Arthur Fonzarelli - sit on it!
When I'm talkin' 'bout cool, I mean COOL. And anybody who's cool knows Sugar Miami
Steve Van Zandt, an affable character who, by my reckoning, comes as close as any dude
I've ever met to exuding as much natural street savvy as The Zen Master of The Art, Dion
Di Mucci.
Since the '50s, the beat of the street hasn't changed as much as most social
commentators would have you believe. Despite the constant wind of change, the same basic
principles apply.
Cool, as personified by the Great American Teen Dream, has as much to do with general
attitude and sartorial street elegance as the way one lights up a cigarette or goes about
pulling the tastiest of chicks.
Cool is practically classless. It's a matter of demeanor and immediate priorities. In
terms of materialistic import, it's more concerned with the shape of one's shades than the
consumer chic of sporting a Cartier wristwatch, cruisin' in a customized Chevy '57 beats a
Rolls Corniche, diggin' Funk rather than Frampton.
You're either born Cool or you ain't.
If you ain't, it's Terminal Nerdsville for you.
Being dubbed by one's friends with a prestigious street name is most definitely
ultra-cool. In fact, it's almost become obligatory.
Nowadays, when people mention the name "Miami," they ain't referring to a
beach resort in Florida. They're talking about Bruce Springsteen's guitarist, Southside
Johnny & The Asbury Jukes' record producer and the guy who has taken it upon his
slender and slightly rounded shoulders to instigate Ronnie Spector's return to active
public life.
Miami Steve is almost as meticulous about his clothes as he is about his music. All a
question of Style.
If he chooses a black velvet single-breasted suit, Miami makes sure you can see your
reflection in his matching black patent-leather slip-ons and that his thin brim trilby is
sitting at the curved angle on his head. If it's to be a baggy candy-pink gaberdine
double-breasted, he dusts off his cream straw panama. Should he decide to go casual, an
oversize pancake beret frames the kind of swarthy features that wouldn't make him look a
stranger in any ethnic ghetto. Today, he may be lounging around his hotel room in a bright
red track suit, but he does so with such savoir faire that he would encounter
little trouble in securing the best table in the Savoy Grill.
Similarly, whether writing, playing or producing, Miami cuts the crap, staying as close
as humanly possible to the natural and vibrant essence of street music.
Primarily, Miami Steve sees himself as performing 70's-orientated rock while at the
same time encompassing the very best licks of the 50's and 60's. Subconsciously, he feels
this characteristic to be indicative of graduating on the streets, but at the same time
it's a side of his character that needs to be kept firmly in check. But when you're as
cool as someone like Miami, one's instincts tell you when you're going over the top.
In conversation, Miami often uses the pronoun "we"; he's not applying it in
the Royal sense but referring simultaneously to both Springsteen's E Street Band - of
which he is a capstone - and The Asbury Jukes which he produces with sublime deftness.
"I suppose," Miami begins in his nasal New Jersey dialect, "we
could be regarded as throwbacks in touch with today. The only thing that sometimes worries
me, is that maybe it's not 70's enough!
"We're not making a conscious effort to be 70's... we just do what we feel to be
right and hope that it works out!"
It's Miami's contention that, on the East Coast, street people are still quite partial
to a shot of rhythm 'n' blues ("With a little rock 'n' roll on the side, just for
good measure!"). His predilection for perpetuating that kind of music at a time when
(according to Miami) "R&B is extinct, the word doesn't exist and disco
sucks," directly stems from the fact that New York and its outlying districts aren't
slow on the uptake when embracing new trends, just that it moves at its own comfortable
pace.
"You could go out to Brooklyn or Queens," Miami continues, "and it could
still be 30 years ago, 'cept that the guys' hair's a little longer, but on the other hand
maybe not. Look at The Ramones!
"When I see someone like Robert DeNiro's portrayal of Johnny Boy in Mean
Streets, he reminds me of a dozen guys I've met. Perhaps," Miami muses,
"it's just that this part of America...we went through a helluva lot of changes real
quickly...trend followed trend...the British Beat
thing...psychedelia...Supergroups...Heavy Metal...Glitter...and before you had time to
take stock, things had suddenly turned full circle and arrived right back where it all
started.
"The street is most probably the same in every town, but around New York
and New Jersey there really doesn't seem to be that much difference between the street and
the stage."
