Album Review: Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, "Better Days"

In the 70s, the bars of New Jersey reverberated to the sounds of SPRINGSTEEN, Van Zandt, and Southside Johnny. In 1991, with Van Zandt (AKA LITTLE STEVEN) back in the frame as songwriter/producer, SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES have recreated the heart and rocking soul of those sweaty, boozy clubs perfectly.

But rather than rely on past glories, Johnny and Van Zandt draw strength and capitalise on their expertise. That's not to say they don't like to reminisce though. "Coming Back" and "All I Needed Was You" are both sung in the past tense, whereas the title track's Stax/Volt tune is accompanied by a far more optimistic lyric.

JON BON JOVI, a latter-day "New Joisey" hero, shares the vocals for the rocking "I've Been Working Too Hard."

"It's Been a Long Time" is the track to catch the true spirit of Better Days, with Southside, Van Zandt and Springsteen trading the vocal spotlight in order to remember the good, old, gin-soaked days in those musical watering holes.

Fuelling the fire with more illustrious names than I have space to mention, Better Days' horn-scorched R N' B will be difficult to match by anyone!

Grade B

Joe Mackett
Riff Raff
January 1992

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!