Bruce Springsteen Musician, songwriter Born: Long Branch (1949) Raised: Freehold Photo courtesy of Getty Images. “Our House was old and soon to be noticeably decrepit. One kerosene stove in the living room was all we had to heat the whole place. Upstairs, where my family slept, you woke on winter mornings with your breath visible. One of my earliest childhood memories is the smell of kerosene and my grandfather standing there filling the spout in the rear of the stove. All of our cooking was done on a coal stove in the kitchen; as a child I’d shoot my water gun at its hot iron surface and wa ..read more

When you are producing an event like last night’s 10th Anniversary New Jersey Hall of Fame induction ceremony, it’s good to have a surprise up your sleeve. What could be a better surprise than an appearance by Bruce Springsteen? Much to the delight of the packed house at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, Springsteen appeared in the final moments of the 2-1/2-hour show, inducting his friend Miami Steven Van Zandt. The two longtime band-mates performed together for the show’s closing musical number. It was a fitting end to an entertaining evening—one of the Hall of Fame’s most satisfying sho ..read more

Jazz House Kids is not a kid anymore. The Montclair-based arts-education organization turned 15 this year and is celebrating with an October 24 gala at NJPAC. The organization started as a one-time workshop with radio station WBGO for Newark schoolchildren. Vocalist Melissa Walker, who conducted the workshop, had a vision for an ongoing music-education program to bring into underserved public schools. The Jazz House was born and, with Walker as president, developed into a much-admired nonprofit providing year-round music training and mentoring for K-12 students. Some 200 students take part in ..read more

Vinnie Bruno remembers the first record he ever bought: “She Loves You” by the Beatles, released in the United States in September 1963. He purchased the single for 57 cents at Woolworth’s in Jersey City. “I still have it,” says Bruno, but that’s just the start of what the Woodbridge resident has in the way of Beatles anecdotes and ephemera.  The 65-year-old former college-level business and math teacher has become something of a post-retirement rock star, lecturing on the Beatles and other 1960s acts on both coasts. His audiences, he says, are primarily “adults over 50 reliving their pas ..read more

Growing up in Scotch Plains in the 1960s and ’70s, Cynthia Sayer wanted to play the drums. Her parents bought her a banjo instead. “Because I associated the banjo with shows like Hee-Haw, I thought, Oh no, bluegrass? But my parents found a remarkable woman banjo teacher who helped me to discover that the banjo was also a jazz instrument. I was hooked.” Today, Sayer is one of the world’s most accomplished jazz banjoists, having played with the likes of Bucky Pizzarelli, Les Paul, Dick Hyman and Wynton Marsalis. She will appear September 30 with her group, Cynthia Sayer and Her Joyride Quartet ..read more

From the Coliseum in Rome to the White House, Paul McCartney’s band has traveled around the globe. On September 11 and 12, his One on One tour stops at the Prudential Center for the first time. For the September 12 show, tickets go on sale to the general public on May 12 at 9 am. Ticket prices range from $34.50 to $355. Presale tickets, which go on sale May 11 at 10 am, are exclusively for Prudential Center email subscribers (sign up here). American Express card members can purchase tickets starting May 10 at 10 am through May 11 at 10 pm. Tickets for the September 11 show are a ..read more

Looking for fun? Check out these events and activities set to happen all over New Jersey this March. Please note that all schedules are subject to change; please visit the venue’s website or call for more information. Art Thea Clark: Do/Undo  Thru March 6 An exhibit 10 years in the making, Do/Undo features artist Thea Clark using naturally found objects to comment on climate change. $5-$7. Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton (hunterdonartmuseum.org; 908-735-8415).   Peter Turnley  Thru March 14 American-French photojournalist Peter Turnley documents the human condition and curren ..read more

Credit Bob Santelli, Monmouth University graduate and onetime Asbury Park Press reporter, for delivering the new Grammy Museum to Newark. Santelli, the founding executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and a former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum vice president, “is as Jersey as Jersey gets,” says Daniel Cherry, chief marketing officer at the Prudential Center and founding executive director of the new museum (full name: Grammy Museum Experience Prudential Center). The museum opens to the public on October 20. The two music fans had been thinking of ways to “pay tribute to ..read more

Music icon Dionne Warwick was born in Orange in 1940. Courtesy of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame We’ll say a little prayer for her. Dionne Warwick, the legendary singer who grew up in East Orange and now lives in South Orange, on Wednesday was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2022. This is the 81-year-old’s second nomination. “She has helped to define what it means to be cool and sassy and sophisticated and do your own thing,” says Nwaka Onwusa, the Hall of Fame’s chief curator, adding, “She definitely brings her New Jersey swag to everything that sh ..read more

A few years ago, Southside Johnny was in the liquor store next to the Neptune Stop & Shop when Curtis Mayfield’s classic hit “Superfly” came over the loudspeakers. “Everybody started grooving,” says Southside, whose real name is John Lyon. Inspiration struck. “I decided I wanted to make a retro-sounding soul record, but with a newer sensibility to it.” The result was 2015’s Soultime!, the rocker’s most recent studio album with his longtime band, the Asbury Jukes. That album, now in rock ’n’ roll’s rearview, racked up exuberant reviews on amazon.com and around the Asbury Park boardwalk, whe ..read more