis Time It\u2019s for Real\u201d and \u201cLove on the Wrong Side of Town\u201d with Springsteen. \u201cWhat we had with Southside, I really didn\u2019t appreciate it until later when someone explained to me how we had redefined the entire bar band definition and sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevie\u2019s sound \u2014 as well as his musicianship and showmanship \u2014 were on full display Saturday night. The Disciples of Soul killed it. And I walked away from the merch table with a tour poster, hat and the \u201cSummer of Sorcery\u201d CD. <\/span><\/p>\n

My wallet was right. Sitting in the front row for this concert was indeed a no-brainer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Disciples of Soul having some fun at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve got a favorite band who you\u2019d like to see live, do yourself a favor and spend the money to sit in the front row. And if Stevie Van Zandt sticks a microphone in your face, make sure you know the words to the song he wants you to help sing. Little Steven and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,144,152],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-keswick-theatre","tag-little-steven-and-the-disciples-of-soul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}