Though a great deal of seminal rock culture originated on America's West Coast, the
traditional roots seem to have been firmly implanted in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of New
York. Miami Steve assumes that is precisely why this aspect of street sensibility is more
prevalent amongst the concrete canyons than on the sidewalks of any other locality you
care to mention.
Miami then draws comparisons with street life American style with that of Britain.
"Oh, I'm quite sure that in many parts of Britain, the street is just as violent
as in many American cities but there's something far more theatrical about British rock
bands than their American counterparts.
"I can only talk about what I've seen, but it does seem that you couldn't imagine
too many British rock bands walking directly off the stage, onto the street and surviving.
Over here, it's straight off the street, onto the stage, and then straight back out onto
the street again. Really, there's hardly any noticeable difference between the stage and
street.
"Most American bands don't have flash, other than street flash. They don't do
nuthin' onstage," he raises one eyebrow as if to stress the point, "that they
wouldn't do in a neighborhood bar after they've had a few beers."
By his own admission, Miami Steve has been on the street from that moment when, a week
before High School Graduation Day, he was suspended by the faculty for refusing to cut his
hair to an "acceptable" length. He refused to compromise even in the face of
expulsion.
"I thought, who the hell needs that piece of paper anyway - I'm gonna become a
rock 'n' roll star."
He rubs his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully, "I sure was naive in those days...all
those dreams quickly went down the jackhammer when I was building freeways!"
Admitting to being 18 going on 26, Miami states that the very first rock sound that he
remembers was The Coasters' "Poison Ivy": Seems Miami's Mom had a weird sense of
humor and bought her son the record when he was smitten with such a malady.
"Sure was a bizarre way of getting into music, eh?"
He also cites The Coasters' "Yakety-Yak" as another milestone, but the first
record which he claims evoked "an emotional experience" was Curtis Lee's
"Pretty Little Angel Eyes." Though somewhat embarrassed by his confessional,
Miami can't, 'till this very day, fathom out precisely why this particular record had such
a profound effect upon him.
"Perhaps," he jokes, "I'm just a terminal romantic at heart!"
Bostonian by birth, Miami didn't move out to Middletown, New Jersey until his mother
remarried, and it wasn't until 1968 that he left home and drifted into Asbury Park. But no
sooner had he put down fresh roots than he was out on the road with a Top 40 bar-band; a
part of his life which he summarizes as being, "a pretty weird experience to say the
least and the least said about it, the better!"
Seemingly, Miami only wanted to blow the blues and his efforts to convert his sidekicks
into his way of thinking resulted in the funky elbow. The year was still 1968, and Miami
was back in Asbury Park. He also remembers it as being the year he stopped listening to
transient music trends. "The only thing I've enjoyed since then," he admits,
"is reggae."
It was around this period, that Miami was to renew his friendship with Bruce
Springsteen, who lived about fifteen miles down the road in Freehold.
Actually, he'd originally encountered Springsteen something like three years earlier
when they used to pass one another on the street and exchange the kind of mumbled
pleasantries that rock musicians do.
"Hey man, what's happenin'?"
As far back as 1965, Miami insists that Springsteen had been the most constant person
that he has ever had the pleasure to know.
"I used to hitch-hike miles just to talk with Bruce . . . when things used to get
real crazy . . . when you're not succeeding because your ideas are too bizarre for most
people to understand . . . just to know that there are two of you in the world with the
same kinda vision . . . that makes it so much easier to face life."
When discussing Springsteen with Miami Steve, he -- like E Street Band saxman Clarence
Clemons -- readily admits to falling under what can only be described as Springsteen's neo
Messianic influence.
"Even back then," Miami recollected, "Bruce always did precisely what he
wanted to do. It was he who instilled in me the confidence that I so desperately needed.
Continually told me, that no matter how bizarre my ideas might be . . . even if it wasn't
fashionable, if I only wanted to play R&B . . . well, fuck everybody. If that's what
you believe, just go out and do it.
"Bruce never compromised himself and it's been like that for the 12 years that
we've been friends.
"Even if I wanted," Miami continues while still dwelling on the past, "I
couldn't even begin to tell you just how hard it was in those days. Somehow, Bruce always
managed to stay a musician, but me . . . well," he says somewhat sheepishly, "I
painted houses, got a job in a marina scraping the bottom of boats, worked in a pool
hall," adding as an aside, "one of my high points . . . did just about anything
to get by from day to day while fighting off family pressures to go back to college.
"My folks thought that if you didn't go to college, it was all over . . . the end
of the world."
