The History of New Jerseys Musicians, Songwriters and Singers - Research Paper Example

The History of New Jersey’s Musicians, Song and Singers. Introduction The of New Jersey has an illustrious musical history, but it is often overshadowed by its much larger and more widely respected neighbour, New York. The attraction of the metropolis tempted many a New Jersey inhabitant with musical talent to leave home and head for the bright lights, but this does not detract from the fact that New Jersey was the place that brought forth many a famous name in the history of music. Some of the biggest names in twentieth century music, even from a world perspective, such as Dizzie Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Jon Bon Jovi and the Fugees have their origins in New Jersey along with some perhaps lesser known musicians and songwriters who have nonetheless been very influential over the last two centuries. This paper examines the history of New Jersey’s musicians, songwriters and singers in roughly chronological order, and in five sections: a) 1750-1900: Early beginnings b) 1901-1950: The jazz era c) 1951-1970: Crooners and the rise of pop d) 1971-1990: Rock, heavy metal, hip hop and punk e) 1991-2011: Current trends. These headings are merely aids to tracing trends, since musical influences can transcend boundaries of time and space, coming in and out of fashion depending on many different cultural influences. Successive artists, composers and writers have drawn selectively from the rich history of New Jersey, and from outside influences, to produce ever new items that reflect this state’s particular relationship with music as an industry and as a cultural phenomenon. This paper seeks to demonstrate that New Jersey has continually produced musical talent that has topped the charts in the music industry, generation after generation. 1750-1900: Early beginnings The music of the indigenous Americans who first inhabited New Jersey has been lost in the mists of time, due to the lack of written records from the era before settlers from Europe came over to colonize the Americas. Written evidence has survived, however, from the mid-eighteenth century when the founding fathers worked out the constitution and government of the different states who joined the union. New Jersey was close to the center of power which was then, as now, in the North Eastern corner of the country, and Princeton was for a time the capital of the nation. New Jersey was the third state to join the union. Many of the leaders in that period were well educated and cultured men who embodied the values of the European countries from where their ancestors came. Dutch, Swedish and British settlers imprinted aspects of their culture on the early New Jersey landscape, and this accounts for its relatively fast move from a traditional farming economy to extensive industrialization and a focus on trade and shipping, and eventually railways as well. Church music was of course a staple of cultural life in the early days, but the situation as far as music is concerned in the new colonies was very different from that in Europe: “the great European musical tradition grew over the years in the sheltered environment of courts and cathedrals. American music, on the other hand, made its own way in the rougher area of musical entrepreneurship and amateur music making.”1 The so-called “middle colonies” of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey contained a mix of peoples, and so from the beginning there was British chamber music, Irish dance music, and Scandinavian square dancing based on Scandinavian traditional music with violins, all co-existing at the same time. New Jersey author and politician Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) who took part in the creation of the American constitution was a very keen musician: “In the years before his premature death, by now a highly honoured national figure and Federal District Court Judge, he seemed most proud to proclaim himself ‘the first Native of the United States who has produced a Musical Composition.’ ” 2 His compositions were a mix of concert pieces and sacred music, with score and text, designed for the elite members of early American society in Philadelphia and New York. Throughout the nineteenth century New Jersey, like most other American states, set about building concert halls and other venues to enable performances of both high brow and low brow music to its growing population but the majority of work performed was from Europe, which supplied most of the cultural influence on the state. All of this was to change, however, with the advent of the twentieth century. 1901-1950: The jazz era. The demographic mix of New Jersey’s larger towns such as Newark included a large number of African American citizens in the early twentieth century. From this background emerged a number of talented musicians who made their mark on the history of jazz in particular. The genre of jazz had its origins in the plantations of the south, from early gospel and soul origins, it gradually spread northwards after the end of the civil war, along with former slaves and their families who headed north to start a new life in the industrial cities there. The first world war caused a boom in many of the manufacturing industries, and the ever growing workforces prospered greatly during first twenty years of the twentieth century. By the 1940s jazz had become popular in New Jersey where it developed most extensively through the big band or “swing” variety. Band leaders such as William Basie (1904-1984), known as “Count Basie,” after the fashion of giving artists titles like “Duke” (Ellington) combined the talents of composer, musician and business leader of the band. He was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, but as a young man traveled widely to take in different cultural influences. These included