INTERVIEW: New film documents the many facets of ‘The Jersey Sound’
Image courtesy of The Jersey Sound / Provided by Adrenaline PR with permission.
The poster for the new documentary The Jersey Sound: The Musicians Who Call New Jersey Home is a perfect encapsulation of what the film has to offer over its 90 minutes. There’s a turntable hovering in the purple sky with the needle ready to rest on a cutout of the iconic Garden State. Down below, in the fading twilight, is an amusement-park scene that feels pulled from a summertime memory along the Jersey Shore — maybe Seaside Heights, maybe Atlantic City, maybe Wildwood.
The Jersey Sound, featuring narration by The Aquarian’s former editor Mike Greenblatt, goes beyond the usual suspects of the rock ‘n’ rollers who put New Jersey on the musical map and instead tries to make the case for a far-reaching, diverse sound that makes up the soundtrack of the Garden State. The resulting film, airing now on Tubi and available to purchase on Amazon, features a host of voices, some of them known to music lovers and others less so.
“It was a great, long road, but I had a great team,” said Randy Dominguez, executive producer of the documentary. “I was very fortunate. They really made this happen.”
The number of musicians whose stories are quickly featured in the project is staggering, everyone from the Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere to Whitney Houston to Bergen County boy Al Di Meola. Of course, there’s room for Southside Johnny, Steve Brown of Trixter, Tommy James and Skid Row. These are brief mentions, in order to fit everyone in, but the breadth of the voices speaks to the enormity of the Garden State’s musical influence.
Dominguez, who gave credit for the idea behind the documentary to the director, Fulvio Cecere, found himself at a point in his life when he wanted to dig deep into some artistic projects. He was working at two charities, but his retired life allowed more time to consider these side pursuits. “I wanted to do something different,” he said. “I come from a financial background, and so I was bored. … I wanted to change my life, and this is what I did. So I became the executive producer.”
It was important for Dominguez and the team to move beyond the easy headlines when describing the so-called “Jersey sound.” That meant they didn’t want to solely rely on Bruce Springsteen’s story or the rise of Jon Bon Jovi. “In fact, there had been interviews that Bruce and even Bon Jovi have done where they stipulate they are not the sound of New Jersey,” Dominguez said. “They’re just one aspect. They are two of the most famous musicians.”
Dominguez also pointed to Frank Sinatra, a Hoboken resident who is one of the most influential musicians of all time. Again, it would be a great film to focus on Frankie, but so many projects already do that. So the team wanted to branch off.
“I came to the realization that New Jersey has more musicians per capita than any other state in the country, so that kind of prompted me to say, all right, how does that translate to other places?” the executive producer asked himself. “Why is New Jersey different? … Think of Detroit, the Motown sound, and Chicago blues and New Orleans jazz and so on, those are innate genres within that geographic area. Absolutely awesome, great places, and I’ve been to them, and I’ve enjoyed their music. But they don’t have the diversity. New Jersey really transitions over time through different genres, different ages.”
Dominguez called New Jersey a microcosm of music, with almost every genre represented somewhere in the state. “The best way that I can describe it is New Jersey musicians have an attitude,” he said. “It’s that attitude that gives them the panache to do things that are different, to continue to move forward.”
In fact, “It’s an Attitude!,” is the tagline for the documentary and can be found on the film’s poster.
Dominguez added: “One of the interviews we did was with Steve Brown, and he took his band [Trixter] out to the West Coast. They had a gig. They were going to promote a record deal, and he said that when they were there what they realized is that the musicians out in L.A. were all about — what can you do for me? He turns around and says, that is so different from what I’m used to. In New Jersey, I could be playing one club, and other musicians were playing a club around the corner. They would come to support me. Conversely, when I finished my gig, I would go around the corner to support them. They would share things. They would help each other out. That camaraderie that you find within the musicians of New Jersey, honestly, you don’t necessarily find that elsewhere.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Jersey Sound: The Musicians Who Call New Jersey Home is now available on Tubi and Amazon. Click here for more information.
