Jukes

Great album

The Bayou In Georgetown DC........... omg ............... Just incredible and I garden and set the neighborhood afire with their music!

Love this album!

Forget about what they did on their previous albums or what they did later in their career. Just listen to the songs on this album and judge for yourself. The Allmusic critic gave it three stars. Reading his review, I couldn't disagree more with just about everything he says about it. I'm a long time fan, I own six of their albums, and I saw them live the first time when I was 18 and it still stands out as one of the best shows I've ever seen. Out of my 600 plus albums in my collection, The Jukes remains one of my favorites. Listen to the songs and judge for yourself.

It all fell apart for Southside from here on, after he split with Little Steven and stopped singing great songs from him and Springsteen. The songs here are very mediocre and so are the vocals. In fact, they are very annoying! The only good thing here are the great horns.

If there was ever a time that Southside Johnny was going to enter the ranks of rock stardom, it was at the time of this album's release. The anticipation for this album was huge. This was Southside's first album for Mercury after departing from CBS/Epic, and was the follow-up to the incredible (and now legendary)  Hearts of Stone  - which should have (and probably would have) been a million seller had the record company bothered to promote it. However, when I bought this album when it first came out in 1979, I still remember the feeling of disappointment, as it was clearly not up to the standards of Southside's previous albums ( I Don't Want to Go Home , This Time It's for Real , Hearts of Stone ). Essentially, I guess I was hoping for "Hearts of Stone 2" which clearly this isn't, nor could I have reasonably expected it to be (1992's  Better Days  came pretty close though). Listening to "The Jukes" 30 years later, my sense of disappointment has dissipated somewhat, and I find this to be a fairly listenable set of songs ("All I Want is Everything", "I'm So Anxious", "I Remember Last Night" are particularly strong). However, the album still has serious flaws. First the material is lacking in the generally consistent excellence of the first 3 albums, with a few songs being not much more than filler ("Security" and "Your Reply" for example). The lack of Steve Van Zandt as primary songwriter clearly shows. However, the real problem is production. The overall sound is flat, lacking in the vibrancy, energy, and tightness that is characteristic of most of Southside's efforts. To prove my point, there are far superior versions of several of these songs on " Live: Reach Up & Touch the Sky " (a fantastic album) and a number of these songs continue to be regular staples of Southside's live shows. In a different producer's hands (particularly Steve Van Zandt's), this may not have been a great album, but it would clearly have been better. "The Jukes" turned out to be the beginning of a string of four mediocre and worse studio albums by Southside. The good news is that every album since 1986 has been good to great, and I would recommend seeking those out instead (along with the first three). I give "The Jukes" a charitable 3 stars, but just barely.

Absolutely..without a doubt.. the best Southside cd to date...get it, listen..see them live if possible...you will agree...this delivers everything from SS and the Jukes!...how bout them horns!!!

Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes had given up covering R&B oldies on their previous studio album, HEARTS OF STONE. On THE JUKES, they break completely with Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zant, and leave the songwriting entirely to Southside and guitarist Billy Rush. Despite the absence of Springsteen and Van Zandt, the horns and guitars still sound punchy, and rather than the dreamy romanticism of the first three albums, this one focuses on a world in disorder and the struggle of the songs' characters to cope with it. In addition, the music sounds more contemporary, taking in what was going on in the music world at the time it was recorded. This isn't the first place to discover Southside Johnny, but it is a masterful album nonetheless.

I used to enjoy this album quite a bit when I owned it on vinyl in the late seventies ~ good songs, nicely fleshed out with plenty of sassy brass and a good punchy recording. I sort of regretted selling it and for some years looked forward to getting it on CD. But when it arrived I was very disappointed to find that the quality of the remastering is such that I just cannot enjoy it at all ~ it sounds flat, weak and all things bad about digital sound. A generally good album sadly spoilt. It could have been done so much better.

As advertised