stride music from Harlem and then later the Blues which he encountered for the first time in Kansas.3 Although he traveled around, Count Basie retained a connection with New Jersey and developed his own individual sound: “… there was much in Basie’s piano style that refuses to be reduced to a discussion of influences. One of the most singular keyboardists in the history of jazz, Basie refined a sparser, more open sounding approach than any of his predecessors… One of the many delights of his music came from hearing how he could do so much with so little.”4 His most famous numbers include “One O’Clock Jump” and “All of Me” and he is also known for songs with other stars like Ella Fitzgerald singing “Honeysuckle Rose.” Two influential saxophone players, Wayne Shorter (1933) and James Moody (1925-2010) worked with one of the world’s greatest jazz trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie in Newark, which was a center for jazz music in the period around the second world war. Dizzie Gillespie was from Englewood while Moody was from Georgia originally but moved to Newark when he was still a child, and Shorter was Newark born and bred. He wrote and performed such classics as “Salt Peanuts” and “A Night in Tunisia” which are remembered for their innovative harmonies. In Englewood the famous Blue Note record label made many records and this encouraged a mixing of jazz artists and exchange of ideas. It was a relatively egalitarian environment, and musicians from all backgrounds collaborated with each other, resulting in some of the most musically innovative work going on in America. This very broad mix of different cultures stimulated innovation in jazz, for example, which had moved on from its roots in the rural south to embrace new influences: “Most accounts credit Gillespie’s experiments of the 1940s with successfully welding the Afro-Cuban rhythmic approach to the emerging be-bop language. He (= Dizzie Gillespie) once characterized it as ‘mixing hot peppers in a dish of black-eye peas.” 5 This lively mixture was a welcome contrast to the more traditional jazz styles of New Orleans, and the polished but comparatively conservative singers of the 1930s like Bing Crosby (1903-1977). In this era women did not usually have a major role to play but there were a few notable exceptions such as the great jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990), nicknamed “Sassy”. From beginnings as a church choir and band singer in Newark, New Jersey, this exceptional vocalist encountered Dizzie Gillespie and others doing work with various bands, and then began her solo career in the mid-1940s. Throughout her career she displayed a very great vocal range and a style that reflected her early bebop days. Her most famous hits include “Tenderly” and “It’s Magic.” It is important to remember that all of this was happening in the 1940s, at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was still some 20 years in the future. The contribution of New Jersey artists to new cultural impulses cannot be underestimated: “The interplay of historical circumstances, of intragroup memories, of instrumental and lyrical gestures, and of personal agency and style created a powerful Afro-modernism at mid-century and a cultural scene of lasting consequence in the American consciousness.”6 1951-1970: Crooners and the rise of pop. The second world war from 1939 – 1945 was something of a watershed in American culture. On the one hand it created a cultural break from the depression era of the 1930s and on the other hand it opened up a phase of greater contact with Europe. Manufacturing industries boomed, and New Jersey was one of the areas to enjoy better employment prospects and the emergence of a new generation of young people with money to spend and an interest in music. One of the greatest singers that America, and perhaps the world, has ever known is the legendary Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to an Italian American working class family and worked in such varied professions as a riveter, a singing waiter in Englewood Cliffs, and a crooner on local radio while he was still a teenager.7 He came into contact with big band leader Tommy Dorsey and eventually developed into a solo singer with incredible voice control. His fame increased when he became an actor, and he had several retirements and come-backs well into his later years. As a performer and musician Sinatra is recognized as exceptional. Critics point to his technical expertise, which is faultless, but also to a certain command of emotional tone, which is the key ingredient to his phenomenal success; “Where other singers, at best, work with lyrics and melodies, Sinatra deals in mental images and pure feelings that he seems to summon up almost without the intervention of composers, arrangers, and musicians, as vital as their contributions are.”8 Historians cite Bing Crosby as one of Sinatra’s greatest influences, along with the swing bands that were popular when he was a child.9 Given the nickname “Ol’ Blue Eyes” Sinatra produced masterly versions of songs such as “My Way” and “New York New York” but made many hits of a more romantic nature such as “Begin the Beguine” and “It had to be You.” Some of his hits like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “One For My Baby” were released again and again over his long career, and as his voice mellowed the songs changed subtly over the decades. Another very popular product of the Italian American community in New Jersey was the all-male group The Four Seasons, who shot to fame with the astonishing falsetto number “Sherry” in 1962. The group was immensely talented, from the singer, songwriter and producer Bob Gaudio to the lead singer Frankie Valli. They worked with Sinatra at times, as well as producing their own best-selling repertoire singer throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Yet another Italian American singer with superstar potential was born in Newark in this period. Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, better known as Connie Francis (1938- ). Even to this day, Connie Francis has a significant following in countries outside the united states, demonstrating an understanding of the way that different cultures appreciate music in different ways. Her website10 has links to fan sites and songs in many languages, and this explains her popularity in Europe. Thanks to her many of the innovations from New Jersey’s music scene were exported for others to enjoy. The lyrics that Connie Francis sang were fairly typical of the 1950s and early 1960s, in so far as the role of women was seen as secondary, often waiting for a man to show an interest, and so themes of innocence and longing are common: “In the crowd of a million people I’ll find my valentine And then I’ll climb to the highest steeple and tell the world he’s mine Till he holds me I wait impatiently Where the boys are, where the boys are, Where the boys are, someone waits for me…”11 The sentimentality and passivity of the singer in this song appear somewhat old fashioned to a modern audience, but in the 1950s this was the emerging voice of teenage women, and such records sold in their millions because they reflected the new concept of teenage romance. This theme, albeit with a much more assertive style, was to dominate the music world from then onwards. Ricky Nelson (1940- ), who was born Eric Hilliard Nelson in Teaneck, New Jersey had a highly successful career as a singer which he combined with songwriting and acting for television. Due to his exposure in all of these media he became one of the first rock’n’roll popstars, followed around by vast numbers of fans. His music covered a wide range, from folk to rock. He died tragically in an air crash at the age of only 45. Nelson played the part of the boy in this somewhat artificial world of teenage romance that was being conveyed through music, and it proved to be a very lucrative business. His song “Poor little fool” of 1958 made him an immediate success, particularly with female fans, because it depicted a young man who was being badly treated by the girl he loves. In the 1960s there was an increase in the amount of musical influences flowing inwards to the United States, most notably from the so-called “British invasion” of pop groups like the Beatles. Instead of big bands or single singers, there was now a demand for groups usually of four or five singers, with a very rhythmic accompaniment on drums and bass guitar, and the melody carried by a lead singer and lead guitar. New Jersey had its own special version of this and one of the most famous is the African American group The Four Seasons, who produced a massive hit with the song “Sherry” in 1962. The falsetto voice of singer Frankie Valli gave the group a distinctive sound, and Valli himself followed the footsteps of Sinatra to take Italian American style solo singing into the charts all over the world. 1971-1990: Rock, heavy metal, hip hop and punk. The 1970s saw an explosion of new styles and New Jersey was at the forefront of many of them. Two male singers rose to the very top of the field: Bruce Springsteen (1949- ) and Jon Bon Jovi (1962- ). They both attract something of a cult following, and their music is valued as much for the messages in the lyrics as for the music itself. Springsteen takes all the high volume metal elements of heavy rock, and turns it into something gentler, and more persuasive. Because of this he is popular with women, and with those who reflect on the meaning behind music, and in this respect he is more than just a singer. Critics have pointed out that Springsteen’s music crosses the usual boundaries of genre, and this can be explained by his background from the small beach town of Asbury Park, which gave its name to his first album, and his relative proximity to a very different world in New York: “he worked with bars close to home and also played solo gigs in Greenwich Village clubs, where he mingled with Patti Smith and other early punk rockers.”12 Springsteen’s material reaches the level of philosophy at times, or even, some would say, a religion: “On the whole, as religion somehow stands ‘aside from the rest of life’ and represents an alternative society based on the kingdom of God, fandom represents for fans a refuge from the turmoil of everyday life, an institution that exists above the ordinary and provides a steady and continual source of values, identity, and belonging.”13 These values are the somewhat rebellious urban values of a young man growing up out of step with middle class expectations of good school grades and dreaming instead breaking out into the freedom of music. His song “No Surrender” exemplifies this perfectly. The joyous guitar opening is rhythmic and energetic, and the lyric shows an anti-establishment exhortation to rise up and escape the pressure of an education that only harms people: “We busted out of class had to get away from those fools We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound I can feel my heart begin to pound You say you’re tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down…”14 The theme of the song is a promise not to surrender to the rules of a repressive society but to form brotherhood through music which retains the dreams that keep people hopeful. The “neighborhood drummer” recalls a cramped urban environment where people live in earshot of each other, and so does the lines: “I’m ready to grow young again And hear your sister’s voice calling us home across the open yards 15 The song recalls a safe childhood where boys play together in a communal space, free for a time from of parental controls, before an older sister gently guides them home. This is an idyllic urban life, nothing like the nasty image of blue collar New Jersey that intellectuals in New York like to paint. Music helps re-create a space in which these idealistic boyhood dreams can come alive: “Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own With these drums and these guitars… 16 Jon Bon Jovi, who was born John Francis Bongiovi, which betrays yet again an Italian connection in his ancestry, grew up in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He was aided by family connection in the music recording business to get into the profession early. Perhaps his most famous his album is the one entitled New Jersey, covers a very similar theme of brotherhood between urban children: Well it was me and Danny and Bobby We cut each other’s hands And held tight to a promise Only brothers understand.” 