Southside Johnny’s Eclectic New Album

He got his nickname because of his fascination with bluesmen from the South Side of Chicago. But Southside Johnny became better known as the second-most-famous product of the Jersey Shore bar scene.

Even now, his shows with the Jukes evoke the gritty soul of Asbury Park, where the Stone Pony struggles to survive. But Southside, also known as John Lyon, has since lived in a number of places, from Connecticut to California to Tennessee. Now he’s moving to Delaware.

Lyon had moved to Nashville during a two-year hiatus. “I was so fed up with the music business, I quit,” he says. “The stupid thing, of course, was to move to Nashville to try to get away from the music business.”

Music City is filled with players not associated just with country. Among them are his old friend Garry Tallent, bassist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

“Garry and I talked about doing an album together for years and years,” Lyon says. The resulting “Messin’ With the Blues,” his first new album in eight years, was a departure.

“It’s a straight blues album,” Lyon says. “Not just slow English heavy metal blues but all sorts of styles of blues. I had always wanted to do something like that, and since I had a lot of road miles on me, I felt I could do that stuff better now.”

Working on the sessions, he says, “was a joy from beginning to end. I’m more of a live performer than a studio guy, but when we got into the studio we didn’t even always rehearse songs first. We’d just pick a key and play. Then I’d go back and write lyrics to it.”

He also had a chance to do a lot of obscure covers. “Both Garry and I have these big record collections. We got to listen to a lot of old B-sides and things we hadn’t listened to in years to pick some good stuff.”

Among them are two from Memphis Slim, “Mother Earth” and the title track; one from Percy Mayfield, “River’s Invitation”; and one from Tom Waits, whose “Gin Soaked Boy” opens the collection.

Southside hopes to take a similar approach to his next album, which will concentrate more on soul music.

“We’re going to R&B; and soul from the ‘60s and maybe even some ‘70s soul,” he says. “We want to get in the studio right away and take advantage with how happy we are with how the band sounds.”

The Jukes lineup is guitarist Bobby Bandiera, keyboardist Jeff Kazee, drummer Chucki Burke and the ace horn section of Joey Stan, Richie “La Bamba” Rosenberg, Eddie Manion, Chris Anderson and Mark “The Lung Man” Pender.

“I’m trying to afford myself the license to do whatever I want to do,” Lyon says. “Not that I didn’t do that before. But it’s been fun exploring forms of music that have always been fun to sing along to--on original songs and covers.”

A typical live show these days will swing way back in time to nuggets including “Hearts of Stone,” “This Time It’s for Real” and “I Don’t Want To Go Home.”

“We’ll do something from almost every album of my less-than-illustrious past,” he says. “Even some stuff we don’t even know....

“I’m sure you’ve seen a band do the same show every night. And the musicians are all just going through a routine, thinking about what they’re going to have for dinner that night. I just can’t stand that. I want everyone to be engaged. So I have to throw a lot of curve balls on stage.”

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Roger Catlin is rock music critic for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.