He laughs. "I guess they were right!"
In those seminal days, both Springsteen and Miami Steve drifted through a number of
Asbury Park-based bands. For a time, they wer together in Steel Mill, then Springsteen was
to be found working with Dr. Zoom and The Sonic Boom whilst Miami picked guitar with The
Source.
At weekends, Miami would put on his best set of threads and hot-foot it into the Big
Apple and invariably found Springsteen hanging out in the same juke joints. However, times
were tougher than tough for committed R&B axemen. You either played the Top 40 or you
didn't play at all.
"Sure," says Miami, "there were other trends, but none of 'em were real
good. I never got off on any of 'em. Bruce and I always seemed to find ourselves outside
of the current trends and as a result hardly ever worked what you could remotely call
regularly.
"When R&B was popular we hadn't gotten into it by then. When at last we did
get into it, everyone was into psychedelic rock."
Around 1970, The Bruce Springsteen Band was formed . . . a 10 piece rhythm revue
featuring fatback brass and wailin' chick singers.
"It was the first serious band that we were both in and a sign of what was to
come. We were both fully-developed musically and knew precisely where we are at."
Despite such optimism, The Bruce Springsteen Band was to be short-lived.
"Unfortunately," reveals Miami, "the manager was a real creep -- Bruce
is very consistent that way," he chuckles, "and gigs for a band that size were
extremely hard to come by, so our manager stopped hustling."
Consequently, but not before they'd recorded some still unreleased tapes, The Bruce
Springsteen Band was forced to drop first the singers and then the horns. And it wasn't
until it was reduced to half its original force, that it managed to secure three nights a
week at a club called The Student Prince.
"It was a dead end, so we moved out to Massachusetts where, for some reason I
never did discover, we were very big, but that didn't last long and the band broke
up."
Having just come of age, Springsteen decided to try it on his own, but this time on a
folk troubadour kick. He impressed John Hammond, landed a recording contract with CBS and
called up some of his old sidekicks to commence cutting tracks for "Greetings from
Asbury Park N.J."
Things didn't quite work out as planned. "Bruce's new manager, who is about to
become his old manager . . . I told you he was consistent that way, envisaged a folk rock
approach and when I turned up a-rockin' and a-rollin', Mike Appel was quite horrified . .
."
Exit Miami Steve, his guitar and his amps.
For Miami, it was the end of the road in more ways than one. Not only was he without a
decent gig, but also thoroughly disollusioned with the direction in which rock had, in his
opinion, regressed.
"So I just stopped playing."
Having felt that the histrionic guitar-hero syndrome had peaked with the death of
Hendrix, it wasn't that he didn't choose to compete but, as a graduate of the
Steve-Cropper-Keep-It-Short-And-Keep-It-Simple school of guitar playing, he'd come to
loathe the very sound of an instrument he'd once so dearly loved.
The next two years saw Steve Van Zandt building New Jersey turnpikes.
His re-entry into fulltime rock'n'rolldom was a result of breaking a finger during a
football match. While he was laid off work, a friend rang and said he was looking for a
piano player, so Miami immediately accepted the gig as physical therapy.
Somehow or other, this escalated into a 12-month-to-the-day gig as guitarist for The
Dovells, a three month stint in Las Vegas which also cured him of gambling fever, the job
as MD for Dick Clark's Rock Revival Road Show and a chance meeting with none other than
Dion himself, with whom he discovered he shared a mutual admiration for the legendary
Delta bluesman Robert Johnson.
At the end of his association with The Dovells and Dick Clark, Miami Steve returned to
Asbury Park to await a call from Dion to fly out to Hollywood to work on the Phil
Spector-produced "Born to Be With You" LP.
The call never materialised and so Miami began hanging out with his old mate
(Southside) Johnny Lyon and together they formed The Asbury Jukes. When the phone
eventually did ring, it wasn't Dion calling long distance, but Bruce. Having almost
completed sessions for "Born to Run," Springsteen invited Miami to re-join The E
Street Band and head out on the highway.
It all sounded quite feasible and in Miami's own words, "an opportunity to
complete the circle. Anyways, his influence on me has always been too strong for me to
pass up working with him again."
But surely, it's not so one-sided. You must have some kind of influence on Springsteen?
"Only a very bad one," he howls, ". . . getting him into all kinds of
trouble."