17 There is, however, in this song, a message of peace across the class divide, suggesting that the old opposition between working class and middle class values has been bridged by the 1980s generation: “Now, Bobby, he’s an uptown lawyer Danny, he’s a medicin man And me, I’m just the singer In a long haired rock’n’roll band.”18 A name which should not be omitted from the list of great musicians active in New Jersey is Les Paul (1915-2009) the guitarist, songwriter and inventor spent most of his life in Mahwah, New Jersey. His contribution is as an accompanist to many great stars including Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby but perhaps even more significantly in discovering new sounds to match the needs of the burgeoning pop industry: “Les Paul is considered to be one of the foremost influences on the sound of contemporary music and on the development of the electric guitar…Not only is he responsible for the development of the solid-body electric guitar and the world’s most famous guitar – the Gibson Les Paul, but he also is responsible for many recording industry innovations and ingenious guitar effects, including multitrack recording and the reverb.”19 It would be hard to imagine the music of the 70s, such as rock and punk without these innovations, which allowed composers to work with advanced recording techniques which changed the nature of musical composition very considerably. A very different kind of music was being forged in New Jersey during the 1970s, and it has the name Hip Hop. As usual, New York is given much of the credit for the innovations that actually emerge from New Jersey. The band called The Sugarhill gang which recorded the first proper Hip-Hop record “Rapper’s Delight” was created in Englewood in 1979, but they moved to New York and pursued their careers there. Similarly, Ice-T (1958- ) as born as Tracy Morrow in Crenshaw, New Jersey although his family moved to Los Angeles while he was still at school. Wyclef Jean (1969- ), on the other hand was born in Haiti but has spent much of his career in New Jersey where he founded the hip hop band The Fugees, which is a shortened form of “Refugees.” As the title of the band suggests, much of his music has a political undertone, and his activities in relation to political events in Haiti underline this fact. Unlike most of the artists mentioned so far, Wyclef Jean is from a diplomatic background and is well educated. His style of singing is witty and inventive, and his international background adds a twist to the traditional themes of Hip Hop which are urban, disenfranchised youth and their struggles with issues like drugs, sex, money and violence. 1991-2011: Current trends. New Jersey has always been a premiere venue for music of all kinds, and the current era is no different. Some of the legendary aspects of New Jersey have been been captured for the current generation in the award winning musical Jersey Boys written by Gaudio (music) and Bob Crewe (lyrics) which tells the story of working class boys growing up with a Catholic education and a love for music. It reprises many of the Four Seasons’ greatest hits such as “Sherry”, “Walk like a Man” and “Rag Doll” along with Frankie Valli solo numbers such as “Fallen Angel.” Much of the attraction in this nostalgic piece is the typical “rags to riches” tale of young men who seek their own kind of American dream through music. One critic applauds its realism “as they chart the evolution of their main characters from street kids in the urban wastelands of New Jersey to pop gods enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”20 The live music scene in New Jersey is still, as it always was, very diverse, and there are many hardworking musicians who drive from one live venue to another and entertain thousands of locals and visitors, especially along the coast and in the holiday seasons, where audience numbers are considerably higher than in the cold winter season. Campion describes the attraction of the rock band life style, even for people who have grown well beyond the teenage years into adult hood and describes a spell he spent with New Jersey band Dog Voices as “a long summer war on the pulsating circuit of Clubland…”21 The participation in the large venue performances of live music still holds, for the generation of those who were teenagers in the sixties and seventies at least, something deeply philosophical, and firmly tied to ordinary home environment of New Jersey inhabitants. In the boom and bust decades of the new millennium, with the shadow of 9/11 hanging over American culture, the musicians of New Jersey continue to add their own individual interpretations of what is important. Bruce Springsteen has continued his “simple but subtle”22 musical style into present times with songs like “You’re Missing” and “Empty Sky” from the album The Rising which reflects some of the sense of loss that Americans were feeling in the wake of that terrible event: “Empty sky, empty sky, I woke up this morning to an empty sky Blood on the streets Yeah blood flowin’ down I hear the blood of my blood Cryin from the ground.”23 Influences from other scenes such as punk