In 1968, music made Asbury Park a respite from unrest

Austin Bogues | USA TODAY NETWORK – New Jersey

EditorThis story is from June 2018.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. — Amidst the humid and turbulent summer of 1968, John Moor worked a summer job flipping burgers and hot dogs on the grill of Ducky's Luncheonette, one of the most popular stands at the boardwalk.

It was a great summertime job for a 16-year-old, complete with views of the ocean. But the real treat would be the times he could sneak into one of the concerts in nearby Convention Hall during breaks on his shift.

In 1968, Asbury Park was the music capital of the Jersey Shore. A "Summer of Stars" paraded into its venues that summer with acts like The Doors, The Beach Boys, Ray Charles and others jamming out in the city that had live entertainment etched into its soul.

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There weren't just big national acts playing. Local bands, some who would also go onto fame, lined up to play at smaller venues like the Stone Pony. On Springwood Avenue, in the predominantly black west side of the city, jazz and soul clubs thrived.

Moor, who is white, fondly recounted seeing the Motown group The Four Tops, who had hits that year including "Walk Away Renee" and "If I were a Carpenter."

More: The Doors play Asbury Park

He said the concerts and summer entertainment by the ocean were a respite from the unrest that was gripping the country, as the Vietnam War escalated and political and racial tensions simmered – or exploded – after the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

Music of the late 1960s was tinged with political themes, from civil rights anthems to opposition to the Vietnam war.

There was the female empowerment anthem "Think" by Aretha Franklin.

The Beatles sang "You say you want a revolution/ Well, you know/

We all want to change the world," on the track Revolution.

Rich Robinson's History of Asbury Park Music Panel Henry Vaccaro speaks about Johnny Cash during Rich Robinson's History of Asbury Park Music Panel part of Asbury Park Music + Film Festival

A unifying sound

In its heyday during the 20th century Asbury Park had a vibrant live music scene in part because of its location.

"It was a good stopover for black artists who were playing Atlantic City because it was halfway between there and Harlem," said Charlie Horner, 68, a music historian. "You find a lot of major artists would play the west side, a lot of home grown artists as well."

Moor said the Asbury music scene was easy to take for granted.

"You didn’t realize you were growing up in a little Disney World," Moor said.

Jazz flourished in Asbury throughout the 1930s and '40s. The renowned pianist Count Basie got his start playing in clubs. Earlier in the century in 1912, Horner said, Duke Ellington spent the summer as a teenager and went on to become one of the most important American composers.

SOUNDS OF 1968: Songs that transformed a nation

Horner said the sounds of the gospel and jazz progressed into doo-wop in the 1950s and those genres influenced the soul and funk sounds that dominated airwaves by 1968. That was true nationally, on tracks like Otis Redding's posthumous hit "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" and James Brown's "Say It Loud (I'm Black I'm Proud)."

Among the Asbury singers who found his voice that year was J.T. Bowen, who toured with groups like Soul Flame and The Chosen Few, along with a pal, Clarence Clemons.

Bowen's Otis Redding-style voice won over crowds, and Clemons who played saxophone, asked him to be the lead singer of a new group he was forming, The Red Bank Rockers. They played gigs at some of the big clubs on Springwood Avenue.

Clemons would later bring that sound to a bigger act he would join, the E Street Band, where he backed up one of the biggest entertainers to get their start in Asbury Park, Bruce Springsteen.

Bowen and Clemons' exemplified the sound of Asbury, an evolution of American music that combined jazz, soul and rock and brought musicians together.

The city's largest venue, Convention Hall was also a mix, welcoming integrated crowds for the big summer concerts.

Ray Charles played to a sold-out audience on July 6, performing a setlist that included R&B and pop covers. The Asbury Park Press noted Charles' "adaptability" with the audience, praising his cover of The Beatles' "Yesterday."

The crowd was described as a mix of "teens in dungarees, middle aged women in cocktail dresses and men in sport coats." Charles won over the crowd, the review read, with his mix of soul and even rock ballads.

"Going out, the shuffling, smiling group was converted, they left out Ray Charles fans," the Press reported.

Still, in seaside Asbury – with its beaches and carnival rides – there was an unspoken, yet widely observed segregated line at the train tracks that divided the east side of town near the Shore and the west side. That line divided people by race and by class.