However, when re-joining Springsteen, neither Miami nor the rest of the E Streeters
were intimidated with "The Future Of Rock & Roll" media over-kill.
"When we saw those covers of Time and Newsweek, it didn't seem like it
was really happening to us. Really, it looked like those phoney newspaper covers you can
have printed up for a dollar with your name in Times Square."
Neither did Miami sever his connection with The Asbury Jukes. When litigation with
Appel prevented Springsteen from recording, Miami found himself able to produce his former
cohorts through the courtesy of sound engineer Jimmy Iovine who had hustled some free time
down at the Record Plant.
It was at one such clandestine session that Iovine coaxed Ronnie Spector along as a
spectator. Being polite, almost to a fault, Miami asked if perhaps Ronnie would like to
exercise her larynx. When she promptly replied, "Yer on," he was flummoxed.
"I mean, Ronnie Spector . . . I didn't have the slightest idea what to do,
so I immediately rang up Bruce, informed him Ronnie was in the studio, that she wanted to
sing and for him to get over to the studio as quickly as possible and re-write the lyrics
of "You Mean So Much To Me" as a Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell type duet for the
next day's session."
The sound of Southside Johnny and Ronnie Spector trading off verses against one another
acted as a dynamic closer for an equally dynamic debut album.
After completing a road tour with Springsteen, Miami once again returned to Asbury Park
to schedule a second Jukes album. Everything was set, until Miami discovered that the
studio he'd booked sucked. As there was no other suitable studio available, he promptly
sent the Jukes out to work. No sooner had the Jukes hit the road, then he was offered the
facilities of the CBS studio in New York.
With a studio at his disposal and nobody to record, Miami's business manager Steve
Popovich suggested that he should cut a single with Ronnie Spector. After much coercion
and checking over the lead-sheet of Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye To Hollywood," he
agreed.
He had the singer, the song, the studio but no band. Popovich suggested the E Street
Band. Miami almost lost his bottle.
"It took a lotta balls to even agree to record Ronnie Spector, but using the E
Street Band was an even harder decision to make," admits their axeman.
"The E Street Band is Bruce's band . . . it comes through him . . . we
follow where he leads."
However, such was the empathy betwixt Ronnie Spector and The E Streeters that both
"Say Goodbye To Hollywood" and "Baby Please Don't Go" were cut and
dried in one evening and overdubs applied the next.
So how do you go about recording The First Lady Of Rock and not fall flat on your face
trying to do her justice? According to the man who took on the task, with your hand on
your heart.
Though Miami consciously attempted to avoid duplication of the Spector Wall Of Sound,
he readily admits that it was far more difficult than he had anticipated.
"Ronnie's voice," he says with admiration, "has such a very personal
identity that, no matter what you do you can't disguise it or the way that she should
sound . . . not that you'd want to in the first place."
"But anything she cares to sing has to turn out sounding emotional and quite
similar to how people love to hear her voice. She's just unique."
As their first serious shot together substantiates, Ronnie Spector and Miami Steve work
extremely well together. Sooner or later, an album will be forthcoming. At the moment, the
only problem preventing the completion of such a project is sufficient material and hours
in the day. Furthermore, Miami has to fulfill his obligations to both Springsteen and
Southside. Yet despite such a heavy workload, Miami anticipates that when pressure of work
allows, both he and the E Street Band would like to do some more sessions with other
singers. He envisages the E Street Band fulfilling the same kind of function in the '70s
as Booker T & The MGs/Mar-Keys did in the '60s.
As to who he has in mind, Miami immediately blurts the name Dion.
"I've already told him, the folk shit has gotta go but quick. He's gotta start
rockin' again, that's for sure."
By the way, Dion, Miami says you know where to call!
My most vivid recollection of Miami Steve will always be that memorable evening when
both Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes and Ronnie Spector brought the house
down at the Rainbow Theatre.
As the Jukes, Ronnie Spector and Miami Steve strutted about the dressing room all
dressed up to the nines, I suggested that whenever they played on the same bill with
Springsteen, the local feds must think a pimps' convention has hit town.
"Believe it or not," said Miami, as he double-checked his appearance in the
mirror, "we never sat down and worked out an image, we're all naturally like this . .
. a bit bizarre . . . and maybe that's why we all found ourselves in the same bands."
As he swaggered out the door and headed for the stage, he turned and added, "The
music may have had something to do with it as well." And then he was gone.
Cool bastard!
Roy Carr
New Musical Express (July 9, 1977)
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