Summer Music and the Jukes

Some music will forever sound best when it's summer. The first three Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes records, for instance. White boy soul, driven by Steve Van Zandt, who remains criminally underrated as a songwriter and bandleader and producer. He had an instinct for those horn lines....those hooks that stay in your head and keep you on the dance floor. And Johnny was the perfect frontman, half boardwalk shaman, half well lubricated, harp-bleating blues brother.