While concerts were a unifying force, residents weren't immune to the racial tensions that were sweeping across the nation, from the overt racism of the Jim Crow South to the subtle discrimination in areas including jobs and housing in the north, and in reaction to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The previous summer – July of 1967 – nearby Newark erupted into chaos after white police officers beat a black taxi driver. The six days that followed are called "the Rebellion."

That same year, Detroit was also gripped by violence and riots that left 43 dead.

Detroit 1968: Detroit's black middle class emerged from 1968's upheaval

Asbury's predominantly black west side had a thriving business district, where people of all backgrounds would come to shop in the clothing stores, meat markets and take in the music scene.

Sometimes, Bowen said, white artists would visit west side clubs to hear some of the innovative sounds coming from the black musicians.

"Some of the guys did manage to come over from the east side to the west side to play. I think Bruce (Springsteen) played over there a couple of times," Bowen said.

Music has a way of bringing people together. Throughout the 1960s, white and black artists played at marches and spoke out for civil rights,

In Memphis, black and white artists from Stax Records, the city's preeminent recording label, frequented the Lorraine Hotel, as it was one of the few places where blacks and whites could share a meal.

The label featured prominent African American artists including Otis Redding and its integrated house band Booker T and the MG's and hosted guest singers like Janis Joplin.

"While you had this culture of integration inside the Stax recording studios, outside in '68, segregation raged," Robert Gordon, 57, a Memphis music historian said.

Stax musicians were deeply affected by the King's murder, Gordon said, which happened in their "playhouse." Kings' death spurred some artists like Isaac Hayes to political action, for others, the music brought calm.



James Brown performed in Boston a day after King's assassination in Memphis. Through words and song, he helped calm a rowdy crowd of young people still reeling from news.

Riots and demonstrations would continue in American cities throughout 1968.

The Kerner Commission, put in place by President Lyndon Johnson to find the root causes of the rioting, issued a stern finding: the United States was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal," the report said.

Soon, those forces sweeping the nation would work their way down to the Jersey Shore.

A lost sound

Two years after that memorable summer of music, Asbury also became roiled by riots.

While there are varying accounts of what started the 1970 riots – with many residents citing jobless youth throwing rocks into business windows – the touchpoint is unclear.

"I think really it comes back to economics," said Asbury Park city historian Werner Baumgartner, discussing what caused the riots. "There was a lack of employment for the service industry employees and general racial upheaval in that time period."

More than 150 people were injured in the riots and much of the business district was damaged or destroyed by fire, including some of the music venues where artists went to hone their craft on the west side.

For some, it seemed, the sound of rock, jazz and soul that gave Asbury Park its identity had been lost.

"(The riots were) the final watershed event that led to the middle class deserting Asbury Park," Baumgartner said.

Years after the riots the city continued to slump, partly because of changing economic headwinds, corruption and bad redevelopment deals. Some of the burned establishments were never rebuilt.

And in the decades that followed, the city faded into economic decline.

The jazz clubs, the R&B and soul bars slowly started to disappear.

For a few artists the sound lived on. Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi rose to bigger national prominence even as the city faded.

By the early 1990s, Convention Hall, that had been the site of memorable concerts, and much of the east side resembled a ghost town.

It wasn't until the turn of the 21st century, that Asbury Park began to make a comeback.

New life, new music

After the Great Recession, entertainment feuled Asbury's economic recovery.The artistic community, many of whom were LGBT, started to rehab languishing Victorian homes. Multi-act music festivals that were common in 1968 once again dotted the Shore communities. Convention Hall, which often sat dormant, was hosting top talent.

Music blared again from small clubs like the Stone Pony, and the old sounds of jazz and soul gave way to hip hop and rock.

Emily Grove, 27, a singer who has played in Asbury Park for the past decade said the city's roots helped shape its future.

"There's a modern hybrid of beautiful ideas that everybody works on kind of together, everybody is inspired," Grove said.

In April, the city was host to the fourth annual Asbury Park Music and Film Festival, which raises funds for music education for Asbury Park's youth. Hip-hop guitarist Wyclef Jean recorded music with a group of young performers from the city's school district, leading them on stage at the Stone Pony for the festival.

And in 2017, Budget Travel magazine named the city, where John Moor is now the mayor, the "Coolest Small Town in America."

Ask people around town why and they'll point to the slogan that's on many t-shirts and hats in the city: "Music Saved Asbury Park."

Austin Bogues; abogues@gannettnj.com

For all the stories about this transformational year, visit 1968.usatoday.com