are still alive and well in New Jersey, as can be seen in the indie band Titus Andronicus. The deliberately intellectual references in the band’s name, taken from a lesser known Shakespeare play, and song titles are ironic. The band was formed in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and has received rave reviews in the press: “The Monitor may be a concept record, but any trace of scholarly snobbery is hidden by the group’s thrilling country-punk racket, powered by bar-band guitar riffage, violins, bagpipes, horns and what sounds like any other instrument the band could get their hands on.”24 Hip-hop, too, still makes its presence felt in the work of artists such as Queen Latifah (1970- ) who was born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, New Jersey. Queen Latifah has been responsible for bringing beatboxing and rap to a much wider audience than just around her hometown area. Combining traditional and modern music, with a career in both singing and acting, Queen Latifah defies easy categorizations. Queen Latifah is an interesting phenomenon because she shares many of the characteristics of male hip-hop stars, while at the same time projecting a strong female persona. Her album “All Hail the Queen” is self assured, and refuses to succumb to some of the sexist world views that male rappers have, in the past, tended to favour. Her works shows how the Hip-hop genre has developed, and has become more tolerant and inclusive, and less closely linked with its gangland connotations. Queen Latifah’s much publicized entanglements with drugs and with personal tragedy have thus far ensured that her music stays grounded in the experiences of ordinary people in New Jersey, although it remains to be seen whether this will continue now that she has reached the leval of mega-stardom and huge wealth. In Queen Latifah, there is no longer any sense of the inferiority of New Jersey as opposed to the bigger neighbor, New York. School, work, money and all the trappings of success are there for the taking: “I reign the lesson of today You have to listen to each and every single word I have to say … Princess of the Posse, me say she a cool one She rhyme American, she rap Jamaican Princess of the Posse, me say she a cool girl She rhyme Brooklyn, the Bronx, USA, the world…25 In Queen Latifah New Jersey has found its true voice, and her inclusive style brings hip hop to a global audience. Conclusion: The Contribution of New Jersey’s Musicians, Songwriters and Singers. New Jersey artists have been both successful and also very productive over a long period. We have seen how the the rich mix of different cultures arriving with successive waves of immigrants into in New Jersey has brought constant renewal. There is also evidence of the need for good business sense in an region prone to boom and bust economies. New Jersey artists like Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Queen Latifah have brought their huge personalities into their work, and they combine an affection and respect for their humble origins with a worldly wisdom gained from decades of hard work and success in the business. It is hard to explain exactly why so many talented musicians have come from New Jersey. Things are not always easy for working class families, and the struggle for success often involves avenues that are outside, or even in opposition to mainstream society. The combination of blue collar backgrounds and world-beating careers has we see in the artists mentioned above displays one feature that is often lacking in modern American music and that is authenticity. The talents of New Jersey shines through diversity, proving that flaws and setbacks in all our lives can be a force drives us on to achieve excellence. Each generation has taken the musical history of New Jersey and made it relevant to its own time, and in so doing they have topped the charts time after time with no sign that this fount of talent will ever stop. References Bon Jovi, Jon. Blaze of Glory. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Publishing, 1991. Brantley, Ben. “From Blue Collar Boys to Doo-Wop Sensation: A Band’s Rise and Fall.” New York Times Nov 7th, 2005. Available online at: http://theater.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/theater/reviews/07jers.html Campion, James. Deep Tank Jersey: One Man’s Journey into the Soul of a New Jersey Club Band. Brooklyn, NY: Callaloo Press, 1996. Campbell, Michael. Popular Music in America: And The Beat Goes On. Boston, MA: Schirmer, 2009. Cavicchi, Daniel. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Connie Francis website. Available at: http://www.conniefrancis.com/ Friedwald, Will. Sinatra! The Song is You: a Singer’s Art. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1997. Giola, Ted. (ed.) The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Horn, Jeff. Hungry Heart: The Music of Bruce Springsteen. Bloomington, IN: 1st Books Library, 2000. Kauffman, Ronen. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye: Bands, Dirty Basements, and the Search for Self. Van Nuys, CA: Hopeless Records/Sub City Records, 2007. New Jersey State Official Website. Available at: http://www.state.nj.us/ O’Donnell, Kevin. “Breaking: Titus Andronicus” The Rolling Stone January 20th 2010, available online at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/breaking-titus-andronicus-20100120 Ogasapian, John. Music of the Colonial and Revolutionary Era. Westport, CN: Greenwood, 2004. Queen Latifah et al. “Princess of the Posse” Lyrics available online at: http://www.metrolyrics.com/princess-of-the-posse-lyrics-queen-latifah.html Ramsay, Guthrie P., Jr. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Springsteen, B. “No Surrender.” From the album Born in the U.S.A., Real Audio, 1984, available online at: http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/NoSurrender.html Read More